I jerk my head toward the living room. “Mikey Danger fell asleep on the futon and my lust remains unfulfilled.”
“Still weird that you’re into his whole . . . thing, but whatever,” Fred says.
“Where were you?” I ask. “Working?”
“The gym,” Fred says. “It’s kinda my second job.”
“Right. Because of . . . you know.” I gesture vaguely toward his body.
He nods. “Yep.”
“So . . .” I don’t know Fred that well, and I feel like I probably should know my brother’s boyfriend, especially since Milo seems convinced that they’re soul mates. Maybe now, while Mikey Danger slumbers, is a good time for a heart-to-heart. “What are you guys doing this weekend?”
Fred narrows his eyes at me. “Why? Do you want us to be out of the house so you and Mikey can turn it into your own personal love den?”
I snort-laugh. “I can only imagine that a Mikey Danger love den would be constructed entirely out of pizza boxes,” I say, gesturing toward the stack of broken-down boxes.
Fred does a double take as he looks at them. “Whoa. Who organized those? I was leaving them all over the kitchen on principle, like, I didn’t put these here in the first place, it shouldn’t be my responsibility to clean them up.”
“It was me. But anyway, no, this isn’t love den related. I was just wondering if Milo was available to be on Dad duty if I’m gone.”
“Let me guess,” Fred says. “Mikey Danger rented a room in a lovely B&B and you’re getting out of town for the weekend.”
Both of us laugh, and maybe it should be sad that the idea of Mikey Danger making a reservation or even setting foot in a B&B is a joke, but whatever. I’ll take what I can get right now.
“Uh, no. I was thinking about going to a coffee convention with Nick.”
Fred stares at me.
“Oh. He’s my boss.”
Fred nods and points at me. “Right. Movie Guy.”
“I . . . What?”
“Milo told me all about it. The movie, the flirty banter, I know the drill.”
“The flirty . . . wait, what? Milo’s never even been into Nick’s.”
Fred shrugs. “Well, you know. The Internet.”
“Ugh. The stupid Internet causes so many problems for me. Listen, can I ask you a question?”
“As long as it isn’t about Mikey Danger. I already have to share a bathroom with him. I deeply don’t want to know anything about his love life.”
“No, it’s about Nick and the trip. Should I go? I mean, Milo’s right. We do have flirty banter. And, okay, we did kiss once.”
Fred raises his eyebrows.
“But it was during a thunderstorm!” I point at him accusingly. “Don’t say you’ve never made poor romantic decisions under the influence of lightning!”
Fred shakes his head. “I’m honestly afraid to disagree with you right now.”
“Anyway, is it a bad idea to go to the convention with him?”
Fred presses his lips together, then pulls out a chair, removes junk mail from it, and sits down. I do the same.
“No offense, but . . . why are you telling me this?” he asks, steepling his hands.
“Because I’m desperate, Fred!”
He tilts his head. “But couldn’t you talk to Milo about this?”
“God, no.”
“And don’t you have friends?”
“Of course I have friends!” I snap, because duh, I have exactly two friends and one of them is usually out of town and the other one I only see at her place of work. I’m doing just fine, friendwise. “But you’re a neutral party. I can trust your opinion.”
Fred nods. “Okay. So the problem is you wanna hit that, but you don’t want to wanna hit that.”
I think about it for a second. “In a nutshell, yes.”
“Well, this is a tricky situation. Because he’s your boss, and it sounds like he’s doing everything possible to make this less creepy. I mean, you’re getting separate rooms. This isn’t, like, an HR violation.”
I roll my eyes. “Trust me, I’m the HR violation here. Not him.”
“And you do want to go, right?” Fred asks, leaning forward.
I shrug. “Well, yeah. I’ve been trying forever to get Nick to update things at the shop because I think we could be doing so much better. And I’d like to be there to help Nick make decisions.”
“Sounds like a pretty easy choice to me,” Fred says, leaning back and holding his hands out in an exaggerated shrug. “Go. It’s not like you’re gonna jump him while you’re on the convention floor. And then you can retreat to your solo room and watch