Page 63 of Not Your Golden Boy

“Bullshit,” Nikky said, taking a step closer. “It’s obviously important. Otherwise you wouldn’t be replaying the script for Cooked right in front of me.”

Fuck. Harry had completely forgotten that Nikky’s character had done the exact same thing and forced a break-up with Drew’s character toward the end of the season. Nikky literally knew this script already.

Harry sighed, and his shoulders dropped. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me,” he said.

“That makes two of us,” Nikky said. “I’ve been hurt enough in my life already. But as somebody just reminded me,” he glanced over his shoulder to Maggie and Laura, who were watching from the table, hands clasped together, “my life is my own, and I’m the only one who has a say in who I become.”

Guilt over the way he’d snapped at his neighbors made Harry feel even more like shit. “Who do you want to become?” he asked, including Maggie and Laura in the question.

“I don’t know,” Nikky confessed, some of his strength melting out of him as his posture slumped. “But I know I want to be with you.”

Harry’s heart nearly exploded with love, but that love was painful. He wanted Nikky more than he’d ever wanted anything, but the closer the two of them became, the more Nikky was in danger of exposure in a way that could break him.

He glanced past Nikky again to Maggie and Laura, “Did you talk him up to this?”

“Don’t look at us,” Maggie said, still prickly from the way he’d shouted earlier. “We’re just your meddling neighbors.”

Laura was a bit more circumspect. “You’re a couple. You can’t flee from love now. And you have a party to go to tonight, if what Nikky tells us is true, where you can make yourselves known as a couple.”

“I don’t want to go,” Harry said, reaching for his glass and taking a drink, both to block out the conversation and in the hope it might cool him off.

“We have to go,” Nikky said. He peeked at Maggie and Laura, then went on with, “We have to act like none of this bothers us, like we have nothing to be ashamed or afraid of. Then, if Holberg threatens us with whatever, we can pretend to laugh it off.”

Harry lowered his glass and met Nikky’s eyes. Clearly, he wanted them to go to the party as a couple and announce themselves to the world. The earnestness in his young eyes made that obvious. Truly, it was what Harry wanted, too. Nikky wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what he wanted from his future except the chance for the two of them to be together. Whatever happened next, he felt in his gut that it needed to be with Nikky. It would be a bold move, but there was something to be said for not backing down. Especially since nothing truly devastating had happened yet.

But he knew what the “whatever” Holberg and Albion could throw at him was, and Nikky couldn’t handle the scandal it would cause.

“I don’t know,” he sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I just want to keep you safe.”

“And I appreciate that,” Nikky said, taking Harry’s hand as he let it fall to his side. “But at some point, I have to keep myself safe. And you, too.”

He checked in with Maggie and Laura again, which was a dead giveaway that the sentiment had come from them.

They were right, though. There was no way to take back the things that had already happened. They could only go forward and clean up the mess as it spilled.

But he would still do everything he could to shield Nikky from the worst of it, even if it meant fully making himself the villain and losing the things he had.

“Alright,” he said, squeezing Nikky’s hand then pushing away from the counter. “Let’s do what we have to do. Let’s go to that party.”

Nikky smiled, which was more of a reward than he deserved. He would still protect Nikky with his life, at the party and in whatever mess that happened after.

nineteen

​. . .​

Harry had tried to break up with him. That truth buzzed around Nikky’s insides, making him miles less confident than he was trying to seem on the outside as they said goodbye to Maggie and Laura, to whom he owed a lot, dressed for a music industry party, and headed out. Harry drove them to the posh hotel where the party was taking place, which surprised Nikky. He hadn’t been aware Harry even owned a car.

There were a lot of things about Harry that he hadn’t been aware of, as he was just discovering. He hadn’t been aware that Harry had a frightened part of himself that lashed out when it thought he was cornered. He hadn’t been aware that Harry was hurt by the way the music industry had treated him as well as just angry. That was another thing Maggie and Laura had helped him to see.

All of it added up to the certainty that it was long past time for him to stop waiting around for other people to validate his life and protect him from the things he feared in the world. It was time for him to be the protector and the one who got things done for other people.

“You know that whatever threats Holberg made, I don’t care, right?” he said as Harry circled through the parking garage, searching for a space. He could have handed his car over to the valet at the door, but Nikky had the impression he wanted to delay their arrival at the party as long as possible.

Harry remained uncomfortably silent until he found a parking spot. Once in, he cut his car’s engine and stared at Nikky.

Stared, but didn’t say anything for far too long.

Finally, he blew out a breath and said, “I’ll find a way to deal with Holberg and Albion.”