Don't You Want Me by Liam Livings

Author:Liam Livings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beaten Track Publishing
Published: 2020-11-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

The next morning, Nick drove them to work, having agreed to drop Tony at his car, where he would remain for a while before they would walk into the office separately.

“Go the back way, avoid the park-and-ride road,” Tony advised, pointing to a side road to the left.

“Yes, boss,” Nick replied, doing as he’d been asked.

His comment about the work gossip had been playing on Tony’s mind, and he would have asked last night, but Nick had fallen asleep as soon as he’d said it.

“Who’s saying what at work?” Tony needed to be mindful of gossip, particularly as he was the senior of the two of them and, it could be argued, in a position of authority and therefore able to take advantage of Nick. As if! But no one knew what Nick was really like, did they?

“Someone in Finance mentioned my boyfriend,” Nick said. “I was talking to someone else at a new staff induction thing, and they said I must get all the breaks, working with my boyfriend. And then there was the comment about us arriving together that one time. One person assumed we were together since we did lots of stuff together and were obviously friends. Like, we’re both gay, so we must be together.” Nick shrugged. “Let them think it. I don’t care.”

“You wouldn’t,” Tony said. “You’re not the one they’d dismiss on a sexual harassment case.”

Nick laughed. “From what I remember, I’ve been the one harassing you sexually—except last night, when I was too tired.” They’d arrived at the edge of the city now.

“Pull over,” Tony instructed. “Can’t take any chances. If anyone sees us in your car and me getting out of it before getting into mine, that’s too dodgy to explain.”

***

“Here?” Nick asked, and Tony nodded, so Nick did so, stopping the car.

“You probably think it’s really funny, but it’s not. It’s my job.”

Before Nick could say anything in response, Tony got out of the car and said, “It’s got to stop. Now.” He slammed the door and walked away, leaving Nick wondering what he meant by ‘it’—seeing each other, being friends, sleeping together? Which in itself implied there was a ‘something’ to describe. Did Tony want it all to stop?

The second thing that occurred to Nick as he arrived at the car park around the back of their building, was how Tony’s voice, once annoyed, had sounded quite sad, saying it had to stop ‘now’, like Tony already knew what he’d be missing.

Or maybe that was optimistic thinking on Nick’s part?

Whatever, it was definitely not the time or place to ask Tony about the pros and cons list in his notebook.

***

Tony had been pacing around the city centre for a while, to make sure there was enough time between Nick arriving and his own arrival. This gave him time to think about a few pressing things:

1) if he was about to lose his job for gossip that, if investigated, would turn out to be true;

2) why he’d made a pros

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