The Delicious Series: The First Volume

by Stella Starling

  Hot Guy was standing over a weight bench that was currently occupied by a skinny man lying flat on his back. Hot Guy’s hands rested lightly on the bar that Skinny was trying to lift, and Jeremy could see his lips moving as he talked to the man below him. There was no way to hear what he was saying over the cacophony of metallic clangs, occasional cursing, and loud grunts that filled the room, but whatever it was clearly worked. With a sudden surge, Skinny pushed the heavy-looking bar all the way up, holding it there for a second before shakily lowering it back down to his chest. Hot Guy laughed, taking it from him as if it weighed nothing and moving those gorgeous lips again in something that Jeremy would bet money on being praise. Hot Guy was grinning down at Skinny, but he must have felt Jeremy’s eyes on him, because for a split-second he looked up, catching his gaze in the mirror. His eyebrow raised when Jeremy forgot to look away, but then Skinny said something, capturing Hot Guy’s attention again.

  “Jeremy, ogling the trainers doesn’t count as getting your sweat on,” Gavin said, stepping in front of Jeremy and blocking his view. “Besides, I’m pretty sure that one is straight.”

  “You’re the one who pointed out the benefits of this part of the gym,” Jeremy said. Gavin was right, though. Watching Hot Guy was a definite perk, but as long as Jeremy was here, he might as well do what he’d come for. He frowned down at the heavy thing Gavin had handed him. It was starting to make his arms tired. “What am I supposed to do with this thing, anyway?”

  He half-hoped Gavin would say “put it down,” but before Gav had a chance to answer, a feminine squeal that sounded a lot like Jeremy’s name cut through the other sounds of the weight room.

  “Oh my God! Jeremy! It’s you, isn’t it? Jeremy Bennett?”

  Jeremy blinked, hoping that he did not, in fact, actually recognize that voice. That would be just a bit too coincidental, wouldn’t it? And not in the happy accident way.

  “It’s me! Candi Clarke! From Edison High!”

  Oh, God.

  Really?

  But seriously, given their total lack of interaction back in high school, Jeremy was surprised she recognized him.

  “That’s Candi? I never would have guessed,” Gavin mumbled, hiding a smile and—thankfully—taking the heavy weight that Jeremy was about to drop out of his hands. “I guess she hasn’t maxed out her daily punctuation quota after all,” Gav added.

  It was true. Jeremy could actually hear the exclamation points peppering her speech. She bounced to a stop in front of him, beaming up at him with the full-wattage of her Prom Queen smile, as if he really were her long-lost BFF.

  He tried not to laugh, and ended up choking instead. Which made Candi hit him on the back. She clearly wasn’t just at the gym to show off the fact that she had not, in fact, let herself go. Girl had some muscle.

  “Are you okay, Jeremy?” she asked, still patting him on the back. Well, pounding. Not that the effort she was making slowed the torrent of enthusiasm that gushed out of her mouth. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I ran into you! I just saw your Facebook post this morning! It’s so great to hear how well you’ve done for yourself! And you’re gay! That’s so exciting! I—”

  She cut herself off with a gasp, her eyes widening as she suddenly spun around to stare across the room at Hot Guy.

  “Jeremy!” she said, turning back to him with a look of utter glee. “I can’t believe I didn’t put two and two together when I read about your boyfriend! Former college athlete! The rock climbing thing! Astronomy! And training for the mud run! OMG—” She actually said “OMG” instead of “Oh my God” that time. Jeremy bit his lip to keep from laughing. Again. “—it’s Nick, isn’t it? That must be why you’re here at the gym!”

  “My boyfriend?” Jeremy repeated, any desire to laugh killed by the sudden dread that blossomed in his stomach when he realized what kind of conclusion she’d jumped to. “Um, no, Candi. I don’t actually—”

  She ignored him, waving her arm wildly in the air as she called out to Hot Guy. “Nick! Oh, Nick! Come over here! You sly dog, I just figured out why you keep turning my friend Marcie down!”

  Jeremy shot Gavin a look of terrified desperation, but Gav just shook his head, and mouthed an “oh, shit.” Not helpful.

  “What’s up, Candi?” Hot Guy—Nick—ambled over with an easy smile, glancing between the three of them curiously. “You want to schedule some more personal training?”

  “I really should,” she said. “Especially with the reunion coming up, but… Nick! Don’t distract me! Did you know that I went to high school with your boyfriend? Oh my God, I can’t believe I didn’t know you were gay!”

  Nick’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline in surprise just as Candi latched onto Jeremy’s arm with a grip of steel. She yanked him closer, completely ruining his half-formed plan to make a break for it before this train wreck of a conversation could go any further.

  Which, really, left him very few options. He could a) die from embarrassment, or b) … nope. Really, that was the only one. Despite being out of other options, though, it didn’t happen. At least, not literally.

  Figuratively, he was already six feet under.

  Jeremy could see himself reflected in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors across the room, and his face had gone cherry-red with embarrassment. Plus, he was sweating. Nervous sweat, not the sexy kind that was making Nick’s shirt cling to his a-fucking-mazing chest. And, of course, because Jeremy lost all good sense when it came to men, his mind instantly got stuck on how unattractive he must look with the whole red-face-plus-nervous-sweat thing going on, rather than focusing on the important things, like the fact that the very hot, very straight man in front of him was about to expose Jeremy’s accidental charade.

  At which point, Jeremy would, in fact, surely manage to die.

  If this Nick didn’t kill him first, that is.

  Nick’s eyes roamed over Jeremy’s mortified face for a moment before the man turned his attention back to Candi.

  “My… boyfriend?” Nick repeated back to her, thankfully in a tone that did not convey imminent death or dismemberment.

  On the contrary, he sounded amused, which was… interesting.

  No. Not interesting. Jeremy was not going to let himself be interested. He needed to stay focused.

  “Jeremy’s training for the Tough Mudder with you, isn’t he?” Candi asked excitedly, gesturing at the front of Nick’s t-shirt.

  The words Mudder Legion and Bleed Orange framed a bandana’d skull on the front, and while it looked sort of scary-cool on someone like Nick, Jeremy knew it would look ridiculous if he were to claim to be a part of whatever the “mudder legion” was.

  Well, okay, so he already had claimed it, technically.

  Which was ridiculous.

  What had he been thinking?

  “I read all about it on Facebook!” Candi continued. “It was so sweet the way Jeremy called you the man of his dreams. Does this mean you’ll be coming to our class reunion as his date? Did you know that Marcie and I are co-heads for the reunion planning committee? I’m sure she mentioned it to you. God, she’ll be so jealous when she finds out you’re taken! Then again, maybe not, now. It’s so nice to find out you’re gay! I’m sure it will make her feel better about the whole thing. But you are going to come to the reunion with Jeremy, aren’t you, Nick? It will be so much fun to have you there!”

  Jeremy wondered if Candi had included the ability to talk without actually needing to stop for breath in her own list of post-high school accomplishments. Not that he was in a position to complain. At least her verbal tsunami had bought him a few more seconds of life.

  She beamed up at Nick, practically vibrating with enthusiasm as she waited for his answer.

  Nick’s eyes were sparkling, despite his obvious confusion, and he turned his attention to Jeremy without answering her. “Care to explain?”

  “I…” Jeremy paused to clear his throat, at a loss, because, if he were honest, the answer was “not really, no.”


  He’d much prefer to just slink out of this nightmare with his tail between his legs and pretend that he’d never laid eyes on either Candi or Nick.

  Although really, that would be a shame when it came to Nick.

  Because a) the man really was the living definition of eye candy and b) Jeremy probably had the world’s biggest sweet tooth, which c) was probably a case of mixed metaphors, but d) still made him want to ignore his latest resolution to stop dating, except that e) dating wasn’t exactly an option currently on the table, so f) who was he kidding, because g) if he couldn’t run away, he needed to hurry up and figure out how to finish dying from embarrassment, and h) dating while dead didn’t sound that appealing, and besides, i) Gavin was probably right about Nick being straight, but j) Nick was still waiting for Jeremy to explain, and k) Jeremy hadn’t managed to do the dying thing yet, which meant that l) he would have to come up with some kind of explanation for why Candi thought Nick was his boyfriend.

  Unless Candi beat him to it.

  “You didn’t tell Nick about the reunion, Jeremy?” Candi asked saving/dooming him. “You are coming, aren’t you? I’m sure I saw you RSVP on Facebook.”

  Behind him, Gavin snickered. Traitor.

  “Um, no, I’m pretty sure I didn’t RSVP, Candi,” Jeremy said, avoiding Nick’s eyes.

  Also still managing to avoid the Nick-is-not-my-real-boyfriend reveal.

  Could mastering the art of avoidance be considered self-improvement? It wasn’t currently on his list of personal goals, but surely any form of mastery was a win, right?

  “Well, you have to come now, Jeremy,” Candi said. “Honestly, you’ve turned into one of our most interesting classmates! Who would have thought? I mean, no offense of course. Oh my God! I just had a great idea! Why don’t you join the planning committee? We have a meeting next weekend at my place! Did you know I married Mike Clarke? We live over by Southern Hills. Everyone will be there. Please say you’ll come!”

  Jeremy swallowed, wondering how this fiasco could possibly get any worse. “I really don’t think I can make it—”

  “Don’t look so scared, Jeremy,” she said, cutting him off with a playful smack as she finally let go of his arm. “It will be fun. And you definitely need to bring Nick.”

  Oh, okay. That’s how it could get worse. Good to know.

  “Can you make it, Nick?” Candi asked, turning to the hot trainer. “It’s next Saturday.”

  “Sorry, Candi. My Saturday morning is already booked here at the gym,” Nick said, his lip quirking up at the corner.

  Why the man wasn’t throwing him under the bus was a mystery, although it clearly pointed to the fact that Nick was not an asshole. But still. God. Jeremy was definitely going to end up looking like one.

  “I’m busy, too,” he said, buying time as he mentally scrambled for the least humiliating way to confess the truth. “I own a bookstore, and we don’t close until six on Saturdays.”

  “Well, isn’t it lucky that we’re doing dinner, then?” Candi asked cheerfully. She was a relentless, perky little steamroller. “Does seven o’clock work for the two of you?”

  Her eyes bounced back and forth between Jeremy and Nick as she waited for an answer, and behind him, Gavin started to lose the not-laughing battle. The man sounded like he was choking, for real, but Jeremy was going to have to trust that Gav would survive. He had other things to worry about at the moment. Like the fact that Nick was watching him with a look of amused expectation, one eyebrow raised in an obvious invitation for Jeremy to come clean.

  Jeremy swallowed, feeling his cheeks grow impossibly hotter.

  He waited a moment, just in case the ground decided to have mercy and open up to swallow him after all.

  No such luck.

  He opened his mouth, ready to commit social suicide, but before he could get the words out, Nick winked at him.

  “I don’t know about seven, Candi,” he said, his eyes still on Jeremy. “What do you think, Pumpkin? Does that work for ‘us’?”

  Nick grinned at Jeremy, as if the question was an inside joke between just the two of them. That smile did something frighteningly pleasant to Jeremy’s heart for the split-second before he got a hold of himself and clamped down on it. He had no idea why Nick was playing along in this case, but he wouldn’t fool himself into thinking it meant anything.

  Anything more than that the man was his savior, of course.

  A saint.

  A knight in shining armor, if he wanted to think of it that way.

  With a ridiculously hot body.

  “Jeremy?” Candi prompted him. “Seven?”

  “Sure,” he said, ignoring the little tingle of anticipation that surged through him.

  It wasn’t a date.

  In fact, it probably wouldn’t happen at all.

  He’d thank Nick and let him off the hook as soon as Candi left them alone, and then—sometime before the date of her committee meeting—come up with an excuse to give her about why “they” couldn’t make it.

  “Great!” Candi said, clapping her hands together happily. “It will be so cute to see the two of you together as a couple! God, I honestly had no idea about the gay thing, Nick. And—oh! Darn it, I’ve totally lost track of time. I’m supposed to meet Marcie for lunch. I can’t wait to tell her all about this! I’ll message you my address on Facebook, Jeremy.”

  And then she was gone.

  And Jeremy swallowed, knowing now was the time to express his eternal gratitude. Or maybe apologize. Or, at the least, stop drooling.

  Instead, he blurted, “Are you gay?”

  “Nope,” Nick answered easily, not seeming even remotely fazed by the question.

  “Oh, Lord, Jeremy,” Gavin said, clapping him on the shoulder with a gleeful grin. “You’ve done it now.”

  Gavin walked back over to the assorted weight things stacked by the wall with a little shake of his head, laughing under his breath as he picked up a couple of them and started doing some kind of swinging thing that looked extremely un-fun. He was right, though. Jeremy had definitely gone and “done it.” Done something, anyway. And when Nick gave him a sexy, wicked smile that he knew damn well didn’t mean what he’d like it to, Jeremy knew it was the kind of “something” he’d have to get himself out of as quickly as possible.

  Despite Candi’s assumptions, Nick wasn’t the perfect boyfriend Jeremy had dreamed up. He couldn’t be, because this was real life, not one of the romances that Jeremy read far too many of.

  And in real life, Jeremy knew better than to fall for a man who had just said he wasn’t gay.

  For someone he’d just met.

  Who he didn’t know at all.

  And probably never would.

  The old Jeremy might have been in serious danger of thinking the way Nick’s warm smile made his heart trip meant something, but the new and improved Jeremy wasn’t that foolish.

  He wasn’t.

  Really.

  2

  Nick

  The guy who’d been checking him out earlier in the mirror—Jeremy?—had turned fire-engine red at one point, but now his obvious embarrassment had faded to a less-alarming flushed look. If Nick hadn’t known better, he could have mistaken the color for the result of a good workout.

  The whole encounter had been as unexpected as it was funny, and Nick could feel his lips trying to twitch up into a smile. With a Herculean effort, he managed to hold in his laughter. The guy was finally starting to look like he wasn’t going to hyperventilate, and Nick, of all people, would never want to fan the flames of someone else’s self-consciousness. Besides, there had to be a good story behind whatever it was that had just happened, and he was hoping that if he gave Jeremy a minute, he’d get to hear it.

  It was probably the most fun he’d had all week, maybe even in the whole month since he’d moved to Tulsa.

  When Heather had accepted the job here, there really hadn’t been any question about whether he’d follow her and Ava. Moving halfway across the
country to stay in his daughter’s life was an easy decision—he would never let himself be the kind of absentee father his own had been—and he didn’t regret it. But he’d be lying if he said uprooting himself to move to a place where he didn’t know anyone had been easy.

  Beck—more like a brother at this point than just a best friend—liked to tease Nick about his need to surround himself with people all the time. Nick used to laugh it off, claiming it wasn’t really a need as much as a habit. He was an outgoing guy. He liked to have fun, and fun, by his definition, generally involved other people.

  But still, maybe there was something to Beck’s claim.

  Nick had to admit that leaving all his friends behind when he’d moved had turned out to be harder than he’d expected. He didn’t know a lot of people here in Tulsa yet, and those that he did were all just acquaintances through the gym so far. He had yet to meet anyone special. Anyone he really clicked with.

  Candi, for example. She and her friend Marcie were both a hoot, for sure, but both women were a bit too much like an unstoppable force of nature to suit his more laid-back personality. At least, in anything other than small doses.

  When Candi had called him over a few minutes ago, this Jeremy guy’s face had been a hilarious mix of terror and resignation, making Nick suspect that Jeremy might have that in common with him. Even without knowing any of the details, it had instantly made him feel a bond with the other man. It had also made him want to jump in and bail Jeremy out of whatever comedy of misunderstanding he’d gotten himself twisted up in with Candi.

  Nick couldn’t stand to see someone else embarrassed without trying to step in and help.

  “Um, I guess I should start by saying thank you,” Jeremy said, finally finding his voice. He still looked fifty shades of flustered. It was a bit endearing.

  “No problem,” Nick said, hoping his smile would put the guy at ease. “Gotta admit it was kind of fun. Are you going to tell me what it was all about, though?”