“Hmm.” Carter put down the spoon he’d been using and tottered over for a kiss. “Say ‘exposure’ again.”
“Oh God,” Jeff heard from behind them, and he sighed and turned around.
“Trix, this is my boyfriend, Carter.” Jeff glanced up at him as he stepped forward to shake Trix’s hand. “Carter, this is Trix, aka Tracy Neufeld.”
Trix smiled genuinely as they shook hands. “Hey. Jeff’s told us… pretty much everything until a couple weeks ago, but give us time.”
Carter snorted a laugh. “Thanks for looking after him for me.”
“Excuse you,” Jeff said, “which of us needed the other to clear a path to the couch for him when he broke his foot?”
Carter allowed that to pass without comment.
Trix, though, gave them both a knowing look. “Jumping right to the old-married-couple impression, I see.”
“Something like that,” Carter agreed, but the sideways glance he cast at Jeff—all heat and promise—gave lie to his words.
Jeff wanted to do about three things at once—shuffle Trix out of the apartment, make sure dinner wasn’t going to explode, and tackle Carter into the bedroom—but he didn’t get a chance to do any of them, because Trix’s phone made an obnoxious chirp. Frowning, she pulled it out. “Sorry, just let me…,” she mumbled.
Carter’s phone vibrated in his pocket only a few seconds later. Jeff felt left out until he realized he’d left his on silent.
Then, with some trepidation, he took his phone out of his pocket too.
The screen showed a slightly alarming number of notifications. If there was anything really important, it would come through his texts.
In this case it turned out to be from Carter’s mom, which wasn’t worrisome at all.
It was a link to a Buzzfeed article with the unpromising headline “Howl Frontman’s Summer Fling?”
Jeff scrolled without reading and eventually came to the Twitter screencap he’d been expecting. The tweet had over two thousand likes and had been retweeted nearly as many times. It showed two pictures side by side, one of Jeff with Chrissy from that morning, and the other the one of Carter and Jeff that had come up on416 Morningthe day before.
Chrissy’s text more or less confirmed the source of the article.Look who I ran into at Eaton Centre! This tall handsome guy who looked kinda familiar offered to take the picture for us. It was THIS GUY from that pic on @416Morning!
“Looks like you’ve been found out,” Trix said as she shoved her phone back in her pocket. She looked between them and shook her head. “Uh, so I’m going to leave you to… talk about that. It was nice meeting you, Carter.”
“Yeah,” Carter said, obviously still distracted by his phone. “You too.”
Jeff saw her to the door, aware that Carter was still facedown in surprise fame.
“I hope he gets over it fast,” Trix offered.
“Are you… do you want me to call you an Uber? Should I call Max for you?”
She shook her head. “I’m actually in better shape than when I came over. Promise.”
Jeff nodded and decided to take her word for it. “Okay. Well… call me if that changes.”
“I will.” Then she threw her arms around his waist. “I’m still sorry for what I did to you. It’s okay if you’re still mad. But thanks for listening anyway.”
Startled, Jeff stood frozen for a moment but then hugged her back. “Any time.”
When he returned, Carter was back in the kitchen, staring into a bubbling pot of pasta. Jeff touched his waist, pressed a kiss to the back of his shoulder. “Hey. You okay?”
Carter put the spoon down and pulled Jeff to him. “Yeah. I mean, I’m kind of used to it?” he said ruefully. “Famous brother. It’s not totally unfamiliar territory.”
Right, and Carter and Dave looked enough alike that he’d probably been mistaken for Dave a few times.
Being the brother of a famous person was a little different from dating one, though. “This is probably going to be slightly more invasive.”