Diversion 2 - Collusion by Eden Winters Page A

thanked
the gods of ornery behavior for having a desk located outside of
hearing range of the nearest other cube. His anti-social ways had
earned him banishment years ago to the far side of the supply
room, separated from the rest of the department by a bank of
industrial-sized file cabinets. The best cube in the house. No way
in hell did he want busybodies underfoot, prying into his social
life.
Spying the envelope on Bo’s desk, Lucky turned the tables.
“How about this, Mr. William Patrick Schollenberger III? Don’t
you reckon you shoulda told me your name? I’m not in the habit of
sleeping with strangers.” Lucky shut up before Bo called him on
the lie. Of course, preBo fucks shouldn’t count.
Bo emitted a snort. “I thought you did.”
Damn, Lucky should’ve used that answer for the birthday
question.
“It’s not like I’ve hidden anything from you,” Bo argued. “If
you ever spent time at my apartment, you would’ve noticed my
mail by now, and even an embossed family Bible with my name on
the cover.”
Not the “apartment” thing again! Lucky opened his mouth,
ready to make the usual denials. Bo cut him off. “Which brings me
to my next point. You don’t seem to have a problem being together
as long as no one finds out and it’s at your house.”
“What we do outside of work is nobody’s damned business but
ours, and I’m comfortable at my place. Don’t you like it?” Bo produced a half snort, half sigh, the kind of noise Charlotte
referred to as “long-suffering.” “Your house is a pig sty, Lucky. I
can barely walk from one room to the next without tripping. Me
coming over requires a trip to the grocery store, ’cause you never
keep food on hand. And don’t flatter yourself that I haven’t figured
out why you bought the store out of mushrooms last night. It’s so
I’d cook them and you’d keep the leftovers.” He dropped his voice
to hiss, “Damn it, Lucky, I’m your lover, not your maid.” Visions of steamy sex, following an actual meal this time,
began to fade. “Come over, tonight. We’ll talk about it.” “No, if I come over, we’ll fuck, we won’t talk.”
Sounded like a plan. “And you don’t like fucking because?” “Am I just a fuck to you? And a cook? Is that all I am?” “No! You’re an incredible fuck!” Lucky’s intended joke
missed the target.
Redness crept up from Bo’s collar. He glared at Lucky, chest
swelling with each breath, and in a voice so low Lucky strained to
hear, muttered, “Sorry, but I have other plans tonight.” He stood,
snatched up his jacket, and headed down the hall.
“What the fuck got his knickers in a twist?” Lucky asked a
dirty coffee cup. He’d only allowed a handful of men to stick
around longer than one night, and of those, Bo alone recognized
him for who he was, warts and all, and didn’t try to change him—
unless forcing him to take better care of himself counted. Bo gave,
expecting nothing in return. In return, Lucky gave nothing. He spied Bo’s manila envelope containing a new identity,
apartment keys, and other pertinent information lying on the desk,
along with the letter addressed to William Patrick Schollenberger
III. Well, the nice thing to do would be to remind him he’d left
them, right? Wait a minute, though. Lucky didn’t do nice. Was Bo asking too much for Lucky to come over every now
and then? Lucky stared at a glass watering ball protruding from the
Christmas cactus’s soil. Sometime during the last few months, an
ornate ceramic pot had replaced the cheap plastic container that’d
come from the store. No brown marred the plant’s glossy tendrils,
no dead blooms. A plant. A damned, fucking plant, still green
when most of the cactuses it’d shared a shelf with at the nursery
probably hit the trash the moment Christmas ended, or died of
neglect shortly thereafter. Bo cherished everything, whether or not
it cherished him in return. A plant. The man cared so much for a
damned plant. How much more did