The Wedding Date Part 2
Duo frowned, leaning a bit closer. "-- a what?"
"A prostitute?" Heero hissed in a horrified undertone.
The braided man stiffened, his expression turning cold. "I am not a prostitute!" he snapped coldly. "I work for a reputable escort service. As a companion -- not a whore." He was fiddling with his seatbelt and looking down the aisle for the flight attendant. "If you expect something like that, whoever you are -- I don't care if we're in mid-air. I'm out of here!"
"No!" Heero blurted quickly, not wanting him to summon the suspicious woman back to glare at them some more. "That's not --! I don't expect that!"
As Duo stopped his squirming and turned to look at him again, Heero calmed down. "I don't expect a -- a -- you know. What I expected was for Miss Winner to fly with me to Sanc."
"She your girlfriend?" Duo asked, looking confused.
"No -- the sister of a friend," Heero explained. "She was going to pose as my girlfriend for the weekend."
Duo looked even more confused.
"Look -- I'm going to the wedding of a high-school friend. His sister hounded my every step back then, and I was afraid if I showed up alone, she'd start throwing herself at me again. So Quatre offered to have one of his sisters go with me -- to throw Relena a curve -- make her think I was taken." He let his gaze travel from the dawning comprehension on the man's face and down to his lap. "You can see why your arrival startled me."
A rueful smile touched the wide, attractive lips. "Yeah, I guess I can," Duo admitted. "Not into guys, huh?"
"Um, no." Heero was already thinking furiously, wondering if there was still time for Quatre to fix the mess his sister had caused. "And I can't think what possessed Winner's sister to call an escort service and have them send me out a male date."
"It's probably not her fault," Duo suggested. "When a woman calls for an escort, all they ask is for preferences in hair and eye color -- not the sex. It's generally assumed she wants a male date."
"But why didn't she come?" Then Heero recalled his abbreviated call to Quatre, and the words "stomach flu." "Oh shit."
Duo raised an eyebrow.
"I tried to call Quatre when she didn't show up, and all I got was something about the flu and her calling a friend to meet me. I told him to forget it, and I thought that was the end of it."
"Ah." Duo shifted in his seat and glanced around the plane, then looked back at Heero. "So -- what's plan B?"
"I don't know yet," Heero admitted. "We're in mid-air, on our way to Sanc. There's no changing that now. But when we get there, I'm sure you can find a return flight, so you don't have to cool your heels there all weekend."
"And who's gonna pay for that return flight?" Duo wondered. "I've got just enough money on me to take care of incidentals."
"Won't your agency spring for a plane ticket?"
Duo gave a wry snort. "Hardly. Sally's a miser."
"Well maybe I can contact Quatre and his sister will pony up the airfare -- since she's the one who caused this whole mix-up."
"What if she won't?"
"We'll -- cross that bridge when we come to it," Heero sighed. "But if worst comes to worst, we're both booked to fly back Monday morning. You could get a hotel for the weekend -- do some sight-seeing."
Duo nodded. "Never been to Sanc."
"You haven't?"
"Nope. Never been anywhere," Duo admitted. "I can't afford to travel. Still payin' off student loans." He shifted in his seat, stretching his legs to get comfortable.
"You can pay off student loans on escort pay?" Heero wondered.
"It's not my only job," Duo explained. "It's just a part-time gig I started back in college, and kept up for the extra income. I have a full-time job at Sweepers Salvage."
"They give you time off for the escort work?"
"Once in a while. Howard's pretty understanding. He'll let me work overtime for the next couple of weeks to make up the hours."
"Sounds like an exceptionally nice boss."
"Yeah, I'm lucky."
Heero resisted the urge to snort, wondering how working two jobs to scrounge a living could in any way seem lucky to the braided man.
"What's your story?" Duo asked. "I mean, aside from the 'trying to dodge a harpy' thing this weekend?"
"Relena's not a harpy," Heero said quickly. "She's just -- overzealous. She was hung up on me in prep school, and then tried to follow me to college, but couldn't get into mine -- so she went to the girl's school a few miles away. Called all the time and tried to get together on weekends."
"How'd you fend her off for four years?"
"I transferred mid-semester and didn't bother telling her."
"Ouch." Duo shook his head. "You don't pull punches, do ya?"
"Not often." Heero gave a shrug. "I'm in a harsh business, and it suits me. I like competition, and I like to win. There's little room for compassion or diplomacy in that."
"So why don't you just go to the wedding alone and tell Relena to back off?" came an innocent query.
Heero didn't know if the other man was being snide, or just honestly curious. He fixed him with a glare. "Apparently that's what I'll be doing, since I can't take you as my date."
"Well, you could," Duo shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time I escorted a man somewhere."
Heero raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, sure." Duo gave him a challenging look. "You think straight guys are the only ones who ever use an escort service?"
"I frankly never gave it much thought," Heero told him. "Or any at all, truth be told."
"It's a big world, Heero. You oughta get out more," Duo chided.
"This from the man who's never traveled."
"Touché."
Heero gave a small, smug grin, and reached for his briefcase, intending to take out his laptop and do some office work.
Duo watched him lay the instrument across his lap and boot it up, indigo eyes curious. "So, exactly what do you do for work?"
"Financial risk analysis -- takeovers and mergers."
"Ah."
Heero kept his gaze locked on the screen of his computer as he entered a string of letters and numbers. "You have no idea what I mean, do you?"
"Not really. Nope."
"The company I work for assesses the viability of other companies who might be amenable to a sale, and then bids for --" Heero stopped and shook his head. "Never mind."
Duo's eyes narrowed. "What? You think I can't understand the big words?" he asked, his tone defensive.
"Actually, I figured I was probably boring you," Heero countered.
"Oh." Duo wiggled in his seat as if settling down deeper. "Honestly, you kinda were. But I was hoping it might help me nod off -- I can never seem to get to sleep in a moving vehicle."
Heero glanced aside, unsure of whether the braided man was joking or serious. But then Duo winked one big, indigo eye and then closed them both, relaxing against the headrest.
"Wake me when we get there."
Heero didn't reply. He merely gave a wry snort and went back to work, knowing the lengthy flight would pass quickly once he was immersed in his facts and figures.
It might have done so, if his unexpected guest hadn't been such a restless sleeper, squirming and wriggling to find a more comfortable position, and finally ending up leaning heavily against Heero's left shoulder.
The Japanese man tried once or twice to push the intruder back to his own side of the seat. But it proved futile. Invariably, Duo ended up shifting about until his head once again came to rest on Heero.
With a frustrated sigh, Heero gave up on work, shut down his computer, and decided to try catching a couple of hours of sleep himself, using the little pillow provided by the airline and leaning his own head against the window.
Not that he'd ever admit it, but the warmth of another body overlapping part of his was oddly comforting in the chilly plane. And it helped him relax and forget that he was in a metal tube hurtling through the air several miles above a vast expanse of ocean. For one of the first times ever, he actually nodded off during a flight.
TBC...
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