Adam struggled to fight the giddy feeling that bubbled in his veins. The date was going well. Really well. He’d thought when he’d come in that maybe he’d made a mistake. Kyle had been agitated, and Adam had worried it had to do with the weirdness of the last time they’d seen each other. But after some food and a few false starts, he had enjoyed himself.
“So,” Kyle said, as they stepped out into the street, “is this the part where I say, ‘I had a nice time’ and you say, ‘Me too,’ and I say, ‘We should do it again’ and you say, ‘Yes’ and then we both get into our respective cars with no plan to actually do it again?” Kyle’s eyebrows waggled at the last bit.
“So this is good night, then?” Adam said. Kyle’s face flashed with disappointment, which made Adam’s chest squeeze satisfyingly. He wasn’t ready to wrap up their evening either. “We could go find some dessert?”
Kyle’s smile spread from dimple to dimple.
“Ice cream?” His eyes turned pleading; Adam recognized the expression from Caroline, and laughed.
“If you want.”
“Awesome! I’m going to get a waffle cone with extra toppings. All the stuff I can’t get when Caroline’s watching.” Kyle jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “There’s the old dairy bar downtown. I worked there for a couple summers in high school. I can drive, and then bring you back to your car later?”
Adam was confused. That seemed like a long way to go for ice cream.
“But there’s Americano?” he said.
“There’s what?”
“Americano?”
Kyle frowned. “Americano’s a coffee.”
“It’s also the name of a dessert shop a few blocks from here.”
They walked to the corner without talking, close but not touching. The evening had been surprising. Adam hadn’t expected to tell Kyle about his breakup with Daniel. While he’d kept the details brief, it had still been the most he’d told anyone other than Rebecca since he’d come to Red Creek.
“So on a scale of one to ten,” Kyle said, “how would you say this date is going?”
Adam grinned. “Why don’t you tell me?”
One side of Kyle’s mouth curled up into a smile. He pulled himself up straight and lifted his arms like he was holding a report or a clipboard.
“Let’s review.” The dimples on his cheeks were distracting. “Looking back at the sequence of events so far, we’re still speaking to each other, and no one has started a fight. There was mention of another date at some point in the future, we avoided the No I’ll pay awkwardness when the bill came, and I still have my cell phone. Altogether, this date has been among the most successful first dates I can call to mind.” He ticked off some point on his imaginary list.
“You lost your cell phone on a first date?” Adam asked.
“Temporarily.”
“Temporarily?”
Kyle eyed him, but kept silent. They paused at the next corner as a car passed, then crossed the street. Kyle’s list of criteria for a good date rattled around Adam’s head.
“Did you start the fight?” he asked.
Kyle tsked. “Don’t ask if you don’t want to know.” The dimples were back again. It made Adam think of the sensation of Kyle’s skin against his when he’d kissed him in the restaurant. It had been impulsive; Adam wouldn’t have done it under most circumstances, but he’d been moved by Kyle’s honest assessment of himself, and hadn’t been able to stop himself.
“I kinda want to know.” He turned at the next corner, and had to grab the edge of Kyle’s jacket as the other man went to continue in the direction they’d been walking. Adam was surprised; he’d assumed Kyle would figure out where they were headed once they got underway, but he obviously hadn’t.
“Sorry.” Kyle hurried to catch up. Adam could see the sign for Americano up ahead.
“Was it all one date?” he asked.
“Mostly.”
“Seriously?” Adam played back through the list in his head and then tried to imagine how they could have all happened.
“You asked for it, Mr. Hathaway.” Kyle’s smile was mischievous, and Adam wanted to skip the story and go straight to the kissing.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“So I met Olivia at a fundraiser the charity I worked for put on. All kinds of artists submitted their work, and we sold it all for two hundred dollars. Didn’t matter whose work it was; you might get a Picasso or a Picard, it was two hundred bucks either way.”
“Picard?” Adam said. “I don’t think I know a Picard.” He knew about the Star Trek captain, but he didn’t think that was right.
“Exactly,” Kyle said, like it made sense, but it didn’t to Adam. He was thinking about Patrick Stewart. They approached the front door of the coffee shop.
“We’re here,” Adam said.
Kyle took five steps past him before he stopped. “We’re where?”
Adam gestured to the front of the café. Kyle’s expression was blank for a second, before his eyes widened and his jaw dropped.
“This is a shoe store,” he said. Adam glanced at the front windows. It was clearly a café, with people inside by the window, sipping drinks from wide ceramic cups.
“No it isn’t.”
Kyle shook his head, waving him off. “No, I mean it used to be a shoe store. I remember going here with my mom a couple times.”
“Huh.” Adam wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that. He hadn’t given much thought to how Red Creek might have changed in the years Kyle was away. He tried to picture what Kyle was describing, but couldn’t. Kyle’s brow furrowed while he stared across the street.
“That used to be my dentist’s office, I think.” He pointed at a building. It had since become an optician’s.
“Does this happen a lot to you?” Adam asked.
“That things change? Sometimes. Some of them I knew about because my dad told me, or I noticed when I would come visit. And I thought I’d spotted most of the rest of them since we moved back, but I guess I haven’t come this way yet. The development on the other side of the mall used to be the mattress factory where my dad worked, did you know that?”
They headed into the café. It was busy, despite the time. Lots of couples, hunched around tables. Adam stood near to Kyle in line to hear him talk while they waited to order. So near to each other, he found himself watching the line of Kyle’s throat as he spoke, white skin disappearing into his shirt. It made him think of the picture Kyle had sent him, the one he’d barely seen as he’d tried to sweat Kyle out of his system on his crazy run to Rebecca’s. He’d checked it again when he’d come home, and once more after he’d sent his text asking Kyle for dinner. Any hope he’d had of trying to pretend that nothing had happened had disappeared as he’d taken in the image of Kyle’s naked torso, the towel hanging low on his hips, and the glaring mark that Adam had left on Kyle’s skin. Need and possession had roared through his blood as their encounter in the dark hallway at Kyle’s had flooded his memory.
Kyle’s hand on his arm broke him out of that train of thought, and Adam realized they had reached the front of the line.
“What do you want?” Kyle asked over his shoulder. The question made Adam’s skin heat. “My treat.” Kyle grinned and winked.
Adam stepped closer to crowd Kyle toward the counter, and brought one hand up to rest on Kyle’s hip as he ordered. Kyle started, then hesitantly leaned back into Adam’s touch. Small sparks of pleasure lit inside him as Adam slid a hand beneath Kyle’s jacket, where he could feel the heat of Kyle’s skin under the thin cotton of his shirt. He reached around him to hand the woman behind the counter some cash.
“It’s on me,” he said to her, his voice level with Kyle’s ear. He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face when Kyle shivered against him. Adam wanted to drag his stubble over the flushing skin of Kyle’s cheek, just to feel him shake a little more. Instead, he took his change and stepped away. Kyle swayed as they lost contact. One of his long-fingered hands touched the spot where Adam’s hand had been. Brown eyes connected with Adam’s, and Kyle glared for a second.
“Don’t tease if you don’t mean it, Mr. Hathaway.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
At the end of the counter, Kyle’s order was waiting. He hadn’t been kidding; it was a giant heaping scoop of ice cream, covered in an assortment of multicolored toppings and whipped cream. Someone had put a cherry on the top. Kyle held it close to his face and stared at it like some kind of treasure.
“Oh my god,” Adam said. “What are you? Eight years old?”
Kyle smirked and licked his ice cream, keeping his eyes on Adam the whole time. It was probably supposed to be sexy, but Kyle didn’t quite pull it off when he came away with whipped cream on the corner of his mouth and sprinkles on his chin.
“I can’t take you seriously like that,” Adam said.
“I’ll go find us a seat.” Kyle grinned and turned away.
Once Adam had his ice cream, he found Kyle sitting at a low coffee table with a worn couch on either side. Adam took a seat next to him.
“What did you get?” Kyle asked. He was making neat work of his frozen monstrosity.
“Two scoops, double chocolate.”
Kyle considered the waxed paper cup. “Very interesting.”
“Very interesting how?”
“The type of ice cream a person chooses says a lot about their personality.” Kyle smiled and his eyes danced.
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm.” Kyle’s head bobbled enthusiastically.
Adam rolled his eyes. “All right, I’ll bite. What does my ice cream say about me?”
“Well.” Kyle pulled the cherry off the top of his ice cream and popped it into his mouth. “The fact that you got it in a cup, not a cone, says you like to be in control.”
Adam considered that. He hadn’t ever thought about it in so many words, but Kyle wasn’t wrong. “And?”
Kyle scooted closer on the couch. “The chocolate is a classic, obviously. You take a lot of comfort in routine, in familiar things, like family, but you don’t like to be bored.”
“You sound like a fortune cookie!” Adam laughed.
Kyle pouted. “Ice cream psychology is a legitimate field.” He took a large mouthful of his ice cream, then grimaced and mashed a hand to his forehead.
“You okay?” Adam asked. Kyle’s head wobbled in a way that might have been a nod. His eyes were squeezed shut.
“Ice cream headache.” He wrinkled his nose.
“You’re an idiot.”
Kyle moaned and leaned over to rest his head on Adam’s shoulder. “Ice cream headaches are also a serious medical condition.”
“What does your ice cream say about you?” Adam asked.
Kyle grimaced as he sat up, and eyed his half-eaten cone. “I’m ready for anything!” He took another mouthful and appeared to avoid the brain freeze this time. Adam snorted and resisted the urge to call him an idiot again.
They each settled down to eat their ice cream, watching the people around them. A few minutes later, Adam’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he jumped. The screen showed a text message from Rebecca.
How did it go?!?!
Adam took some satisfaction in the fact that it was still going. He stole a glance at Kyle, only to find him unapologetically reading over his shoulder. Adam coughed uncomfortably and slid the phone back in his pocket. There was a glint in Kyle’s eye that said there was a joke at Adam’s expense coming, so he quickly changed the topic.
“You didn’t tell me the end of the story,” he said.
Kyle paused midplot and frowned. “What story?”
“The one where you lost your cell phone and started three fights on your first date.”
“It was two fights, and technically Olivia started the first one. I was defending myself.” He bit into his ice cream and chewed. “And the end of the story, since that’s what you asked about, is that one thing led to another and we went back to her place and I woke up later and tried to sneak out. Only I could find my clothes but not my phone. So I left.”
There wasn’t any smirk on his face now; Kyle seemed totally serious.
“You left?” Adam frowned. He couldn’t imagine leaving an item as expensive as a phone behind.
“Yup.” Another crunch of the cone.
“But you got it back.”
“What?”
“Your phone. You said before you lost it temporarily. So you got it back.”
Kyle chewed slowly. One corner of his mouth crooked up. “I did.”
“How?” Adam took a big spoonful of ice cream and waited. He might have leaned forward a little in anticipation. The end of this story was going to be good.
“She used it to call me two months later to say she was pregnant.”
Once, in middle school, Adam had snorted milk out his nose. It had been uncomfortable to say the least, but nothing compared to the searing pain of cold ice cream shooting into his nose and sinuses, thanks to his involuntary inhale over Kyle’s truth bomb. The sensation nearly blinded him.
Fuck, it felt like there was a spike driving through his brain between his eyes. Tears leaked out from beneath his eyelids while he fought not to cough or spit the ice cream out.
Kyle laughed. “I’m so sorry!”
A gentle hand rubbed the back of Adam’s neck. Long fingers traced the tendons from his shoulders to the bottom of his skull. Warmth followed in their wake, making him shiver. The hand settled, palm on the back of his neck, while fingers scratched into his scalp. Heat prickled into Adam’s ears, but at least his throat relaxed and he was able to swallow. He took a deep breath as he awkwardly patted the back of Kyle’s hand.
“I’m okay.”
“That’s never happened when I’ve told that story before. I really am sorry,” Kyle said. Adam arched an eyebrow and glared from where he was still hunched over. Kyle didn’t seem very apologetic, only amused. Adam focused on breathing and each breath seemed to help his chest expand and sit him up straighter.
“Do you tell it often?” he said.
Kyle rubbed small circles around Adam’s back. “Not really. People get uncomfortable when you talk about unplanned pregnancies.”
“You don’t say?”
“Sorry if my story had any unintended side effects.”
“So that’s it?” Adam said. “You took her on one date, made a baby, and the rest is history?”
“Pretty much.”
Adam was surprised at how casual Kyle was being. Hindsight was twenty-twenty and all that, but there had to be more than what Kyle had told him so far. “You know they make romantic comedies with the same plot, right?”
Kyle made a sour face, but it softened as he spoke. “There is nothing funny about breaking the news to your father that he’s going to be a grandpa, and the mom is someone he’s never heard of, trust me. And nothing funny about a screaming three-month-old at two in the morning for the sixtieth night in a row, or trying to pay rent on a one-bedroom Seattle apartment on artist’s commissions and the salary of a charitable foundation’s personal assistant, while also trying to pay for diapers. Hollywood has it all wrong.” Kyle’s smile belied the seriousness of what he was saying, like despite it all, he was enjoying this little trip down memory lane. But then the smile faded, and his eyes lost their focus until he was staring at a point somewhere over Adam’s shoulder. “The romance was nice though, even if there wasn’t always a lot of comedy.”
Adam’s throat went dry. The noise from the café seemed to pick up, as if everyone had been eavesdropping on their conversation and was now trying to fill the silence.
The couch shifted as Kyle slid up next to him, until they were shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, knee to knee. He didn’t move as Kyle pulled the empty paper cup away and set it on the table in front of them.
“I don’t want a repeat of earlier events.” He slipped his hand back into Adam’s. His skin was cool, and the sensation of their fingers linking together created a tiny sense of intimacy in the busy café. Kyle pitched his voice where only Adam would hear him. “There’s an important moral to this story.”
“And that would be?”
Kyle leaned in a little closer. “If you play your cards right, Mr. Hathaway, I have been known to go home with the ones I really like on the first date.”
Adam was instantly glad Kyle had thought to put his ice cream aside, because his hands clamped like vises on Kyle’s. He would have crushed the cup if he’d still been holding it. He opened and closed his mouth a few times.
“Kyle, I— Uh . . .” Fuck. His lizard brain replayed the highlight reel from the night in the hall at Kyle’s house in graphic detail. Every moan, every gasp, the feeling of Kyle’s desperate mouth on his. He remained speechless, while Kyle’s smile started to slip.
Fuck. He was going to fuck this up. It was like the harder he worked at it, the more the words seemed to strangle in his throat.
Kyle nudged Adam in the ribs, laughing quietly, like they’d shared a good joke. He settled back to his side of the couch. The space between them seemed massive and Adam had no idea how to shrink it.
Yes. I want to take you back to my place and see if you make the same sounds you did at your house when I have my hand on your dick.
“Kyle, look . . . This is a lot for—” he nearly said for me, but that would have made him seem like a selfish asshole “—for us. We’ve both got plenty of reasons to be careful about this. We should take this slow. We’ve got time, right?” He tried to smile, and Kyle managed a faint smile too, although he still wouldn’t meet Adam’s eyes.
“Very true, Mr. Hathaway. Lots of time.” He leaned forward, picked up a napkin, and wiped his hands. “Should we go?”
Adam almost sighed. He stood. His joints and limbs moved stiffly, like a robot’s. “Lead the way.”
It was surprising how well, in fact, Kyle did lead the way, considering how he’d had no idea where they were going on the walk over. After the first block, the awkwardness between them passed a bit, and Kyle’s tone lightened. He kept more space between them than Adam would have liked, and he didn’t make any further suggestions about continuing their night as they came to the spot where he had parked his van.
“Permission to approach, Mr. Hathaway?” Kyle said.
Adam cleared his throat, but didn’t speak. He held his breath as Kyle stepped forward, coming closer than Adam had expected. He closed his eyes as the tip of Kyle’s nose brushed against his face. There was a whisper of breath over his mouth. Soft lips touched his, like a silent repeat of Kyle’s request, but Adam didn’t back away. Adam’s hands came up and slid inside Kyle’s jacket, feeling the warm, breathing body underneath.
Now would be a good time to speak. He didn’t have to say anything long or articulate. A simple Let’s go back to my place would probably do the trick. But when Kyle stepped back, all Adam could do was to inhale and exhale. Kyle didn’t seem to mind.
“I’ll see you soon,” he said. Adam nodded, and managed to get enough control of his body to kiss Kyle one last time. Then he was left standing on the street, as Kyle got in the van and pulled away.
Back at his apartment, Adam stretched out on the couch. On a scale of one to ten, he’d give that first date a seven, although he’d grade his own performance a bit lower in the second half. Still, the latter was salvageable, and hopefully Kyle would deem him worthy of a second date.
He thought of Kyle’s earlier question. “Is this the part where I say, ‘I had a nice time,’ and you say, ‘Me too’?” The part where they said they should do it again, but without making plans? The least he could do was follow through on that part. Like magic, as he reached for his phone, it buzzed in his pocket. One new text message.
Hello?? Is everything okay?
It was from Rebecca. Adam considered that question. He supposed everything was okay. He’d had a good time, his ice cream snorting aside. If he’d done a better job of keeping his shit together, he might not be sitting alone on his couch, texting his sister, but really, for a first date, and considering how long it had taken to get them to that—
There was a knock on his door. Stupidly, Adam wondered if Rebecca had gotten impatient and had driven over to make sure he had survived. She’d been extra big sister in the week since he’d fallen into her pool, and he couldn’t blame her. Still, he was a grown-up, and showing up at his apartment two minutes after sending a text was excessive by anyone’s standards.
“Rebecca, you might be interrupting something truly naked and filthy,” Adam said loudly as he walked toward the door. “You’re going to regret it when I open this door; there will be no way for you to ever erase what’s going on in here from your brain.” He flung the door open, and his own brain took a second to register what he saw. Because it wasn’t Rebecca at the door. Holy shit, it definitely was not Rebecca.
It was Kyle. He stood there, hands on either side of the door, mouth open like he was trying to catch his breath.
“Did you bring someone else home from our date?” he asked.