God, but it was a relief when Joaquin actually fucking smiled. And here Luc was beginning to wonder if the other man was even capable of it.
It was actually really nice to see Joaquin smiling, as unsettling as the thought was to Luc.
“I – uh – well - ” He floundered over an excuse to not do that right now – tunneling his fingers through his longish hair in a halfassed effort to get his shit straight mentally. It didn't really help. “I – well, I can't really do it right now - ” With all this mythical 'stuff' he had to suddenly attend to and whatnot. “But, y'know, like – if it's easier on you, I guess you could? I mean, like, I can let you in and stuff, but then I really gotta jet..”
Jesus H, he felt like shit every time he made an excuse to the other man – and, yeah, sure, he hated lying to people in general (even if he did it all the time to people he worked with), but this was different. This was him hating having to lie to Joaquin. It wasn't about the generality of lying. Which was weird and uncomfortable and making him feel a little claustrophobic there, being in that room with him - alone in that room with him. And not just any room – in the living room of Joaquin's place. Which just seemed to compound it.
When his phone went off, he almost simultaneously jumped out of his skin and dropped to his knees to thank the universe. The ringtone was the bridge of “You and I” (unfortunately, it meant that it was an unknown number – as he'd set that for his default) – which only made Luc's throat tense up with something that only those reminding songs did to him.. and this song had apparently become one of those now as he stood there.
He dug the BlackBerry out of his pocket to silence it, allowing his gaze to lift from the screen (it was a Dallas, Texas number, which meant it was probably for work later this week – meaning he'd have to at least call them back promptly) to Joaquin's face. “Well, that's me,” he said with a weakly helpless smile. He sighed and shook his head, bringing his free hand up to rub at his cheek a little uncomfortably. “But - uh - how about I call you sometime?”
Godfuckingdamnit – why would he even offer that? That was usually the one action that could exacerbate these kinds of situations - especially if the call never ended up getting made. Luc actually knew a lot more about that than he would have liked to, but hey – he at least knew history had a tendency to repeat itself. And his history was riddled with forgotten call-backs – 90% of them being completely unintentional. Jesus. Way to go, Haust. Worst. Idea. Ever. Fuck.
If he hadn't fucked everything up enough already? This was gonna do it. Absolutely.