The Wingman by A. Poland
Chapter Nineteen
As predicted, Lorcan didn’t mention Miles the entire night.
Lorcan thrust a controller into Nathan’s hands the moment he entered his bedroom—after sidestepping the duo of Sally and Emily, who glared at him judgmentally until he closed the door behind him—and they shot zombies for a few hours.
Lorcan didn’t take rejection well. Miles might have been onto something when he said Lorcan just wasn’t used to it. To this day, Nathan could only think of one example of when Lorcan had had to deal with rejection. And that was when he didn’t make the cut for choir in high school.
Which, honestly, Nathan couldn’t blame the choir for in the slightest. Lorcan wasn’t exactly musically gifted. It was almost painful listening to him sing off-key, and he’d often do just that to get on Nathan’s nerves. Then, Nathan would retaliate and shove his perpetually cold feet up Lorcan’s shirt when the opportunity presented itself.
Point being, from that day onward, Lorcan had acted like the choir didn’t even exist. And Nathan figured the same would happen with Miles. Not that Nathan minded all too much, considering it meant he wouldn’t have to overtly lie about where he’d be spending some of his time.
He slept over at Lorcan’s that night. Which wasn’t intentional, but at some stage, he nodded off in the midst of a battle to the death with a horde of zombies. Waking up the following morning with a blanket draped over him and a crick in his neck from his position on the floor, Nathan found a note lying flat on his chest.
Have work. Catch you later! L :)
Nathan crumpled the paper in his hand and tossed it, with a swish of his wrist, into the trash can tucked away in the corner. Predictably, it missed.
“Morning, Mrs. O,” Nathan greeted as he ambled downstairs, rubbing the back of his sore neck.
Lorcan’s mom was more than used to Nathan sleeping over unplanned. Hell, the Reeds had a spare key to their house in case of an emergency—and the same in return.
“Good morning, Nate,” Mrs. Ortiz replied cheerfully. She might just be the merriest person Nathan had ever met. Even through her divorce with Lorcan’s father—a man who was anything but jolly and used to scare the daylights out of Nathan, and he kind of still did on the rare occasions their paths crossed—Mrs. Ortiz had been smiling and upbeat.
It made sense she’d ended up with her current partner, and the twins’ dad, a man by the name of Brian who was so soft-spoken Nathan sometimes couldn’t hear him properly. Brian had always treated Lorcan like he was his own, and though that had taken a teenage Lorcan a while to warm up to, they were close now.
Apart from working at his dad’s call center on the odd weekend, Lorcan didn’t spend a lot of time with him. It didn’t bother Lorcan, at least from what Nathan could tell. They’d never been close, and Nathan figured Lorcan had made some kind of peace with that.
“Sticking around for breakfast?” Mrs. Ortiz asked pleasantly as she stirred something in a mixing bowl. Nathan tried not to shake his head too vigorously. He loved Mrs. Ortiz; he really did.
But he wasn’t about to risk his life eating her cooking. Never again.
“Not this time, Mrs. O,” Nathan replied apologetically. “I’m going to try to tackle the ground squirrels once and for all today.”
“Good look with that.” Mrs. Ortiz shook her head. They’d all heard about the Reeds’ plight with the squirrels. “I have a face shield in the garden shed, if that would be any use to you?”
Nathan paused, wondering if ground squirrels had the ability to jump that high and he’d been completely oblivious to that danger the entire time.
“Mrs. O, why do you have a face shield?” Nathan couldn’t help but ask, and Mrs. Ortiz looked at him in befuddlement, like the answer was right in front of his face.
“In case of protests.”
Nathan grinned. He could easily imagine Mrs. Ortiz at the frontline of a protest with her long flowery dresses and unwavering optimism. Mrs. Ortiz was a badass; no wonder she’d been best friends with Nathan’s mom.
Nathan liked to think that his mom’s choice in friends reflected on her as a person. And being so close to Mrs. Ortiz—who’d helped stash the anti-vaccine sign they’d stolen from the Ferns and who’d made it her and Ben’s mission to bring the boys to Pride every year while they were growing up—Nathan had a clearer picture of the woman he’d gotten half of his DNA from.
And it comforted him just as much as it bummed him out because, sure, he might act unaffected by the fact that he’d lost his mother at a young age. But that didn’t mean he was always okay about it. There were days when he was less than okay, when he wondered if he’d missed out on something by not having Lily in his life and was consumed by guilt that he barely remembered her.
On those days, Ben would take him to where he’d scattered her ashes. It was right by a big oak tree in the center of the park the Reed family frequented, both before and after Nathan was born. And he’d tell Nathan everything he could about Lily. It didn’t matter if Nathan had heard it all a thousand times before; he drank it all in again. Then they’d go home, order pizza, and watch The Lion King—both because it was a damn good movie, and if they wanted an excuse to cry, it was right there at thirty-six minutes and fifty-three seconds in.
Armed with a face shield in hand, Nathan made his way home and straight into the kitchen. Ben, not unlike Mrs. Ortiz, was whisking something in a bowl, and Nathan’s stomach sounded an impatient rumble.
Please tell me you’re making pancakes, Nate signed, thinking idly about the ones Miles made him.
Ben placed the bowl down and corrected him: omelets.
Okay, Nathan could fuck with omelets. Definitely not a disappointing alternative.
So, did they say yes to Friday? Nathan asked eagerly. Nothing got him going like researching restaurants and reading the reviews. Sometimes, he would purposefully filter the search for poorly reviewed places just to get the gossip from the complaints.
No, she didn’t, Ben replied, abruptly turning his back to Nathan and picking up the bowl. Nathan walked over to him; he wasn’t about to be ignored about this.
Did she suggest another day? Nathan stood right in front of Ben, willing to move again if he turned his back to him. Nathan could play this game all day; he wasn’t above standing on the counter to draw Ben’s eyes to him.
I don’t think it’s going to work out, Ben signed with a sigh, and the flicker behind his eyes told Nathan he wasn’t exactly enthused about that.
What makes you say that? Did she tell you that? Nathan was sick of people assuming things based on vague actions. Be outright if you wanted to get your point across or else things would become confusing.
Then again, Nathan quickly remembered camping and his attempts with Lorcan. Maybe he was a bit of a hypocrite. Just maybe.
Not in so many words, but yes. Ben gave his son a tired look. Can you move now? I need to make the omelets.
Nathan relented, frowning for the rest of the afternoon. Ben and this mystery woman had been on seven cyber dates with each other, and based on how late in the day Nathan had caught Ben in his jean-and-robe combo, those dates had gone on for more than a few hours.
If this woman could put up with Ben’s date attire (or lack thereof), then clearly she was into him. So, what was with the sudden shutdown?
It played on Nathan’s mind for the next few days, not at all helped by Ben’s quiet moping around the house. Watching Nathan spray dog pee around the garden with heavy-duty gloves and the face shield didn’t even make him laugh. Nathan barely got a smile, even when he told Ben how he’d acquired the dog pee.
According to Google, the urine of a predator worked as a deterrent for ground squirrels. So Nathan had enlisted the help of a woman who jogged by their house every morning with her dog. He’d explained the issue to her, and luckily, she was an absolute sweetheart and helped coax her dog to pee into a bowl for Nathan. It wasn’t like the ground squirrels would be able to tell this “predator” was a pampered shih tzu by the scent of its piss alone, so he was confident about this attempt.
It didn’t work.
Somehow, they definitely figured out the pee belonged to a shih tzu. Nathan was sure of it.
Feeling like an abysmal failure on account of the squirrels, and completely useless when it came to helping Ben out with his love life, Nathan was in desperate need of a pick-me-up by the time Tuesday rolled around. He mentioned as much to Miles by text, who assured Nathan he was up for the challenge.
They opted to stay around Nathan’s neighborhood this time, hitting up Shoreline Park. As the name suggested, the park was located on the shore with a kickass lighthouse. It also had an unobstructed view of the port and a ship-cum-hotel called the Queen Mary, which may or may not be haunted. Nathan was not eager to find out. Nathan packed another nonalcoholic wine—this time with medieval goblets he’d found when buying the new, yet ineffective, air horn—and a bag of chips. But Miles had gone all out. After they picked a nice spot on the hill, Miles laid out his well-loved blanket for them to sit out on and unpacked his bag between them.
“Dude, what the hell? Are you expecting us to be stranded out here for a week?”
“I guess I got a little carried away.” Miles huffed out a low, self-conscious laugh—a glass Tupperware container of what looked like brownies in his hands. “I hope it’s okay? You can bring the leftovers home.”
“Shut up, of course it’s okay.” Nathan nudged Miles with his shoulder to show him it really was fine. How couldn’t it be? From the looks of the packaging, with everything in nondescript containers, not store-bought, Miles must have been baking for most of the morning.
“You mentioned needing a pick-me-up.” Miles shrugged, a shy smile still on his face. He wore fitted black shorts and a scoop-neck white T-shirt, the least colorful things Nathan had seen him wear to date. Then again, his bright-orange sneakers and baseball cap made up for it. Nathan had, of course, brought Miles’s hat along with him, but with zero intention of giving it back.
Somehow, Nathan didn’t think Miles would object to that.
“And I’ll tell you right now that brownies and…” Nathan stalled as he lifted up each container to investigate the contents. “Shit, are these blueberry bars? Yeah, consider me sufficiently picked-up.”
It only took a half an hour for Nathan to come clean about what was bothering him. He hadn’t seen Lorcan much over the last few days on account of work and Lorcan likely licking his wounds from the whole Miles situation. And even if Nathan’d had the opportunity to hang out with Lorcan, he wasn’t sure he would have told him about the thing with his dad. Not because he didn’t trust him, but because Lorcan already had a lot on his mind. Nathan wasn’t about to load even more onto him. Any other time, maybe. But not right now.
“Then your dad’s lucky he has you,” Miles said after Nathan filled him in, which made Nathan pause, a blueberry bar held to his lips.
“I appreciate that, but I don’t see how it correlates to the matter at hand,” he told Miles, not that he’d ever dispute a compliment.
“Isn’t that what you do?” Miles gently prodded, delicately holding the skull-emblazoned goblet in hand. “Help people out with dates?”
The blueberry bar fell to Nathan’s lap, his hand going still. Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? He was a damn good wingman, the undisputed best in his friend-and-acquaintance group, so why couldn’t that service extend to Ben?
“Miles, you’re a genius,” Nathan told him, tone entirely serious.
“You would have figured it out.” Miles shook his head, ever humble.
“Maybe.” Nathan shrugged; he wasn’t about to delve into hypothesizing about what might have happened if Miles hadn’t opened his mouth. “But you made it happen faster.”
“Then you’re welcome. Let me know how it goes?” Miles requested. “I’m rooting for them.”
Nathan promised Miles that he would. If there was anything between Ben and this anonymous lady, Nathan was sure as hell going to salvage it.