Doves (Love in Los Angeles, #2)

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SARAH, HER HUSBAND Mike, and their son Jake, come over later, and dinner passes without incident. Alex keeps looking over his shoulder for something else terrible to happen, and he and Paul stay closer to each other than they normally do.

Usually it’s Alex who curls into Paul’s side whenever he can, at least when they’re not in public, but tonight it’s Paul who keeps their legs pressed together under the table. More than once, Alex sees Paul’s mother watching them as they bend their heads together to talk quietly, but Alex has no impulse to pull away or remove his arm from low on Paul’s back.

They’re all sitting out on the verandah together, watching sunset creep across the fields, when Alex’s phone makes itself known yet again. This time, it’s Margaret.

The whole conversation is ridiculous on any number of levels, but at least she’s not shouting. Her calm, competent crisis-management mode is somehow even more frightening than Victor’s wrath, and now Alex’s reception of it isn’t numbed by terrible stories. The liberals are furious that their sweet Indiana farm boy has the temerity to know his way around a g*n. The right suddenly has to deal with the fact that their new, if inadvertent, poster boy is Hollywood’s pet twink. No one is happy. Even beyond the fans who feel betrayed that J. Alex Cook would do something so terrible as shoot beer cans (he’d made Paul show him some of the choice replies), many, many people are angry.

“The NRA called,” Margaret tells him.

“I’m on vacation,” Alex moans.

“Have you talked to Paul’s family about what happens when things like this happen?”

“Do things like this actually happen that much?” Alex asks.

“Are you planning on maintaining dangerous and politically sensitive hobbies?”

“I’m not going to defend a sport I like and I’m good at, because it makes people who say flyover nervous. I shoot targets, not animals, and I’m also not interested in being a spokesperson for a bunch of freaks who think the government is coming for their Jesus. Can’t I just be a person who does stuff?”

“I’m taking that as a yes.”

Alex swears. And then reluctantly explains that yes, he and Paul have had conversations with Paul’s family about some of the realities of a relationship as public as theirs. Everyone has been gracious, but as welcoming as this family has been, Alex knows that by dating Paul he’s making everyone’s lives harder than they have to be.

Eventually Margaret talks him down from his pitch of righteous anger. He retreats around the corner of the verandah to keep Paul’s family out of earshot as much as possible, because dumping all of this on them just seems rude. She lays out a reasonable strategy for dealing with it which amounts to much the same as Victor’s: Do nothing, and do not do a whole lot of somethings.

“Hey, can’t you just say you’re trying to get me an action movie deal or something?” he jokes.

“I could,” Margaret points out, “if we knew what the hell was going on with your show.”

And with that, Alex finally gets why Victor was pissed. Because on top of everything else, they all live in some sort of crazy world where a tweet can be strategy and betrayal.

After he hangs up with Margaret, before he can even walk back round to the front of the house, Victor calls again. There’s less yelling — and the timing is less awful — but once that call is over and Alex has finally slumped back into the chair next to Paul’s, he’s ready to never answer his phone ever again.

Which is when Paul’s phone rings.

Paul looks scared. His mother looks like none of this is terribly out of the ordinary. Alex wonders if that’s just because she’s used to Paul’s job or if her life transcended strange and scary a long time ago.

“Answer it,” Alex hisses. He knows this is one of the two calls they’ve been waiting for and the one that will go a long way towards telling them the shape of the next year.

Paul answers it. Alex watches him closely as he nods and says yes and thank you a number of times, but he’s so damn even Alex can’t tell if the news is good or bad.

When he clicks off, he just stares straight ahead breathing for a moment. What Alex would have once taken as shock or admired as an even disposition now seems learned in the most unsettling of ways.

“Well?” he finally asks.

Everyone leans forward in their chairs on the verandah staring at Paul in the bug-filled twilight.

“Thirteen episodes,” he says softly. “Option for another eight. And then we pray for season two.”

The reaction from Paul’s family is loud, but Alex sits there, still bent toward Paul and holding his hand, waiting for the moment to actually connect. When it does, Paul is out of his chair in a flash, hauling Alex up with him into a crushing hug.

“Oh my God, this day,” Alex says in his ear.

Paul laughs in utter delight. “Will you marry me now?”

Alex laughs and shoves at his shoulder. “Staff your f*****g show first.”

“I have a show!”

* * *

* * * *

“LAST BIT OF QUIET WE’RE going to have for a long time,” Paul says once everyone else has left or gone up to bed and he and Alex have the verandah to themselves.

Alex hums, not particularly eager to break the precious silence. “I don’t know, I’m still waiting for another crisis to erupt.”

“So turn your phone off.”

“Did after Victor called the last time. Can’t control yours, though.”

Paul takes the hint and digs his phone out of his pocket to silence it.

“Does this mean I have all your attention now?”

Paul smirks. He drags his eyes up Alex’s body in a way that is entirely not helpful when they’re outside on Paul’s mother’s front porch.

“Sooooo, wanna go upstairs?” Alex nudges his toes against Paul’s leg.

Paul laughs, clearly delighted, and after a pause they practically chase each other into the house and up the stairs.

* * *