No Sacrifice Page 24

  “Sit with me, Chance, please?” Avery asked, and Chance threw a grin at Patrick, moving to the other seat.

  Patrick sat on the other side of Avery, tugging on his son’s hair. “You don’t get to keep him all to yourself tonight. I’m on this date too, you know.”

  Avery looked abashed. “I’m sorry, Da. I like Chance!”

  “So do I.” He chuckled and leaned in to leave a kiss on top of Avery’s curls. “What do you want to eat? They have little hamburgers and french fries.”

  Avery nodded. “Yes! Can I have cheese?”

  Patrick grinned. “I don’t see why not.”

  “Yay!” Avery cheered, and Patrick focused on the menu for a moment.

  “Wow, uh,” Chance muttered, and Patrick looked up. “This is… nice.”

  Patrick considered Chance for a moment. He thought he knew what the problem was, and he took a few seconds, thinking through his words carefully, before speaking. “It is. I don’t get to take someone out on a date very often and spoil them. I hope you like it.”

  Chance blinked, and Patrick was sure he got the point when Chance nodded. “I do, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Besides, next time, you have to plan the date.” He watched the smile form on Chance’s face and relaxed a little.

  “I can’t wait.” Chance looked thoughtful. “I do hope we manage one or two alone, though.”

  “Me too.” Patrick laughed before going back to his menu.

  Once orders were put in and drinks served, Patrick’s nerves calmed down a bit. That was until he saw Chance’s hand sitting on the table. He felt like a teenager all over again, unsure of how to proceed. Were things different because Chance was a guy? He shook his head a little at himself and reached out. Chance didn’t hesitate to take his hand, and Patrick enjoyed the feel of just holding it for a while as he listened to Chance talk about the movie he’d been working on.

  “I mean, the guy’s got a reputation, you know that. But it’s worse than I thought. He makes Jack look… easygoing.”

  “Ugh.” Patrick shook his head. “It’s the part of going back that I’m not really looking forward to. I mean, I love the show, love working with… well, most of the other actors, but…. Jack just makes things very… difficult.”

  Chance snickered. “That’s diplomatic of you.”

  Patrick laughed. “Yeah, okay. He’s an a—” Patrick glanced at Avery. “—jerk on a good day.” He paused and frowned. “To be perfectly blunt, I am not looking forward to those scenes. I can’t decide if I want Jack to microdirect them—and keep anything even remotely… personal… out of it. Or if I want a little more freedom—risking the personal—just to not have to spend so many hours working on it.”

  “That’s… a crappy decision to have to make,” Chance said, frowning down into his glass.

  Patrick saw Chance swallow and hurried to reassure him. “I am certainly not looking forward to spending hours pretending to have sex with that man.” Patrick shook his head. “There are about a million other places I’d rather be. And one person I’d much prefer to be with.”

  Chance smiled at him in silence for a minute. Avery colored on his place mat, chattering to himself about a Transformer, and Patrick let the child’s words fill in. He hadn’t meant to say that, but it just slipped out.

  “I’m glad,” Chance replied quietly, and Patrick let out the breath he didn’t remember holding.

  The moment was broken when the waiter brought their food. They ate in silence for a while, both of them working to help Avery when he decided to stop eating. When he wasn’t willing to take the bites Patrick and Chance were trying to feed him, he kept up a constant stream of talk about superheroes, robots, and cars, and Patrick was grateful. The awkwardness he’d been afraid of never quite surfaced.

  Patrick couldn’t remember a better dinner—certainly not in a very long time. They laughed together, and their friendship seemed to help keep things smooth. The few times silence fell, Avery filled in with something adorable, and there was never a chance for things to get uncomfortable.

  Once he’d paid the check, autographed a magazine ad for the hostess—to his embarrassment, he still wasn’t used to that kind of thing—and cleaned Avery up, they headed out to pick up the car.

  When they were on their way down the hill again, Chance spoke. “Thank you. That was a great dinner.”

  “I’m glad you liked it.” He threw a sheepish glance at Chance before turning back to traffic. “I… uh… really researched it. I had no clue what LA restaurants were like. I mean, I’ve heard about plenty, but I didn’t really know what was good and what wasn’t.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want to take you to some typical chain. So… I did some reading and kept coming across it.”

  “Really?”

  Patrick nodded, glancing at Chance and seeing the stunned expression—which made him feel good about the research—before making the left onto Sunset Canyon Drive. “Yup. In all the time I’ve lived here, I’ve done very little outside the studio. I mean, I went out a few times with Rhys when we were still friends, but that was it.”

  “I don’t really go out much either. I found West Hollywood, you know, landed at Sophia’s, but that was only because someone pretty much dragged me there—pun intended,” he added when Patrick snorted.

  “Well, we’re a sad pair, aren’t we?” Patrick shook his head. “Going to have to fix that,” he murmured. He focused on the next few turns, and they fell silent as he drove. When he was safely on Ventura Freeway, he reached over and took Chance’s hand. It felt warm and good in his own, and he found himself wondering what it would feel like on his naked skin. “So… I hope you like mini golf,” Patrick said to derail that train of thought.

  “Mini golf!” Avery shouted from the back.

  Chance laughed. “I do. I take it he does too?”

  Patrick nodded. “Yeah, one of his favorite things.” He glanced in the rearview mirror and grinned when he saw Avery dancing in his car seat. “I think we made his night.”

  Chance twisted around and laughed again. “I guess so. Looks like we’ll get along great, Squirt. I love it too!”

  “Yay!” Avery cheered even louder and kept up the cheers and dancing until they pulled into the parking lot. It took them a bit to keep him back until Patrick paid and they could get their clubs and balls, but before Chance and Patrick even got to the first hole, he’d beaten them there and was trying to putt. The two of them stood back, watching, and gave him all the tries he needed.

  Chance put a hand on Patrick’s back, and Patrick let himself lean into it a little. He turned just enough to look at Chance’s face, and his breath caught at the expression. Chance was watching Avery, and there was a look of pure love on his face, aimed at the boy. Patrick swallowed, a sudden lump forming at the expression. He turned away when Chance glanced at him, not wanting Chance to see the look on his face, which he was sure reflected the jumbled combination of hope and longing he was feeling.

  He knew Emily loved Avery, was good with their son—that had never been in doubt. But he missed the idea of a partner when it came to parenting. He may have only had Avery by himself for a couple of months, but those two months were enough to show him just how hard single-parenting was. And to know Chance already seemed to love Avery went a long way toward cementing his own feelings toward the man.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chance open his mouth when Avery cheered. “I did it!”

  They turned their attention to the boy, Patrick grinning. He’d seen Avery nudge the ball into the hole with one foot, obviously having given up on the club. “Way to go, Stinker!”

  Patrick glanced over at Chance, who was chuckling. “Good going!”

  “Let’s see, that’s about a… what’s par here?”

  Chance glanced at the little post next to them. “Three.”

  “Okay, we’ll call it….”

  “Four,” Chance said, grinning, and Patrick laughed.

  “Four. Your turn,”
he told Chance, who raised an eyebrow. “Yup. You come after Avery…. A, then C, then P.”

  Chance laughed and moved in to set his ball on the little spot on the green. Patrick stood back, unable to resist watching the man bend over and eyeing his ass. Chance had a very nice ass, and Patrick forgot all about golf for a long moment as he stared.

  Then Chance moved to step aside, and Patrick managed to focus on his own turn for a few moments. He was horrible at it, but he didn’t care. Chance wasn’t much better. Chance held onto Avery, who wanted to run to the next hole, while Patrick took his turn, finally sinking his ball.

  Once scored, they moved on, and Avery took off to try for his next one. Patrick and Chance stood back to watch once again, and Patrick squirmed a little as the awkwardness he’d been afraid of earlier seeped in. He couldn’t seem to think of anything to say, anything to talk about. “Ridiculous,” he muttered to himself, then blushed when Chance looked up.

  “What is?”

  Patrick sighed and cleared his throat, deciding he’d just say it and be done with it. With any luck Chance wouldn’t laugh or run the other way. “Me. Uh… first date and all that. I’ve, um… actually never really been on… err any. Like… ever. Em and I… well, our first date doesn’t exactly qualify as a date. And the couple of other girlfriends I had, well, we were already together before we actually went on a date, so….” Chance raised his eyebrows in reaction, and Patrick nodded. “Yeah, see, I set it up for a friend to ditch me after play practice one day. He was supposed to be my ride to rehearsal for the play we were in. Then I got Em to give me a ride home. Only… I never made it home. We ended up at her place instead, and I just… sort of… never left.” He closed his eyes, wishing he could sink through the floor. “And you’re not supposed to talk about exes during a first date.”

  “Says who?” Chance asked, and Patrick opened his eyes again.

  “Uh….”

  Chance shrugged. “Look, we’re still best friends, right?” Patrick nodded. “And we’ve been friends for a while. We’ve already talked a lot about the ex thing, at least on your side. I… don’t have a lot of first date experience, either. I’ve only really had one relationship before, and it wasn’t much of one.” He hesitated, but Patrick nodded to encourage him. Chance had never talked about his past relationships. The only one Patrick knew about was Doug, who wasn’t even an ex-boyfriend. “Well, I kept to myself a lot—in the closet, you know that.” Patrick nodded. “But not long after I moved out here to LA, one of the guys I worked with on a set got me to start going to the bars.” He shrugged a shoulder, his eyes fixed on Avery, who was at the other end of the green, swinging the club wildly. “Well, I met a guy at one and we started going out, but…. Chris wasn’t really interested in a relationship so much as he wanted to fuck. Like… everyone.” He shook his head. “Walked in on him fucking another guy, and he tried to cover it by saying we weren’t really exclusive.”

  “I’m sorry.” Patrick winced, but Chance didn’t seem to see it. The look in his eyes said he was back in the past.

  He shrugged again. “It’s past. Anyway, so, yeah, not a lot of first dates either. But, look, we’re friends, right? I think that kind of takes care of any ‘rules.’ So… who cares what you’re ‘supposed’ to do, hm?” He stepped up to Patrick, lifted a hand, and brushed the backs of his fingers over one cheek. “We’ve already been through a lot of the getting-to-know-you stuff. You don’t have to impress me. You already have just by being who you are,” he finished quietly.

  Patrick’s heart pounded a little as he looked up into the blue eyes—and he realized Chance was just tall enough that he had to. But on Chance, it felt good, not intimidating, as it had been with Rhys. He shoved the thought away, not wishing to think about that man in this moment. He felt his nerves settle, and he smiled. Chance leaned in, and their lips met in a soft kiss. “Thanks,” Patrick whispered, and Chance smiled.

  “Thank you. Does me good to know you’re nervous. I don’t have to feel bad for being so.”

  Patrick’s eyebrows went up. “You don’t have anything to be nervous about.”

  Chance tilted his head. “Oh?”

  “Hell no. I already know I l—like you.” He’d almost said love, but it was the first date. He didn’t think it was the right time to drop that on Chance’s head, even if he was sure it was true.

  Chance smiled. “Well, I know I like you. So… neither of us needs to be nervous. How’s that?”

  Patrick relaxed the rest of the way and nodded, and then he grinned mischievously. “So… being on a date… does that mean I have to let you win?”

  “Oh, hell no! It’s on!”

  Chapter 14

  Patrick lost, but only just. The second game was just as close, with Chance coming in only two points behind Patrick. Chance wondered if it wasn’t partly because they’d finally seemed to relax enough to talk and laugh like they usually did, when they’d just been friends. He didn’t much care. He was too happy to be talking and holding hands and just being with Patrick for it to truly matter who won.

  Before they could consider the third, tie-breaking round, however, Avery was starting to yawn, so they turned in the clubs and headed back to the car. “Think you’re up for dessert, Stinker?” Patrick asked as Chance buckled him into his car seat.

  “Can we go to see Marcy?” Avery asked, and Chance looked up to see Patrick’s eyebrows raised.

  “Well, it’d be the perfect opportunity to tell her.” Chance shrugged and grinned.

  Patrick smiled too. “All right, then. I can’t wait to see her face.”

  They spent the quiet drive back holding hands. Now that they’d started touching, Chance didn’t want to let go. He knew he was being a little silly, but he noticed Patrick seemed to be taking as much opportunity to touch as he was. Like during the golf rounds—as soon as they’d picked up their golf balls, one or the other had reached out to hold hands again almost immediately.

  Chance loved it. He loved that Patrick was so willing to touch, especially in public. He’d never been one for a lot of PDA, but he knew most of that was a holdover from keeping himself so firmly in the closet. But out there in LA, they could be more open about touching, and Chance found himself getting used to the idea quickly.

  As Avery dozed in the backseat, they held a whispered conversation about the best way to spring it on Marcy. “I really think we should just go in holding hands. I doubt she could mistake that.”

  “That is probably true.” Patrick glanced over, smiling, as he took the exit from Ventura Freeway. “I guess we’ll see.” Chance saw him look in the rearview mirror. “I am sorely tempted to just go home and put him to bed, but if he discovers we skipped seeing Marcy, he’s not going to be happy.”

  “Eh, maybe if we wake him up for that, he’ll fall hard when we do get him to bed?” Chance offered.

  Patrick seemed to consider it and nodded. “That is very likely. You’re smart. Are you sure you don’t have a kid somewhere?”

  Chance chuckled, feeling ridiculously good about that. “No. Just… my sister and her kids. That’s the only experience I’ve got. Well, that and Avery.”

  “You’re good with him. Really good. He loves you, you know,” Patrick said quietly, making the final turn as they approached Pablo’s.

  Chance raised his eyebrows. “You think so?”

  Patrick nodded. “Yup. He talks about you all the time when you’re not around.”

  Chance felt his cheeks color a little and twisted to look at Avery. “I have to admit, he’s a great kid. I… like him too.” He was afraid to say he loved Avery, not wanting to scare Patrick.

  Patrick glanced at him, and Chance wondered if the man didn’t suspect more than Chance would have liked. He seemed to let it go, though, and instead focused on parking.

  When the car was off, Chance climbed out and opened Avery’s door. “Avery, do you still want to see Marcy?”

  Avery’s eyes flew open, and he looked up. “Yes!” he nearly
shouted, almost as if he hadn’t been sleeping a few seconds before.

  Chance chuckled as he unbuckled Avery’s belt and lifted him out of the car. But he wiggled until Chance set him down and darted toward the restaurant, and they turned toward the front door. Chance paused when he opened it and his and Patrick’s eyes met for a few seconds, and then they clasped hands and stepped inside.

  “Marcy!” Avery called, running up to the end of the counter and tugging on her skirt. “Marcy! I’m on a date!”

  Marcy turned and grinned down at him. “Oh you are, darlin’? And who are you on a date with?”

  “Chance!” Avery announced, and she looked up at Patrick and Chance. They both grinned as they watched her eyes drop to their hands. Chance, to make sure it wasn’t the least in question what she was seeing, lifted Patrick’s hand and dropped a kiss on it, his eyes locked to Marcy’s face. When he did, she let out a squeal, causing Pablo to stick his head into the window.

  “Meu Deus, woman! Oque está?”

  “It’s Patrick and Chance!” she called, waving her hands a little frantically toward them, then hurrying along the counter.

  Chance saw Patrick’s grin was as wide as his was. “Perfect,” he mouthed at Chance, but before Chance could reply, they each had an armful of Marcy.

  “Oh, I knew it! I knew y’all would! Y’all come in here and sit down! Tell me everything!” she demanded, letting them go, and then pushed them into a booth. When Avery started to fuss at being on a seat by himself, Marcy shushed him. “They want to sit together, honey. You sit with Marcy.” She dropped a kiss on the top of his head, making him smile. She turned an expectant look at the two of them. “So! What happened? What made you ask him out? Who asked who?”

  Patrick and Chance glanced at each other. “Uh, well….” Patrick started to speak, but Chance could see just how uncomfortable he was, obviously not wanting to tell her the whole truth—and Chance didn’t blame him. He didn’t want her knowing it either—and tried to do some quick thinking.