“Hey.” The young man who ran up to Roman as he grabbed the car door handle looked vaguely familiar in a passing way, and strikingly handsome.

Having dated a dancer for a month, Roman instantly recognized his build and lifted his chin in greeting. “Hi.”

“Is Oscar home?”

Instantly, Roman felt suspicious. He hadn’t seen anyone coming over to talk to him before now. It could be something to do with the sale, but he hadn’t heard much of Oscar’s work life. “No, you just missed him.”

The man’s eyes flashed with annoyance and Roman instantly took a disliking to him. There was something about the way he held himself—not graceful, like Oscar, but self-important. “Well, where is he?” he demanded.

Roman raised a brow to remind him of his manners, but when he didn’t even seem to notice, he asked, “And who are you?”

“A dancer,” the man said impatiently, as if he were too slow to notice that.

That sealed Roman’s decision—no way was he letting Oscar know the guy was around. “I’ll let him know someone’s looking for him. I have to be somewhere now,” he told the guy and pulled open his car door.

“Fine. Don’t be a jealous bitch,” the man muttered under his breath as he turned on his heel and strode off.

That was interesting. Roman hadn’t asked many questions about Oscar’s circle of friends, and now he was glad. But if, as he generally found, the statement was more revealing of the person who said it, there were jealous exes on the scene. Oscar had never even let on. Roman’s concern grew another notch or two.

He pulled his phone out and sent a quick text before he drove: Some pretty dancer with a bad temper who wouldn’t say who he was demanded to know where you were. I didn’t say. Let me know if you need someone to snap him and I’ll be there ASAP. He looks twiggier than you.

Then he turned his phone to vibrate and pocketed it after glancing at the response: LOL. I’m fine, just ignore him. Thanks for the heads up.

“Okay. Meeting,” he told himself, swallowing back the nervousness. One thing at a time: he shut off his anxiety and drove.

* * *

Walking into the office of their corporate headquarters and seeing Cory sitting in the chair opposite the HR manager’s desk drove it home: this was serious.

Roman’s gut lurched. He nodded once at Cory, who didn’t acknowledge him, then dropped into the chair. He refused to scoot it further away from the other man, even if their shoulders were almost touching because of his sheer size.

“Roman. Thank you for coming.” Mark was on the other side of the desk, and Loretta, who had led him into the office, joined him there. He rose to his feet to shake hands, and Roman did the same.

“Now that we’re all here,” Loretta said briskly, “I’ve discussed the allegations with Mark and with Cory already. Roman, this mediation session isn’t designed to take sides. Can you just describe in the simplest facts what happened?”

Roman caught Mark rolling his eyes slightly and almost smiled. Pilots felt that most people didn’t know how to handle pilots. He was perfectly relaxed right now, as if he were sitting behind the controls and in charge of hundreds of people’s lives. That state of mind wasn’t conducive to exaggeration.

“It started with small comments about my kind of people. I didn’t really care about that. Then he started making jibes about how, like, it must be easier for me to pick up guys in other countries than it is for him to find girls. Implying that my dating choices are because of my sexual orientation, and that they’re weird. A lot of needling.”

Loretta was taking notes, nodding now and then.

“I thought he was mending bridges once and took him to a bar when he asked, and things got much worse from there on. He used everything he witnessed in little conversations. I finally told him it was unprofessional, and things… came to a head while we were on the clock one day.” He glanced at Cory.

Cory was staring ahead at nothing in particular, his jaw set.

Roman rubbed his hand down his face, annoyed that he hadn’t had a chance to shave that morning. He felt scruffy. “He made inappropriate comments that I won’t repeat, and I told him that enough was enough, and he wouldn’t say that stuff to me while we’re at work. It seemed fine until he came up to a group of us at the bar in Singapore a few days ago and implied that I’d get hung for being gay in Singapore.”

They could have heard a pin drop.

“The exact words were,” Roman used his pilot’s sense of recall to pull the exact phrase from his mind, “Just came to see what’s hanging. Apparently, Roman. Or he could be.”

Mark sucked in his breath and looked over at Cory.

Cory still said nothing, folding his arms and staring through the wall behind the other two.

“We asked him to clarify it and he said it was just a joke again, then stumbled off.” Roman glanced between them. “I can clarify the exact comments, but I think that one alone says enough.”

“Thank you, Roman. Cory,” Loretta began.

He cut her off. “I don’t know if that’s what I said. I was drunk.”

“Perhaps you can clarify what you allegedly said in the cockpit, then.”

“Nope. Can’t remember that.”

“I hope you weren’t drunk then,” Mark cut in, his tone flat. He’d picked a side, then.

Cory looked at him flatly and shook his head. “Obviously not. But I don’t keep track of every little joke I make with a friend,” he emphasized. “Or someone I thought of as one.”

Roman drew a deep breath and sighed. “Do you really want me to say what you said, man? Don’t make me do it.”

He was really fucking reluctant to out anyone—ever—however much of a dick they were being. Plus, if he said what Cory had told him, it turned this into a sexual harassment liability, and Cory’s job was definitely fucked.

“Go ahead,” Cory told him. “I bet it won’t shake out the way you think.”

“Gentlemen,” Loretta interjected. “If Cory doesn’t remember saying anything that could be misconstrued, perhaps you can clarify for us,” she nodded at Roman.

Roman gave a small, tight smile. He looked down for a few moments, his hands twisting together.

But everyone was right—Ken and the crew, Blane… and Oscar would be pissed if he knew. He was going to have to explain this, and he wasn’t going to tell Oscar he’d backed down now.

The awful possibility that Cory had said or done worse to someone without Roman’s rank or seniority crept into the back of his mind again, and the decision was made. “If he’d just said it off the clock, it wouldn’t be as big a deal to me,” he said slowly. “But we were in the cockpit—alone—and he… made an indecent proposal that I definitely never invited. Just out of the blue. I told him not to do that ever again.” Roman’s cheeks flushed as he glanced between the other two, avoiding looking at Cory.

Cory sucked his breath in, and Roman could tell from his peripheral vision that he was glaring at him. “I never wanted you to do it. I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t.”

Roman blinked a few times and finally looked at him. “What?”

“Are you saying you said that?” Loretta interjected.

“No. Yeah. I don’t know,” Cory snapped, but his gaze was on Roman. “But I didn’t want you getting in my pants.”

“Didn’t?” Roman questioned, his brows so high his forehead hurt. “Inviting me to—issuing the invitation you did was a test? All those months of baiting me for being gay? Is this because you didn’t want me treating you like you say you treat girls? Not that I’ve ever seen evidence of that,” he couldn’t resist interjecting. Have I ever seen him actually with these supposed girlfriends? What if it’s all made up and he’s so deep in the closet he’s buried under his winter parkas?

Loretta sharply called attention to herself by tapping the desk. “Gentlemen,” she said again. “Let’s not devolve to a shouting match here.”

“Fine. I said things. Whatever,” Cory waved a hand. “I didn’t want to be left alone with that guy. Look at the size of him. And he’s into guys? I don’t think that’s appropriate…”

Roman tuned him out, but kept storing up his words in the back of his mind while he shoved his emotions back into the boxes from which they were threatening to burst free. Cory was saying something about if this were a woman and lawsuit potential.

“I think I’ve heard enough,” Mark cut in. “Are you alleging that Roman has ever said or done anything inappropriate towards you?”

Roman looked over at Cory, whose cheeks were spotty red with anger. Huh. He hadn’t seen that before. “No,” Cory spat out. “But he could have. It’s a risk.”

“Roman, if you could give us some privacy—actually, feel free to head home,” Mark said, glancing at Loretta. “We may need to talk to you again, and if you decide you want to press charges…”

“No,” Roman said quickly. “No, that’s fine. I just want the, pardon my French, crazy shit to stop in the cabin. I don’t care if he hates me outside that. I do care if he tries to turn me in to the authorities somewhere it’s illegal to be gay, and I do care if he brings all that into our workplace when we have our jobs to be doing. Now that I’ve applied to transfer, if he’s still on long-hauls, it’s not a problem for me, but I doubt I’m the only gay guy on deck.”

He barely remembered being seen out to his car, only snapping back to when he was behind the wheel of his car.

It’s not going to go well for him, is it? Roman rubbed his face, trying not to replay the ugly details of that meeting. As much as he tried to resist driving on autopilot, with such intimate knowledge of how wrong it could go, he barely noticed the drive home until he was walking in the front door of his quiet, empty house.

His heart sank. “Oscar?” he tried.

Gone again.

With the timing of him running into that snobby asshole in the driveway, Roman couldn’t help a twinge of worry for him. He dug out his phone, but before he texted, he winced. Would it sound too… well, jealous?

Roman dropped onto the couch without even taking his shoes off, his breath whooshing out.

His real problem wasn’t with that guy. For all he knew, one of Oscar’s friends had an attitude problem. They were dancers, after all. Hell, pilots had worse attitudes.

It was too late to go back on his transfer request. Switching back and forth more than once in a year would just look bad. But coming home to an empty house every night…

“Oh, God,” he muttered under his breath and buried his face in his hands. What if he lost Oscar and his slick lifestyle?

No, he needed him with an intensity he’d been missing for years. Casually picking guys up was fun, but it wasn’t lying awake at night with an ache in his chest because he missed skin contact with Oscar so much. It wasn’t grinning like a loon when he walked into the house and Oscar had supper and a warm bed ready for him to recover from a long flight. It wasn’t dropping Oscar’s name into conversations as little as possible and still doing it too often.

That was it. He was going to the studio, and along the way, he was picking up a few things. It was either going to fuck things up with Oscar or make everything right again, but this weird silence couldn’t continue.

Roman had to come clean about everything, including what he wanted: Oscar in his house and bed, every day, forever. He couldn’t let himself dwell on the possibility it might not work.

This was his best chance, so for once in his life, he was going to let himself be impulsive and follow his heart. It had led him to Oscar in the first place—it couldn’t be wrong now.