At least it was a restaurant he'd been to before.

Carlos shifted uneasily in his seat and scanned the tables around them again. He'd been worried Teddy would take him to some five-star place with a menu that didn't even have prices on it. This place was nice, but it was just the kind of nice the people in the neighborhood saved for birthdays and special occasions.

That was one of the problems. People in the neighborhood came here. If someone saw him with Teddy, there was no way word wouldn't get around. He'd already seen two girls he knew working as waitresses, but he wasn't worried about them. It was the diners, the kind of people who might associate with the Connellys and the Caldwells, that were making him twitchy.

"Did you want to get any appetizers? They have a really good cheese fondue," Teddy said, oblivious to the people around them.

The waitress seated them at a small table in the middle of the section, their knees knocking together as Teddy crowded into the seat beside him rather than sitting across the way. He kept reaching out and touching, and it was making the muscles knot all the way up Carlos' back. A hand on the small of his back as they walked across the room. The stroke of fingers against the back of his hand. An awed touch to the swell of his belly, looking larger than usual in the fitted maternity clothes Teddy arranged to be delivered to his apartment.

Every time he got too close, Carlos tried to make sure no one was paying them any attention. For all that Teddy didn't care much about little things like socially acceptable behavior, he was devoted to his family, especially his grandmother. Carlos wasn't about to cause him trouble.

"I've never had fondue," he said, shifting away slightly as Teddy leaned over to show him his menu.

Teddy considered that. "I think you'll like it. It's mostly just cheese, and they'll make it without wine if you ask."

"I'll take your word for it," Carlos said, wincing as a huge group was seated nearby, laughing and talking loudly as they pulled off their expensive coats. He didn't recognize any of them at first glance, but it wound the ball of stress tighter in his stomach.

"We can go somewhere else if you want."

Jerking his attention back to his 'date,' he found Teddy watching him closely, his face set in determinedly neutral lines.

"This is fine," he said, then flinched when Teddy reached for his hand.

"If you're not comfortable..." He tucked his hand back into his lap, the menu discarded for the moment.

"I'm fine," Carlos snapped, flushing as the couple at the next table glanced over. The woman's eyes dropped to his belly, and she smiled indulgently. He wanted to flip her off. "I'm going to the bathroom. Order me something edible." He hauled himself up out of the chair and stalked away, his head down so no one would see the way his cheeks were flaming.

"This was a terrible idea," he told himself in the mirror a few minutes later. The bathroom was tiled in marble from floor to ceiling, a room larger than his entire apartment, and it echoed horribly. "Jesus, what was I thinking?"

He hadn't really known what to say when Teddy asked him to dinner. Dinner was just code for sex, right? But no alpha in their right mind would want to have sex with him when his feet were swollen almost as much as his stomach, even if they had somewhere to go. Teddy just didn't seem the type for sleazy hotel rooms, or expensive ones for that matter, and Carlos' mother still hadn't quite saved up enough for the security deposit on an apartment.

This eating dinner thing was uncharted territory, and he had no idea what he was doing. There was no way Teddy had considered the consequences, and he had done nothing else but ever since he agreed. The whole point of dating was to get to know each other so you could move on to the big three: being in a relationship, getting engaged, and getting married. He had no delusions this was going to end in a white picket fence, so what the hell was he doing here?

"Fuck," he said, splashing water on his face. He couldn't quite meet his own eyes. "I'm so stupid," he grumbled, wincing as someone came in and headed for a urinal.

Teddy looked relieved when he came back to the table, a bowl of steaming cheese and a stack of bread sitting in front of him. "I ordered you a steak," he said, tapping his fingers against the silverware in a rapid rhythm. "I hope you don't mind baked potato."

"That's fine." Carlos pulled his chair a little bit further around the table, hoping to put a little more space between them. He was torn between being grateful and disappointed when he sat down and realized Teddy had also shifted his chair further away.

In all the not-dates they had before, they'd never really run out of things to talk about. It had surprised Carlos at first because he wasn't used to guys having conversations during a hookup, but Teddy was an endless fount of stories and random facts. here was none of that at the table now, both of them picking at the bowl of cheese as it slowly began to congeal.

It only got more awkward when their food arrived, both of them focusing entirely on making precise cuts with as little noise as possible. Eventually, Carlos set his utensils down, his stomach churning with the tension.

Teddy copied him, frowning down at his barely touched pasta. "Do you want a box? You can take your steak home and share it with your mother," he asked without looking up.

"Do you always try so hard to feed your one-night-stands?" Carlos asked, the words burning out of his throat despite his determination to hold them in. Something in him was telling him to shut up before he ruined everything, but the rest of him was tired of carrying around the weight of this hopeless dream.

"I've never had a one-night-stand before," Teddy snapped back. "Just a guy I really liked who doesn't like me back."

Carlos snorted. "Oh, yeah. I can see that going over well with your family."

"Why do you keep bringing them up? I'm not dependent on my family for anything," Teddy said. His eyes were pale and cold for the first time since Carlos met him, and it was almost painful to feel them rake over his skin.

"Look me in the eye and tell me you've told your Nana all about me, and she can't wait to have me over for Christmas dinner," he hissed, leaning in as he noticed the woman at the next table staring.

Teddy blushed, looking away. "That has nothing to do with you," he said, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

Carlos' eyebrows almost met his hairline, and he had to bite back his immediate response, which was to dump his very expensive steak in the alpha's lap and leave. "Oh, really."

Belatedly, Teddy seemed to realize how that sounded. All the tension oozed out of him until he was slumped in his seat, staring at his hands. "It's not because of you," he said quietly. "I just haven't been able to bring myself to tell her I'm gay. She's the only member of my family who doesn't already look at me like I'm a disappointment."

"Even if I was a girl," Carlos said, "people like you don't take people like me home to meet the family."

Briefly distracted, Teddy frowned. "Would I still love you if you were a girl?" he mused, and Carlos choked on his next breath.

"You what?" he squeaked.

"I mean, I think I would if I got to know you, but I wouldn't have stared at you as much while you did yard work, so would I have gotten to know you?" Lost in thought, he absently twirled his pasta around his fork and took a bite, not noticing or caring it had to be stone cold by now.

Carlos was so far from distracted he might never have been this focused before in his life. He'd been talking about sex, about getting along and having a good time. Not about...that. That was so far outside of what he was expecting he didn't have a good argument ready for why it was a ridiculous thing to say.

"I've never actually been with a woman before, either," Teddy said, oblivious to Carlos' mental breakdown.

It wasn't that he hadn't thought about being in love before. It was kind of like having kids. He wanted to do it, but there were so many things he needed to get done first that it kind of got forgotten about. It definitely wasn't something he wanted right now. Not in the middle of this complicated, confusing, and sometimes painful situation he was already dealing with. The people in the big houses did not fall in love with the people from Carlos' neighborhood. Not really. Not the kind of love that kept people together for their whole lives.

Hell, the people he knew were too tired for that kind of nonsense. The Martínezes barely saw each other between their three jobs, more roommates and caregivers than a passionate romance. No one looked sexy after a sixteen hour day.

"I think I'd miss your pecs," Teddy said.

"Oh, my God." He couldn't help the giggle that escaped him. It was all so ridiculous all of a sudden. "You're a romantic," he accused, pointing a finger at the startled alpha.

It was true he'd been disappointed when they stopped hooking up. He even missed Teddy's particular brand of insanity, coming across things every day that he thought about telling the alpha just to hear what he thought. It was always unusual. What was it he'd said once? Not boring. That was Teddy. Not boring.

That wasn't love, but it was something.

Teddy had stopped talking, staring at Carlos out of the corner of his eye. "Sorry. I know that's the exact opposite of no strings attached like you wanted. I wasn't supposed to say that."

Resting one hand on his stomach, Carlos picked up his fork and poked at his steak. He was suddenly starving, his stomach grumbling loudly enough he was willing to eat it cold. "It's not that I don't like you," he said, grimacing when Teddy slumped even further. He said the rest quickly, afraid the words would get stuck if he didn't get them out all at once. "Things like this never work out, and I don't want to get my hopes up."

"That doesn't seem any better," Teddy said after a moment, his head tilted at that odd angle, brow furrowed. As curled in his seat as he was, he looked a bit like a melting scarecrow. "You'd miss out on good things just because you were afraid there might be bad ones at the end. That's like giving up on chocolate because you heard on TV it can make you break out." He sounded scandalized, and Carlos couldn't help but laugh again.

"Hey, this is a little more serious than a pimple," he protested. "I never wanted to be like my mom." He didn't know the words were going to come out until he said them, but there they were. Teddy was staring into him now, those too sharp eyes boring through his soul, and he had to look away. "She loved my dad. Maybe she still loves him, I don't know. He was charming and fun, and he was always taking us to these great places. She thought she knew him, thought they were the forever kind of thing." His voice broke, and he cleared his throat. "Until the police broke down our front door, anyway. I don't remember much after that but shouting. She packed us up and moved out the next day."

"I snore," Teddy said out of nowhere. "I broke one of Nana's plates, and I think it actually helped, so I'll probably break more of them. I forget everything if I don't put it in my reminder system, and I hate zucchini."

Carlos sighed. "Teddy..."

"I have an older sister who's a drunk and a younger brother who I'm pretty sure is the spawn of Satan. My mother's name is Victoria, and her main goal in life was to be a trophy wife. My father is a banker, and he pretty much hates people," he continued, sounding a little desperate. "My parents left out all the interesting parts of the story of my Nana's life, and I recently found out she used to wash clothes for prostitutes in England. I have the same thing for breakfast every day when I'm at home, and I count things when I'm nervous. There are sixteen tables that I can see and seventy-two people, including us."

Something in his chest was aching hard enough to make his eyes burn, and Carlos set his fork down again. "Teddy, that's not what I mean."

"That's it. That's everything I can think of off the top of my head, and anything else you want to know, you can ask me. I'm a terrible liar." Teddy leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose. "I'm not trying to be pushy, but I don't want to be that guy who might have been something if you'd given it a chance. If you want this, then we should try. Between the two of us, we can design something that works."

"Teddy, it's not that simple."

"Please." He pressed their foreheads together, his eyes sliding closed. "Please, please, let me have a chance. I just want a chance to show you I'm not just in it for the sex, or the baby, or any one thing. You're everything I ever wanted, and it's been killing me not to scream it from the rooftops."

He had to clear his throat twice to get any words to come out, his eyes swimming with unshed tears. "Your family is going to hate me," he whispered, a last grasp argument.

"You're going to hate them more," Teddy said. "I have great frat brothers, though. You'll like them. Everyone does. They already want to know when they can meet you."

"You told them about me? Of course, the Kurt who gives you advice," Carlos said, wiping his eyes. The waitress was hovering anxiously, and he gave her a watery smile as she boxed up their food without being asked.

"They're great," he said, handing over his credit card without bothering to look at the check.

It made Carlos' skin crawl a little, the casual way he could do that without counting every cent. He always wanted to be able to have enough money not to have to think about it. It was one reason he'd gone into engineering instead of teaching. He liked kids, but he'd seen what they paid teachers in this state.

"What will happen when you go back to Connecticut?" he asked as they emerged into the cool night air. It wasn't quite warm enough for a coat, but a little too cool for his thin shirt, and he shivered.

Teddy frowned. "What do you mean?"

He hadn't thought of it until just then, the fact Teddy didn't live in Texas. A tiny flare of nerves curled around his spine, but he felt so wrung out from everything thus far that this was barely a blip. "When the project is over. When are you moving back to the northeast?"

Raising one eyebrow at him, Teddy helped him settle into the car. "Why would I do that? You're here. Unless you want to move to Connecticut?"

"No," Carlos said immediately. His mother was here, and he wasn't sure he could handle the crazy snow he'd only ever seen on the news.

Teddy nodded, closing the door and going around to the driver's side to get in. "That's what I thought. I started looking at real estate, and the property costs are a lot lower here than in Connecticut. Do you have a preferred neighborhood? I don't know the area well enough, but the realtor I hired is focusing on good school districts."

Head spinning, Carlos stared at him. "What about your work?" He hadn't even gotten used to thinking about Teddy being a part of his life, and now he was supposed to give his opinion on houses?

Starting the car and turning the heat on low, Teddy shrugged. "I can work from anywhere. Most projects only require a few site visits a month, if that. It's just that this one was such a mess that I had to stay nearby for the first few months." He glanced at Carlos through his lashes as he pulled out of the parking space. "Then I met this guy, and he was cute, so I was motivated to stay."

"That was sappy, brujo," Carlos said, clearing his throat and turning to look out the window. "You'll never get ahead in your career if you let a pretty face distract you."

"It's a good thing my career is already going well," Teddy said softly. "For the record, though? That guy is more than just a pretty face."

Carlos could feel his ears burning all the way back to his apartment, even against the cool glass of the window.