It had been Spencer’s suggestion to go out to dinner instead of ordering in food. Ridiculously, it sounded fun to me as well. Kind of like our first date or something. And though I knew neither of us would admit it, we both needed to move, to get out of the house. As amazing as the sex had been, the last hour had seen our worlds shift on their axis. We’d slept together and confessed our love for each other. That was no small thing. Especially considering all the fears that had played on repeat the night before.

As we lay there after sex, the weight of that seemed to settle over us. As soon as Spencer brought up grabbing dinner at Charlie’s Tavern, I jumped at the chance. We rinsed off, threw on our clothes, and left the house.

The thing I hadn’t considered was that we wouldn’t be able to touch each other in public. We were seated at a small square table, and I had nearly sat down beside him, then realized how intimate that would look. Instead, we sat across from each other, like I would in any other business meeting, with a client or with a friend.

If I was reading Spencer correctly, he was having similar emotions, the battle of doing what we knew we should or throwing caution to the wind and not worrying about what anyone else would say. However, we knew there would be consequences if we acted rashly. We didn’t need to talk about it.

But as we sat there eating Mexican food, I would’ve given anything to be back home on the couch with pizza delivery or even microwave meals. Just so his hand could be in mine. Things were a bit forced, a little awkward between us, which made sense, considering all that had happened. I knew I felt uncomfortably exposed; I assumed he did too.

I decided to call a spade a spade. “I’m kind of struggling to know what to say.”

“Me too.” He glanced around the half-filled restaurant. “I sorta feel like everyone is listening, but I know they aren’t.”

“Well, it is Lavender Shores. They might be.” I forced a laugh like it was a joke, but we both knew it wasn’t. I tried again. “I’m tempted to stand up and just make an announcement.” The attempt at humor fell flat. He didn’t laugh. Neither did I. He’d told me he loved me after we had sex. But the rush of hormones had faded by this point, and we were back in the real world. Out of the blue, my insecurity began to rage. Maybe now that it was over, he was having a change of heart. I hadn’t lived up to the fantasy. I hoped my fears were baseless, and I knew it sounded needy to ask, but I was also certain if I didn’t put it out there it would eat at me. “Are you still feeling okay about everything?”

He nodded, but his brows furrowed. “Aren’t you?”

I nodded as well, but he hadn’t really said what I needed to hear. “Yes, do you still…?”

He smiled softly, and though he didn’t look around the restaurant again, he kept his voice at a whisper. “Are you asking if I still love you, Dr. Carlisle?”

I’d thought I was asking if he was okay with everything, but I realized my fear was a bit more primal than that. I nodded.

“I do. And despite me being absolutely fucking terrified, I think I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Really?” Those words grasped my soul and took me flying. “So am I.”

“Good.” His smile widened and his body visibly relaxed. Maybe he’d needed assurances as well. His words were even quieter this time, and he leaned closer. “When we get home… er, to your house, I mean… can I be inside of you again?”

“You never have to ask that. The answer will always be yes.” My erection sprung back to life in that instant. Probably from equal measure anticipation of him fucking me again and his accidentally insinuating my house being home. I didn’t comment on that part. “It’s a good thing I sit down for a living. It really had been quite a while. And having your big dick in me twice in one night might make it challenging to walk tomorrow.”

He laughed, louder than he probably meant to, and looked around the room yet again. “The idea of you sitting in your therapy sessions while feeling me still in your ass is maybe the hottest thing I’ve ever thought of.”

I wasn’t about to disagree. But I needed to change the subject or the erection was going to become an issue. “So, I never asked, how did you end up at that party at Paulie’s?” Talking about a sex party probably wasn’t the best strategy.

“Who?” The confusion that clouded his face cleared almost instantly. “Oh, the guy who owned that mansion. I don’t even know if I met him officially. A friend of mine at the firm invited me. I guess the two of them are friends.”

I nodded as I took a bite of my carnitas and chewed. Then I realized the implications of that. “Wait a minute, you’re out at work?”

Spencer flinched, looking around yet again at the other diners. He turned wide eyes toward me. “Geesh, could you say that louder?” Though he seemed startled, there was humor in his voice, not anger.

I grimaced. “Sorry about that. You just surprised me.”

“Not a big deal. But no, I’m not out at work.” He rolled his eyes. “Kind of a stupid story really. Or a story that shows I’m stupid, I suppose. Like I told you, I’m entirely new to the whole hookup thing. I downloaded one of those apps and was on it while in the bathroom at work. Never even entered my mind that someone else in the firm might be on it too. Anyway, Nick, he’s one of the paralegals, was online and saw me. He’s the one who invited me.”

I didn’t like the feeling that went through me at the thought of whoever Nick was. It wasn’t a sensation I was familiar with either. “So, you and Nick…?”

“No, not even a little.” He chuckled, tilted his head, and smiled. “Are you jealous?”

I shook my head. “No.” Well, that didn’t sound defensive at all.

His grin grew. “You are!”

No sense denying it again. “Sorry. Just a gut reaction, I guess.”

“I kinda like it.” He took a bite of his burrito, still grinning. He looked a little proud. And adorable.

We ate in silence for a few minutes, though the awkwardness and tension seemed to be gone. I still wished I could reach across and touch his hand or do something utterly ridiculous like play footsie under the table, but it helped knowing Spencer felt the same about things on the other side of sex. A decade of fantasies and strangled hopes had just blossomed in front of me. More than that, if this was to be believed, my entire life had completely changed in the course of a couple of hours.

Holy shit.

“Donovan, are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

I smiled at him, or at least I tried to. Who knows what expression I really gave. “Yeah, I am. It just hit me, again, how big all of this is.”

He nodded solemnly. “Believe me, I get it.”

I scrolled through different conversation topics in my head, trying to land on anything that would be good. I didn’t want to talk about work or family. Not even the kids. Movies and music was too inane. I was tempted to ask how he was doing, really doing, considering his reparative therapy past and having just had gay intercourse for the first time. But I wasn’t sure I’d be able to have the conversation in that moment and know when I slipped from lover to therapist. I fell back to the sex party. It seemed I had a one-track mind. “So, you knew it was me when I talked to that other guy at the masquerade, while you were…. I can’t believe you didn’t bolt right then and there.”

Spencer halted with a fork lifted halfway to his lips, and then he placed it back on the plate. He looked nervous. “Well, that wasn’t exactly true.”

“Oh, you didn’t know it was me?” That disappointed me and didn’t make sense.

He cringed. “I knew who you were the moment I saw you.”

I had to process that; maybe he was teasing. “You did?”

Spencer nodded and wrinkled his nose in way of an apology.

“So when you approached me, you knew it was me? When you started to….”

“Yeah. Sorry if that makes you feel weird. Like I said, I’d wanted you forever. And there you were, right in front of me. I felt I’d never get that chance again. I wasn’t strong enough to resist you, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let you slip through my fingers when I could finally have you, at least, in one way.”

I gaped at him, truly letting the implication of his words sink in. He had known; the whole time, he’d known it was me. One more ounce of proof that his claims of desire were real. Not that I needed any more proof. But the confirmation was breathtaking.

“I’m sorry, Donovan. I hope that doesn’t make you feel betrayed.”

Betrayed? Why the hell would I feel betrayed? The fulfillment of my fantasy falls in my lap—the last thing I felt was betrayed. “You kidding? I didn’t think this day could get any better, but you just made it so.”

His voice shot up, surprised. “Really?”

“Oh, hell yeah.” I leaned closer. “How’d you know it was me?”

Spencer laughed and shook his head. “It’s kind of cute that you thought you were actually in disguise. You had on a wolf snout over your nose and a leather jacket. Anybody who wanted to recognize you could have.” He tapped my piña colada with his fingernail. “Plus, you’re the only grown man I know who orders these at a party. Or anywhere other than a beach, for that matter.”

I felt my cheeks flush. “They’re good.”

“See? Totally cute.” He straightened, probably realizing how intimate we looked even though we weren’t touching. “And me? You said you realized it was me. How? I was covered in fur and half of a mask. I know you hadn’t seen my body since I lost weight and waxed it clean.”

“Not till the very end, actually. Your cape slid out of place, and I saw the tattoo on the back of your shoulder.”

“Oh.” He shook his head. “I didn’t even think about the tattoo. I do my best to forget that stupid thing is even back there.”

I realized I had never asked him about his tattoo. Never asked him about a million things over the years, anything that seemed too personal or would’ve revealed that I’d been inspecting him. It was time to change that. “What is that tattoo? I’ve never been able to figure it out.”

He rolled his eyes again, and his tone took on a frustrated, sad timbre. “That’s because I got it at some spur-of-the-moment crap shop. It never looked very good, but it started fading within a year, and all the ink blurred. Now it’s pretty much just a mess. I keep meaning to try to get it lasered off, but I just haven’t.” He sat up, his voice brightening. “Actually, I’ll do that soon. I was afraid it would mean I was giving up if I ever got it removed. But now, it would mean freedom. I should’ve done that the day the divorce was finalized.”

I liked the change in his tone, but I had to know. “Why? How could getting rid of it mean you were giving up?”

He sighed and sounded sad once again. “It was the beginning of my years in reparative therapy.” He made a flustered gesture with his hands. “When I was little, I was pretty effeminate.” He lifted his brows. “You look like that surprises you?”

“Yeah. There’s nothing feminine about you at all, except that you’re kind and patient and all of those sort of things. But I always chalked that up to you being a good preacher’s son. That, and you’re genuinely a good man. But those things aren’t actually feminine; they’re just qualities our culture ascribes to women more than men.”

“Spoken like a therapist, for sure.” Spencer chuckled, though it still didn’t sound happy. “When I was a kid, my father would harp on me anytime I walked a little swishy or had a lilt in my voice. There were a million things, countless ways in which I wasn’t manly enough, even as a kid. But over the years, I practiced and practiced”—he extended both of his arms in a sweeping motion—“and this is what emerged.”

One of the things I was so attracted to about Spencer was how masculine he seemed all the time. To know that quality had come from a painful place hurt a bit. “How does that relate to the tattoo?”

“Oh, right.” He sighed in disgust. “Like I said, I’d just gotten into reparative therapy. I wanted a tattoo that proclaimed my faith that God was going to heal me. God is often referred to as the Lion of Judah. And lions are about as masculine as you can get. Some would say butch even.” He winked, a little bit of his playful nature returning. “So I got a lion. A manly, godly lion. But now it just looks like a weird fuzzy cat.”

My heart broke for him, for the child he was, for the young man he had been. It was killing me not to reach across the table and touch him. I did the next best thing and tried to make him smile. “Well, you did dress up as a mixture of the Phantom and the musical Cats. Maybe you can tattoo a phantom mask on it and call it good.”

He shuddered, then tilted his head again. “Actually, that may not be that bad an idea. I might have to check and see if Connor can whip up some design like that.” He laughed softly, but I couldn’t help thinking that he sounded serious.

“I was kidding.” Try as I might, I couldn’t stop my smile, and I was certain he could hear the judgment in my voice. “You don’t actually enjoy Cats, do you?”

He gasped, and I marveled how he even made that sound in a masculine way. He really had to have practiced. “You don’t like Cats? Grizabella singing ‘Memory’? Riding an old tire up to heaven? What’s not to love?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Oh my God, you’re serious.”

He was about to respond, but at that moment two people stepped up to our table.

“Well, Debbra, I think we should sit down and join these two handsome men for dinner.”

I looked up to see Robert and Debbra Kelly. Robert grinned, his gaze darting happily between Spencer and me. Debbra offered a friendly smile, but her voice was firm. “Don’t you two worry, we will not be ruining your dinner. No matter how happy that would make my husband.”

Robert glared playfully at her. “Come on, love, delicious food, beautiful company, you included of course. Make an old man’s night.”

Any other time, with any other person, I would’ve invited them to sit down. There was no mood that Robert couldn’t make better. Especially when he was flirting in front of Debbra. He was a therapist’s dream. But I wouldn’t let anyone in the world interrupt this meal. And if anybody could figure out what was going on between Spencer and me in the space of a minute, it would be Robert.

“Absolutely not.” Debbra swatted at him. “Besides, they’re almost done.” She turned her gaze on me, then inspected Spencer as well. “I noticed you boys out on the veranda the other night. I figured Emma and Ethan were probably inside watching a movie or something.” She glanced at the two empty spots. “Are they not here?”

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Robert wasn’t the one I needed to worry about. But why did I need to worry about it at all? We didn’t need to hide anything. I shoved that thought away as quickly as it came. She had labeled the main reasons why I should. We needed to take our time and figure out where things stood and consider any effect on Emma and Ethan. That, and I didn’t want to rush Spencer any more than I already had. He truly seemed okay with everything, but I had a hard time trusting that the other shoe wouldn’t fall. “No, they’re with their mom tonight. Spencer and I needed to discuss a few things.”

Her eyes stayed narrowed for a few seconds and then brightened. “Oh, that’s right, Ethan just had his birthday, so that means Emma’s is only a few weeks away. So you’re planning her party in secret? What theme are you considering? She’s a little old for princesses at this point.” She tapped a long lavender nail on the table and shook her head. “No, I guess she’ll only be eleven. That’s not too old. Well, if you go with the princess theme, make sure you somehow include a little boy who wants to be a princess. You know we’re focusing on transgender rights this year.”

“Darling, I don’t think little Emma’s birthday party has to be a social awareness event.” Robert smiled at his wife, though I didn’t know why he tried. Any choice Debbra made was final. From what I noticed, he never got much of a say. Which didn’t seem to bother him all that much. He gasped, a sucking in of breath that highlighted just how masculine Spencer’s earlier gasp had actually been, and looked excitedly between Spencer and me again as he lifted a finger. “But if you do decide to go that route, I will happily volunteer to show up at her party in a gown. I bought two for the parade, but I didn’t have time for the costume change like originally planned. I’ve been looking for a reason to wear it.”

Debbra groaned and linked her arm through her husband’s. “I’m sorry I brought it up. Please forgive me.” She smiled exasperatedly at the two of us and then led him away. “Hope you two have a pleasant evening.”

We watched them walk across the restaurant and returned Robert’s wave as they found a table.

“God, I love that man. I swear, you could sit and watch him for weeks and not be bored once.” Spencer chuckled. “And did Debbra just refer to your porch as the veranda?”

“Yes, you know Debbra, always likes to make everything in Lavender Shores sound more highbrow than it actually is. Even though most things here are fairly luxurious anyway. She took one look at the size of my porch and dubbed it the veranda.”

Spencer seemed to consider that for a moment and then nodded. “Actually, that’s fitting. Porch doesn’t really capture how great that space is.” He leveled his gaze at me, his tone only sounding partially humorous. “Do you want to go home and lounge with me on the veranda before we have sex this evening?”

I couldn’t believe my ears, and I marveled at how easily he’d delivered that statement. Like it was already the most natural thing in the world to him. It seemed he was having less nerves around it than I was. “I’m not sure we’re quite ready for cuddling on the veranda, or the porch, for that matter. Actually, that’s not true, but I’m not sure if the town is ready for it.”

He shrugged. “So what? I don’t want to spend every second with you in public like we have here. Whispering. Terrified someone will figure it out. I think you were right earlier. We should stand up right here, right now, and announce it.”

I studied him for a heartbeat, then realized he was serious. Oh my God, he was serious. “Maybe we should slow down a bit. Figure out how this is going to affect the kids.”

His face fell, and his shoulders slumped. “Right.” He shook his head. “I kind of forgot about them for a minute. Probably makes me a horrible father.”

“I think you’re the best father I’ve ever seen.” I started to launch into an example of how great a father he truly was when a thought hit me. A thought that made me feel like a ten-year-old finding out they were going to Disney World. “I know you have Ethan and Emma starting Friday night, but let’s get out of town the next weekend.”

Spencer’s eyes widened.

I couldn’t tell if his reaction was excitement or if I’d pushed too quickly. “You’re right, I don’t want to spend every moment in public like we have here, so let’s not. Let’s go to San Fran. Not have to worry about people watching or trying to figure out how anything affects the kids. Let’s just be you and me. Donovan and Spencer, whatever that looks like.”

“Hell yeah.” He didn’t even pause to consider. “Have you to myself for an entire weekend in the city? Sign me up for that!”

Nah, this was so much better than Disney World. “Perfect. I know a great little hotel in the Castro. And I can get reservations at—”

He cut me off, putting his hand over mine, then pulling it back quickly. “Donovan, like I give a shit what we do or where we go.”

Though I smiled, I couldn’t speak.

Spencer tilted his head and cocked a brow. “Although, maybe there’s a production of Cats. That could be fun.” It seemed I did a poor job of hiding my reaction. He burst out laughing. “I’m kidding. You can breathe.”

“We can do Cats, if you want.”

He just chuckled. “That was convincing.”

I shrugged. “Well, we can. Like you said. Who cares what we do?” An entire weekend away with Spencer. Free from any other thought than being together. “How about we wrap up dinner? It might be a little bit too soon for the veranda”—I wouldn’t have admitted it before, but I had always kind of liked that term—“but getting home and riding you for a while sounds pretty perfect. Work for you?”

Spencer leered at me. “Do we actually have to pay or can we just run for the door?”