Love in Tandem

by Natalie Arden

  “Eamon.” Eamon’s hand was slim and smooth, but his grip was firm. “Good to see you again, I guess.”

  There was something about the name that nagged at Scott’s memory, but honestly, high school English had been a long time ago. “Nice to meet you again, Eamon. So you’re back in town and looking for a bike?” He tapped the price sheet that sat between them on the counter.

  “Yeah.” Eamon glanced down at the sheet. “For a week, maybe two?”

  “Oh!” Scott straightened up, pulling the price sheet back with him. “Well, those prices are all by the hour. I’m sure we could work something else out if you want the bike for longer than that.”

  Eamon reached for the sheet, his fingers brushing Scott’s. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course!” His touch was electric, warmth flowing all the way up Scott’s arm until he was beaming. “Most people just want to go out for a couple hours in the conservation area, you know? We actually have a tourist center here now, if you can believe that.”

  Eamon raised an eyebrow. “I...can’t.”

  “You should check it out,” Scott enthused. “If you’re going to be here for a couple of weeks and all.”

  “Just for the shock value?” Eamon asked ironically. “Or is there some other reason.”

  “You’ve got to do something while you’re here, right?” Scott grinned, hopefully winningly.

  “Besides biking?” Eamon looked amused.

  “I will be the first to admit that there’s more to life than cycling,” Scott said earnestly. His lip twitched. “There’s repairs. Maintenance. Cycling magazines.” He ticked them off on his fingers, watching Eamon to see if he got the joke.

  Eamon grinned back. A blinding smile that softened his features in exactly the way Scott had predicted and yet was so much more handsome that his breath almost stopped in his chest. “Isn’t that what I have you for, though?”

  “Among other things,” Scott said without thinking, and found his ears were going rather hot. Was this flirting? Or did he just want it to be flirting more than he’d wanted anything else in a long time?

  “Good to know.” There was a quirk to Eamon’s smile, like maybe he knew how ridiculous Scott was being, but he didn’t mind too much. “So, about that bike rental?”

  That brought Scott down to earth real fast. Probably not flirting then, if Eamon could go back to business in the middle of it. But he was a professional. He could still make this sale even with his hopes dashed. “Shall we say per week, if you’re not sure how long you’ll be here?” He tapped out some numbers on the calculator on the counter, added a steep discount, factored in helmet rental, and pushed the calculator across the counter. “For the week. I need a card number for the maintenance deposit anyway, so if you want to keep it longer, I can just keep charging the card.”

  “That seems reasonable,” Eamon said, hardly looking at the calculator in front of him. “So what do I get for that?”

  “Any of these three at the top,” Scott said, pushing the price sheet back towards him. “It didn’t sound like you were looking for a real mountain bike, and the baby carriers are extra.”

  “No, I don’t need either of those,” Eamon agreed.

  Scott found himself perking up at that, as though the fact that Eamon didn’t have a baby was more relevant than the fact that he’d totally shut down Scott’s attempts to flirt. He tried to squash the feeling. “But you do get helmet rental and a certain amount of basic maintenance, though I charge for replacement parts and any labor that lasts over an hour.”

  “Very fair.”

  He was being astonishingly agreeable, given that Scott had pulled all these numbers out of thin air, and Scott wondered for a moment if he should be charging more, but it was hard to keep his mind on business with Eamon this close, watching him with interested eyes.

  The rest of the transaction was pure torture. Scott had adjusted what felt like a million bicycle seats in his time and it was usually pretty boringly routine, but having an excuse to watch Eamon’s legs as he straddled the bike to see if the seat was too high was probably going to kill him. Or he was going to pop a boner in the middle of his garage, which would also kill him, if only by embarrassment. Adjusting the bolt on the seat seemed to take a million years with his newly-clumsy fingers, but Eamon didn’t seem to notice.

  Finally they were done, and Eamon was all set to ride away. He should have looked like a dork in his helmet and fancy clothes, but instead he looked cosmopolitan. Maybe this was biking gear in Europe or something.

  “Feel free to drop in again if you need anything further adjusted,” Scott found himself saying, pretending he wasn’t being desperate.

  “I definitely will.” There was that smile again, the one that made Scott’s knees go weak. Eamon turned away, preparing to head out, and then turned back. “Look, I’m dead bored being back home again, and the tourist center doesn’t really seem my speed. You want to grab a drink sometime? Reminisce about English class?” He laughed a little, acknowledging the tenuousness of the connection.

  Scott couldn’t have cared less. “That sounds good,” he said, refraining from punching the air in triumph. “You free tonight? There’s a decent Wednesday special at the Wick and Hawthorne over on Bellman street.” The pub was only a few blocks away. It wasn’t Scott’s usual place, but Eamon seemed like a guy who might need a little impressing, and the Wick had been renovated pretty recently in the latest wave of changes that had brought things like a tourist center to town.

  “Things must have changed around here,” Eamon said, looking a little surprised. He quirked a smile. “You’ll have to tell me all about it tonight. Is eight okay?”

  “Perfect,” Scott said. He was sounding way too eager, he was sure, for something that was probably only going to involve reminiscing about high school. But he had a chance, which was more than he’d thought he had a minute ago. And at least he could spend the evening looking at Eamon’s perfect face.

  “I’ll see you then,” Eamon said, and took off down the street before Scott had a chance to say good-bye.

  5

  Eamon

  Eamon took one look at the bike in his hallway and decided to walk to the Wick and Hawthorne that evening. The trouble wasn’t the bike: it was the major differences between riding down a trail and riding a stationary bike at the gym – and he’d done nothing but the latter for years.

  Had he actually let himself be persuaded by a pretty face into not just renting a bike, but also using it? His aching quads said yes, yes, he had.

  Honestly, stopping off at Sellis Creek Cycle Works had been a whim of the moment as he paced furiously around the few blocks that represented the downtown core. The shop hadn’t been there before, that was all, and he’d been curious about what kind of bike shop this old place could support these days. He hadn’t expected it to be as sleekly modern as it was – and he definitely hadn’t expected Scott.

  He’d kept the conversation going just to keep Scott talking, and somehow he’d found himself biking along the streets of his hometown again, exactly like he was back in high school again.

  Except that in high school, he’d never have been hanging out with someone like Scott. Eamon didn’t remember him too well, but he could just about imagine what Scott had been like in high school. Maybe not quite as thickly built – and he probably hadn’t had exactly those amazing thighs that could only come from years of heavy-duty cycling – but there had been a whole bunch of blond athletic types in his English class, and Scott had definitely been one of those. The exact types that Eamon had fled to the city to get away from. And now he was voluntarily having drinks with one of them? His sixteen year-old self would have been disappointed in him.

  Or maybe not: Eamon had always resisted just how attracted he was to guys like that, but there had definitely been more than a few stirrings in that direction even in high school. He’d known better to hit on any of them then, but he apparently didn’t know better now. Not that he planned to hit
on Scott. It would be enough to spend a while admiring the other man’s strong jaw and the sweep of hair across his forehead.

  And he did desperately need something to do other than staring at the walls of his parents’ old house and waiting for emails that never seemed to come. Drinks with Scott sounded like just the ticket, Eamon assured himself as he pushed open the door of the Wick and stepped inside.

  It took a moment to adjust his eyes to the low light in the room, and by the time he’d spotted Scott, the other man was waving vigorously at him. As though Eamon could have missed him. As though anyone could have missed him. Sometime since this morning, he’d changed from a t-shirt and jeans with grease stains to a collared shirt whose open buttons revealed tantalizing glimpses of tanned collarbones and nicer jeans that clung desperately to those gorgeous thighs. An unexpected shift, but one that Eamon was all in favor of.

  He pushed the chair across from him out welcomingly as Eamon approached. “Hey, man, you found it!”

  “It’s been in the same place for decades,” Eamon said drily. “I managed, eventually.” He grinned. “Hey to you too, by the way.”

  “You said you hadn’t been around for ages,” Scott said cheerfully, unfazed by Eamon’s standoffishness. “I was just making sure. Take a seat! How was the bike?”

  “It was good,” Eamon said. It really had been. His aching legs aside, it had been too long since he’d just taken a bike and rode for a while. He’d done the smallest loop of the conservation area, and it had been as pretty as Scott had said. “Went down to the conservation area for a bit. You were right: it’s nicer than it used to be.”

  “Told you so!” Scott practically shouted. “Did you go down to the marsh? There’s a nesting pair of Great Blues there. Absolutely fucking gorgeous and don’t give one shit about humans so don’t get too close.”

  “I don’t think I made it that far,” Eamon said. What the hell was a Great Blue? “Just past some of the garden spaces and around the pond.”

  “Nice, nice.” Scott looked as pleased as if he’d orchestrated the whole thing himself. Which he might have: Eamon barely knew the guy.

  “Don’t tell me,” he joked. “You’re on the committee.”

  Scott beamed at him. “How’d you guess? There’s a proper staff now, obviously, but the BIA ran a clean-up fundraiser a while back, and I was part of the liasing committee for that and I guess I just never stopped.”

  “I was kidding,” Eamon admitted.

  “I know, I don’t look the type,” Scott said comfortably. His eyes glinted. Was he teasing Eamon? This soon into their awkward quasi-reunion? “But just because I want to bike there doesn’t mean I don’t want the area to be nice, you know? It all hangs together.”

  “I’ve never thought about it,” Eamon had to say. There were parks and so on in Columbus, of course. He’d even been to a few from time to time. But he’d never really considered anything about them other than the fact that his taxes went to pay for their upkeep.

  “Well, you’ve got the bike now. You can explore a bit. Unless you’re busy, of course.” He looked thoughtful, brushing his hair off of his face. “You know, I never asked why you came back into town. If it isn’t too personal, of course.” He smiled apologetically, and Eamon felt his stomach start to do loop-de-loops.

  “Let me get a drink first before we get into that sorry story,” he said.

  Scott looked a little startled. “We can go back to talking about the conservation committee?” he offered, but Eamon only shrugged and flagged down the waiter.

  The Wednesday special turned out to be a pint of the local lager with a plate of shepherd’s pie, and Scott ordered it immediately with a wink in Eamon’s direction. Eamon followed his lead. He hadn’t meant this to turn into dinner as well as drinks, but if Scott wanted to take the lead on this... His imagination spiraled off into pleasant delusions for a few minutes, returning only when their drinks appeared at the table.

  “So, I’m back in town for a bit,” Eamon said, taking a slug from his surprisingly delicious drink.

  “So you said,” Scott agreed, sounding a little cautious.

  “I’m on a work sabbatical,” Eamon said, his words tangling together as he tried to get them out as fast as possible.

  Scott looked impressed. “That sounds nice.”

  Eamon stared at him, wondering if Scott hadn’t heard him properly. Everyone knew that sabbaticals were code for being forced out, didn’t they? That they only happened when someone fucked up badly enough that someone else made them take a break. But no, Scott was continuing to talk, as though Eamon hadn’t just told him about the most embarrassing moment of his life. “So where did you work?”

  “At CarreSys,” Eamon said. He rushed back Scott’s blank look. “You’ve probably never heard of us, but we’re big in the world of medical databases.”

  “So my mom would probably know that stuff,” Scott said, sounding unperturbed. “She’s a nurse. That’s cool, man. What did you do?”

  There wasn’t really a tactful way to say it, was there? Had it really been so long since Eamon had talked to someone who didn’t know what he did? “I, uh, started the company.”

  “No way!” Scott sounded suitably impressed and Eamon had to suppress a frisson of want at the look of respect in those big brown eyes. “And your company’s big enough that you can take a sabbatical? Fucking well done, man!”

  It wasn’t quite like that, Eamon wanted to protest. But Scott was so handsome with his eyes wide and shining, his whole expression open and easy.

  “I worry about things in my absence,” he admitted quietly, staring down into his beer. It was a massive understatement. A refusal to say all the things that were really bothering him. But why did he even want to tell all his problems to this random guy he didn’t even remember from high school English?

  “Of course you do!” Scott replied cheerily. “I know it’s not the same, but I remember the first time I had to hire some kid to watch the shop for a couple hours so I could go to the dentist. I spent the entire time panicking so hard that he was going to burn the place down, that I barely noticed the dentist at work.” He sighed thoughtfully. “Dentist’s always been real careful since then: I don’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t even thinking abut her at all.”

  “Not exactly the same, no.”

  “But look at me now!” Scott grinned widely and Eamon couldn’t help but grin back. “I even took off Easter this year, even though that’s a surprisingly good day for bike rentals – if we get the sun. I learned to relax and trust my staff! And so can you!”

  That didn’t really seem like a possibility to Eamon. Everyone kept telling him that he’d spun out of control through overwork, but that didn’t feel right. He’d been trying to relax, trying to let other people do their jobs, and their response had been to miss meetings and blow deadlines. He didn’t need to relax: he needed to tighten up.

  He didn’t tell Scott any of this. Instead, he asked, “Staff?” with a raised eyebrow.

  Scott laughed. “Well, sometimes Derek isn’t around, so I have to ask Angie to step in. Two very occasional part-time employees. It’s like having staff!” He beamed at Eamon with the ridiculous grin of someone who knows they’ve just said something wildly unsupportable.

  Eamon smothered a laugh of his own and nodded solemnly. “I can see how that might be very difficult to manage.”

  “Tell me about it!” Scott was clearly willing to milk this joke for all it was worth. “Have you ever worked with high schoolers? It’s all final exams-this, and my mom wants me to do something-that. Terrible for employee morale.” He leaned closer to Eamon. “By which I mean mine.”

  It was too much. The laugh that had been threatening to upset Eamon’s poise bubbled up his throat and out of his mouth. Scott looked triumphant, which shouldn’t have been as cute as it was.

  “You want a consulting gig?” Eamon said through his laughter. “I’d love to see you explain to my board of directors just how two hi
gh schoolers are equivalent to several departments of technicians and we should all adopt your management techniques.”

  Scott whistled through his teeth. “No thanks, man. Just the thought of that is enough to make my teeth ache. I do my best work hands-on, if you know what I mean?”

  Was this flirting? Or did Eamon just want it to be flirting and it was actually a super normal thing for a guy who worked as a mechanic to say? Scott was just too understanding, that was the problem. He made it all sound so easy, like Eamon’s problems could be fixed with a little elbow grease and a good explanation. Which was annoying, when they definitely couldn’t be, but it was hard to stay annoyed when someone was this likeable.

  Dragged away from his spiraling thoughts, Eamon missed the start of Scott’s next sentence.

  “–it like? To run a company like that, anyway?”

  “It happened so gradually,” Eamon said with a shrug. “One day I was just a guy in an office with a couple of part-timers, and then there were full-timers, and some more full-timers, and then HR, and really, I think that’s when things got a little out of hand.” He smiled ruefully.

  “It can’t be that easy,” Scott said, clearly amused. “Or you’ll make me worry that some day I’ll wake up and find I’m in charge of a whole chain of Cycle Works.”

  “Well, it wasn’t easy,” Eamon admitted. “But I think I was too young to really notice how hard it was.”

  Scott nodded, thoughtful. “That’s impressive though. How much you were able to achieve from so young.” He laughed at Eamon’s wrinkled nose. “C’mon, man. We were in high school together. You can pretend I don’t know exactly how old you are.”

  It was the first time they’d actually mentioned high school since they were in Scott’s shop, and Eamon winced internally. He didn’t remember Scott very well from back then, and he was hoping that Scott had the same kind of amnesia. His poise had been hard-won over the years, and he was pretty sure that if he couldn’t stand the memories of the snotty kid he’d been, everyone else’s must be even worse.