Chapter 13

Eric

 

My van had been ahead of Andrew’s ever since we’d boarded this morning, but after the World War II Caves, we had a couple of stragglers. Andrew’s van left, and mine was still waiting. Damn it. There weren’t any stops left after this except the drop-off at the end, and if we stayed up here much longer, Andrew would be long gone by the time my van let off.

Oh well. We’d see each other again tonight, and we’d had a few minutes here and there throughout the tour. I really couldn’t complain.

The cab tours all ended in the same spot—right at High Street. Of course they did. It was Gibraltar’s equivalent of having you exit through the gift shop. I didn’t mind too much. I needed a new pair of sunglasses anyway.

After I’d gotten out of the van and the other passengers wandered off, I surveyed the street while I figured out where I wanted to go. To my surprise, Andrew was walking toward me.

“Hey,” I said when he joined me on the sidewalk. “You weren’t waiting for me, were you?”

His blush gave him away. God, he was cute.

“Maybe.” He shrugged, grinning shyly. “I was going to grab some souvenirs, but shopping alone is boring.”

“Fair enough.” I looked around. “What about your parents?”

“I’m meeting them in half an hour at a restaurant down the road. I’d offer to have you join us, but…” He grimaced.

I laughed. “Yeah, maybe on the next excursion.” I didn’t mind meeting a new guy’s parents, but considering Andrew and I were basically fuck buddies on a cruise, it seemed kind of…weird.

We started walking, working our way through the throngs of tourists on the shop-lined street, and after maybe half a block, we stepped into one of those tourist trap souvenir shops that had everything imaginable with Gibraltar written on it. Most of it was either British-themed, rock-themed, or monkey-themed, if not some combination of the three. It was all tacky and ridiculous, and I fucking loved it.

Andrew picked up a commemorative plate from Prince William’s wedding. “Oh, now I’m sure your house needs one of these.”

I snorted. “What makes you think I don’t already have one?”

His eyebrow rose.

“Kidding.” I rolled my eyes. “Come on. Give me a little credit for having decent taste.” Even the shopkeeper chuckled at that. Thank God—I didn’t need to accidentally insult anyone.

Andrew laughed as he put the plate back. Everything in the store was charming in its own way, but aside from a monkey T-shirt for my niece, I didn’t find anything I wanted.

On the way out, Andrew said, “Didn’t you need to get a new pair of sunglasses?”

“I do, yeah. But I don’t need to drag you along while I—”

“Pfft. Let’s go get you some sunglasses.” He gave my elbow a gentle tug, and I chuckled as I followed him.  We found a bigger shop that apparently catered to tourists who’d either forgotten essential things or wanted to upgrade them. Suitcases in case a person bought too much crap for their current luggage. Over-priced toiletries and sunscreen. Cameras. SD cards. Batteries.

And of course—sunglasses.

I slowly turned a rack of off-brand shades.

Beside me, Andrew said, “Are you seriously going to downgrade from a pair of Oakley’s to something cheap?”

I shrugged. “With as often as I break or lose sunglasses, I really should stick to the cheap ones anyway.” I took down a pair of gold-framed mirror aviators and put them on. “What do you think?”

Andrew wrinkled his nose. “Too Top Gun.”

“What? You don’t like Top Gun?”

“I never said that. But I mean, if you start wearing those, I’m going to start humming Danger Zone in bed.”

I laughed and took them off. “Okay, okay. You win.” I looked some more, and found another pair that had some promise. The deep pink lenses weren’t usually my style, but I did like the wraparound frames, so I slid them on. “What do you think?”

Andrew arched an eyebrow. “You seen The X-Men?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Because those make you look like Cyclops.”

I pursed my lips, narrowing my eyes behind the lenses. “I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Cyclops was pretty hot, if I remember right.”

Andrew just grinned and winked, but didn’t comment any further.

Okay, so the Cyclops sunglasses were a maybe.

I plucked a different pair off the rack and put them on. “Okay, what about these?”

Andrew studied me. “Hmm. Maybe…” He pulled down a pair of wraparounds. “Try these.”

I swapped the sunglasses. They were similar to the ones the monkey had grabbed. “Hmm.”

“They look good.”

Yeah, he was right—they looked good. “Okay.” I took them off and flashed him a grin. “Sold.”

“Just keep them away from the monkeys.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll just stay away when they start climbing on you.”

He laughed, and we continued through the store. We wandered in separate directions at one point—Andrew was checking out some high-capacity SD cards for his camera, and a couple of possible souvenirs for people back home had caught my eye—but we gravitated back to each other after we’d checked out.

“What did you get?” I craned my neck to look in the bag he was carrying.

“Just a couple of things for my nieces and nephews. Monkeys, obviously. Plus some candy and—”

“Oh there you are!” A woman’s voice stopped Andrew dead in his tracks, and I stopped too.

And just like that, we were face to face with Andrew’s parents.

They stared at us. We stared at them.

Then his mom gestured at each of us. “Do you two know each other?” She cocked her head. “Every time I turned around up there, you were chatting about something.”

My mouth went dry.

Andrew cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. We met on the boat the other night. This is Eric. Eric, my parents—Janice and Steve.”

I smiled and shook hands with both of them. “Hi. And thanks for the Alhambra tickets, by the way.”

“Oh you’re welcome,” Janice said. “I’m glad they didn’t go to waste.” She glanced at her husband, then back at me. “We’re just about to go have lunch. Why don’t you join us?”

“Uh…” I looked at Andrew, eyebrows up. He shrugged, so I said, “Sure. Yeah. Thanks.”

She smiled, and pointed up the road. “We found a little place up there that looks good, and it wasn’t very crowded.”

“Lead the way,” Andrew said. As we followed them, he glanced at me and mouthed, You sure about this?

I nodded and mouthed back, Are you?

He shrugged, lips quirked as if to say guess we’ll see how it goes.

I let my knuckles brush his. We exchanged smiles and kept following Andrew’s parents.

They led us to a British pub that had a tiki bar theme. Still British food, still British everything, really, but with a grass awning and a general island theme going on. It somehow toed the line between tacky and charming, and one whiff of beef cooking on the grill and I didn’t care one whit about their décor. My mouth watered as we sat down.

“They have a Moroccan burger?” Andrew closed his menu. “Sold.”

“They do?” I asked. “Where?”

“Second page.” He gestured at my menu, and I scanned it until I found the burger in question. And oh hell yeah, I was sold. Ground beef with Moroccan spices? Fuck. Yeah.

“That sounds good to me too.” Steve put his closed menu on top of Andrew’s. “Shame we couldn’t go to Morocco on this trip.”

“I’ve heard it’s amazing,” I said. “My brother went to Marrakesh and Tangier a few years ago and seriously considered moving there.”

“Is that right?” Janice asked. “I’ve heard it’s very nice.”

“It is. And the food?” I whistled. “He actually bought a cookbook and learned to cook Moroccan food after that. It’s a miracle he and I haven’t doubled our body weight.”

Andrew’s parents laughed.

“So are you traveling with your brother now?” Janice asked. “It’s not just you, is it?”

Andrew flinched, and I forced the bitterness out of my tone as I said, “It’s just me. My ex-fiancé decided not to come.” Okay, so much for hiding the bitterness.

“Oh!” She sat straighter, and her expression was suddenly filled with sympathy. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“It’s all right.” I managed a sincere smile. “This vacation has actually helped a lot.” Beneath the table, I gently toed the side of Andrew’s foot. He pressed his knee against mine. “And I, uh, really needed the time off work, so…yeah. It’s been good.”

“What do you do, anyway?” Steve asked.

“I’m a cybersecurity consultant.”

“Oh, wow. You must be getting a lot of business these days.”

“Definitely. My brother and I actually had to hire three more consultants and expand our office staff to keep up.”

Steve turned to Andrew, and Andrew’s expression hardened to an unmistakable Dad, don’t start.

I wanted to divert the conversation so his dad didn’t start whatever it was that had Andrew worried, but Steve spoke first.

“So, what exactly does that entail, anyway? Keeping people from getting hacked?”

I shrugged. “It pretty much comes down to keeping data secure. From hackers, from viruses, from basically anything. Which means I spend half my time securing networks and computers and the other half convincing clients to not use the stupid cloud.”

Steve straightened. “You don’t recommend the cloud?”

“Ugh. No.” I shook my head. “Too many vulnerabilities. Opportunities for security to be compromised and data to either be lost or stolen.”

“Huh. Everyone makes it sound like such a good thing.”

“Everyone who can profit off it, yeah,” I muttered. “I mean, I recommend off-site backups, but not the cloud. It’s just…it’s not nearly as secure as people think. Especially since most people don’t take common-sense precautions anyway, like changing the default password and login for their modem.”

“Interesting,” he said with a nod. “Guess I never thought of any of that stuff.” He turned to Andrew. “Maybe that’s a field you should be looking into.”

Andrew squirmed, and I chewed the inside of my cheek, hoping he didn’t feel on the spot because of me. But he cleared his throat and put on a smile. “Maybe. It’s kind of a specialized field, though.” His eyes flicked toward me, the faintest crease in his forehead begging for help.

“It’s true,” I said quickly. “Lot of specialized training and degrees.”

Steve acknowledged that with a quiet grunt. “Fair. But it wouldn’t hurt to look into it, son.”

Andrew kept the smile in place. “I’ll check into it when we get home.”

“Leave him alone.” Janice gave Steve’s arm a gentle swat. “The boys are on vacation. Can the shop talk.”

Steve huffed but didn’t argue.

Beside me, Andrew sighed with obvious relief.

Right there with you, dude.

 

***

 

Apart from the brief awkwardness while we’d touched on jobs, lunch was pleasant and conversation was relaxed. The Moroccan burgers were spectacular—I’d have to remember this so my brother could make them. Being a British pub, it was no surprise that the chips were awesome too.

Stuffed within an inch of our lives, we left to continue walking down High Street. Buses from the ship were apparently coming by every twenty minutes or so at the taxi stand and bus stop at the end of the street, but we still had plenty of time to get there, so we strolled along and checked out the various shops. I found a few more souvenirs for people back home, including a ridiculously tacky monkey statue for my assistant, and Andrew and his parents bought loads of shirts and trinkets for his nieces and nephews.

I hadn’t realized it, but apparently Gibraltar was known for blown glass and crystal made from the Rock. There was a shop at the end of the road just around the corner from where our bus would pick us up, and a small museum that told all about glass-blowing.

Neither of us were particularly interested, so while Andrew’s parents went into the glass shop, we stayed outside. I sat on the railing, and Andrew leaned against it beside me.

“Well.” He exhaled. “Now you’ve met my parents.”

I chuckled. “It was probably inevitable under the circumstances. And they seem pretty nice.”

“Yeah, they are. My mom and I drive each other up a wall sometimes, but…” He half-shrugged. “I wouldn’t trade either of them for anything.”

I studied him. “I’m assuming they’ve caught on that we’re not just being friendly? Like…”

“They know I’m gay and we’re screwing?”

Heat rushed into my cheeks, and I nodded.

“Yeah. They’re not stupid.” He laughed softly, glancing into the shop. “They know I’m gay, so I’m sure they’ve put the pieces together. Or they’re mentally blocking out some of the pieces, which is fine by me.” He laughed again, but it quickly faded, and he sighed. “I kind of feel like an idiot—a grown man on a trip with his parents.”

“Why? Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean they aren’t your folks anymore. To tell you the truth, I wish I’d done something like this with mine.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded. “My sister and my youngest brother did, but my other brother and I were always so busy getting our firm off the ground. By the time we had the time and money to do stuff like this, our parents weren’t in good enough health to travel much.” I paused. “Are you and your parents close?”

Andrew seemed to consider it for a second, then nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been working so much the last few years, I haven’t spent as much time with them as I should, but I’m trying to do better with that.” His gaze was fixed on the shop they’d gone into. “Which is why I kind of feel bad about…on this trip…”

Guilt tugged at me. I gave his shoulder a soft nudge. “If you want to spend time with them, say the word. I won’t take it personally.”

He turned to me, and his sweet smile made my heart flutter. “Except I only get to see you on the cruise.”

Unless you come with me to—

“Still.” I smiled back. “They’re your parents. And besides, even if you go on an excursion or have dinner with them or whatever, you still have me at night.”

That smile turned…hotter. Inching toward a wicked grin. I had a feeling if we’d been somewhere other than out in public in broad daylight, he’d have put a hand on me. Maybe my arm. Maybe my side. Hell, maybe my ass. And goddamn, I wished right then that we were alone—my skin itched with the need for his touch.

“Thanks,” he said. “And you better believe I’m still spending my nights with you.” Some shyness crept back into his expression. “I mean, as long as you want me to.”

I fought the urge to reach for him. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll still want you at night when I’m in Italy too.

A guy can dream…