The Delicious Series: The First Volume

by Stella Starling

  Jeremy knew Nick hadn’t been faking it, or selling it, or joking around.

  It had been real.

  J knew Nick wanted him.

  But he still didn’t know Nick was leaving.

  “Candi was watching,” Nick said, hating that he was lying by implication but determined not to make it harder on either of them than it had to be. If they kept up the charade, it wouldn’t hurt so badly when he left. Nick forced a wink, trying to sound light hearted as he stepped back to put some space between them. “Like you said, gotta sell it, J.”

  Jeremy’s brow crinkled in confusion, his eyes searching Nick’s for something that wouldn’t do either of them any good. Not now.

  They were alone on the running path. There was no sign of Candi or Marcie, and Nick hadn’t even noticed them leaving. As soon as he’d had J in his arms, he hadn’t given the girls a second thought. He’d lost track of time, lost track of everything except how right it had felt to finally let himself stop pretending.

  But that still didn’t change anything.

  Nick shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels and not letting himself reach out like he wanted to. If he touched Jeremy again, if he admitted that he’d kissed him because he’d wanted to, needed to, had been pulled in—irresistibly, as if J was gravity—then he wouldn’t be able to stop. And even though he was trying his hardest to hide how he really felt, to bury what he really wanted under the guise of the fake boyfriend act they’d kept up so well until now, it just about killed him when J actually bought it. Jeremy’s light dimmed when he failed to find what he was looking for in Nick’s eyes, and when his face fell, the uncharacteristic expression stabbed Nick in the heart.

  No.

  Fuck that.

  He never wanted to be the cause of Jeremy feeling like that, and his resolve to protect both of them from getting hurt went up in smoke the moment he saw that he’d already failed.

  Nick reached out for J’s hand. “Jeremy, I didn’t mean—”

  “No,” Jeremy said, squaring his shoulders as he took a step back. Dodging the hand. Jeremy cleared his throat, pasting a weak smile on his face. “That’s okay, I just… forgot what we were doing for a minute. Like you always say, you’re really good at faking it, Nick.”

  Nick’s chest constricted, tightening with a familiar, crushing weight. It was the one he always felt when Heather pushed him to read with Ava, that he felt every time he was stuck between a rock and a hard place and couldn’t see a way out. He’d been prepared to blurt out the truth—that Nick did want him. That he hadn’t been faking it—but either J actually believed that Nick could have kissed him like that and not meant it, or he wanted to protect himself, too.

  And it wouldn’t be fair for Nick to ask which one it was until he told Jeremy a different truth. The hardest one.

  “I’m moving back to Seattle, J.”

  “What?” Jeremy cocked his head to the side, the wounded look on his face momentarily replaced by incomprehension, as if Nick had just spoken in a foreign language.

  But then J got it.

  Nick saw the moment it clicked. A visible tide of hurt rushed back into Jeremy’s eyes, rising fast and furious and spilling over before he turned his head away to hide it.

  “You’re moving away?” he asked, his voice muffled as he swiped at his eyes. “Leaving Tulsa? For good?”

  “I have to,” Nick said, hating the words. Hating Heather. Hating that he didn’t know how to fix what he saw on Jeremy’s face.

  “No,” Jeremy said, shaking his head in denial. “Why would you? Ava’s here. And I’m… I mean, we’re… um, what about your job, and—”

  “Heather’s moving back to Seattle, J. She’s returning to the job she left, and she’s taking Ava, so… ”

  “So you have to go, too,” Jeremy finished for him, looking pale.

  Nick nodded. It wasn’t a choice every parent would make—in fact, probably not even most—but he knew Jeremy understood. In between all the playful teasing and casual flirtatiousness of the last couple of months, they’d managed to share other things, too. J knew a bit about his childhood, and why he was so determined to put Ava first. His daughter meant everything to him.

  The problem was, Jeremy meant something, too.

  But Jeremy’s life was here in Tulsa—his store, his friends, his roots—and the fact that they’d played make believe for a few months didn’t give Nick the right to expect any of that to change just because he’d finally realized that fact.

  Too little, too late.

  “I… I’ll miss this,” Jeremy said after a moment, his voice gravelly. Strained. Very un-Jeremy-like. It hurt Nick just to hear it. Jeremy forced a smile and added, “You’re the best fake boyfriend I ever had.”

  “You, too,” Nick said, dying a little as he tried to follow J’s example and keep things light. “But don’t tell Beck.”

  The silence stretched between them, filled with things Nick should say, but couldn’t figure out how to. It felt almost physical, a wall growing between them, brick by silent brick.

  “When are you leaving?” Jeremy finally asked, breaking it.

  “Soon.” Nick cleared his throat. Maybe details were a good place to start. Easier, at least. “Heather and Ava are flying back sometime in June, after she’s done with school. I still have to wrap things up here, but I’ll follow once I get everything handled.”

  “Sometime in June,” Jeremy repeated, pinching the bridge of his nose. He huffed out a breath that could have passed for a laugh if it hadn’t sounded like he was trying not to cry. “Well, I guess that means there’s no point in asking you to be my date to Gavin’s wedding at the end of the month, right? I suppose I’ll just have to drum up another one.”

  Nick’s stomach clenched. Jeremy was obviously trying to keep up some version of their usual teasing banter, but the fact remained that at some point, yeah, the guy was going to find someone else. Someone real. Someone here. Someone who wasn’t Nick.

  “When’s the wedding?” he asked, seized by a sudden sense of desperation. “Maybe I can—”

  “No,” Jeremy said, putting a hand up to stop him. “You may be able to sell it to someone like Candi, but even if you’re still here, there wouldn’t be any point trying to pass you off as my date. My friends already know you were just faking it anyway… right?”

  The last word—tacked on at the end and infused with just enough hope to hurt—almost broke him. Keeping up the charade didn’t seem to be protecting either one of them from the pain of ending things, but even though Jeremy was wrong—Nick hadn’t been faking it, not for a while—admitting the truth at this point would just be a selfish bid to hold on to Jeremy’s affections. The thought of J finding someone else may have just about crushed him, but that still didn’t give Nick the right to ask him not to.

  J deserved to be happy, and if Nick couldn’t be there to give him that, it wasn’t fair to try to stop him from finding someone who could.

  “Right,” Jeremy mumbled, answering himself as Nick’s silence killed the spark of hope. He turned away, fishing his keys out of his pocket. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve got to go.”

  And Nick let him, because it was the right thing to do, even if his selfish heart wanted to beg Jeremy to stay. But even if he’d let himself, it wouldn’t have mattered.

  Jeremy may have been the one who walked away, but Nick was the one who was leaving.

  9

  Jeremy

  Jeremy made it all the way home without crying. He was used to breaking up. And, technically, that had been the plan from the start, right?

  So there was no reason to cry.

  He was definitely going to stop.

  Soon.

  Any minute now.

  For real.

  He was stopping.

  Fail.

  10

  Jeremy

  “How’s Kelley’s business plan coming along, Gavin?” Lucy asked, squeezing into the seat next to Jeremy.
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  She set a plate of cookies in the middle of the small table they were all crowded around. The little bakery bistro tables really hadn’t been designed to accommodate five chairs, but their options were limited. Delicious wasn’t all that big, and Danny had refused to let them back into the more spacious prep area. Apparently he was in the middle of preparing a huge cupcake order, and he’d threatened each of them with bodily harm if they so much as breathed on his sugary works of art.

  Jeremy reached for a cookie, but then thought better of it when he realized they were shaped like Nick.

  Stars, he meant, rubbing the freckles on his wrist as a sad sigh escaped at the thought. They were shaped like stars. Which reminded him of Nick. Who hadn’t called him since Monday.

  “It’s going really well,” Gavin answered Lucy. “Ben’s been helping her look into what it would take to get a small business loan once she graduates. That girl is bright, definitely a natural-born entrepreneur.”

  Jeremy was going to stop thinking of Nick, starting now. He’d concentrate on Kelley instead. After all, she was more than just an employee. She’d worked for him ever since she’d been in high school, and he loved her like a little sister.

  A little sister who had single-handedly managed to help him keep his bookstore afloat.

  Gavin’s fiancé, Ben, was a banker, and he and Gav had been mentoring Kelley as she finished her business degree. Both men agreed that the girl was a gem, and they were right. Jeremy had always thought so, so he should be able to concentrate on her success, rather than on the latest failure of his epically doomed love life, right?

  “Oh my God, seriously?” Danny rolled his eyes, slashing a hand through the air. “No. We are not talking about bank loans today. We’re here to plan a wedding.”

  Okay. Weddings worked as a not-thinking-about-Nick topic, too.

  Sort of.

  Not quite as well as boring business plans, actually, but Jeremy would take what he could get. And besides, Danny was right. Gavin’s wedding was the reason they’d all met at the bakery.

  “Actually, most of the planning is already done, Danny,” Gavin said, snagging a cookie and making an obvious effort not to smile at his bestie.

  “I meant the important part,” Danny said, fluttering a hand in the air dismissively at Gavin’s claim. “Obviously.”

  “Your tux fittings?” Sherri asked, winking at Gavin and ignoring the glare Danny sent her for daring to suggest a non-wedding-cake-oriented priority.

  Sherri owned Best Dressed, the little clothing boutique next door to Sir Reads-a-lot. Besides being a good friend, she’d also made sure that they had all looked amazing when Danny got married back in December.

  “I still have everyone’s measurements on file,” she said. “But I’m going to need to double check that nothing’s changed. Especially you, Jeremy. You look like you’ve been hitting the gym.”

  Jeremy gave her a weak smile. The gym was another fail on the don’t-think-about-Nick front. Maybe he should have a cookie after all.

  “Let’s focus,” Danny said, pushing the plate of cookies aside before Jeremy could reach for one and plopping his sketchbook down in its spot. “The cake is the important thing, here. It has to be perfect. Did you look over the designs I sent you last night, Gav?”

  Gavin shook his head, mouth full of cookie.

  “Gavin,” Danny said, getting his no-nonsense, let’s-get-serious-because-this-is-about-decorating-pastries voice out. “We have less than a month. I need to know what you want.”

  “I trust you,” Gavin said.

  Danny glared at him.

  “Surprise me?”

  “Gavin.”

  “Okay, sorry. Let me look at them now.” His cheeks went faintly pink, and then his lips curved up in a decidedly naughty smile as he added, “Ben came home early last night and… distracted me.”

  “Forgiven,” Danny said instantly, scooting forward in his chair eagerly. “But only if you spill the details.”

  Lucy threw a hand up, laughing. “Stop right there. Some of us haven’t gotten laid in months, Gav, so I’m going to veto that. No need to rub it in, right Jeremy?”

  “Pfft,” Danny said, waving a hand at her. “Majority rules. Besides, Jeremy has a boyfriend now, so I’m pretty sure you’re all on your own with that one, Luce.”

  “Fake boyfriend,” Jeremy corrected him, forcing the words past the sudden tightness in his throat. He couldn’t pinpoint when it had stopped feeling that way for him, but Nick hadn’t denied it. “And not even that, now. Nick and I broke… um, we aren’t doing that anymore.”

  “You’re not bringing him to the wedding?” Gavin asked, sounding surprised.

  “Yeah, no.” Jeremy gave a strained laugh, hoping it sounded more convincing than he thought it did. God, he really was a failure when it came to men. “You know how I am with boyfriends. Apparently I can’t even hold on to the fake ones.”

  Four pairs of eyes zeroed in on him, and the concerned expressions on his friends’ faces told him that his I-don’t-care act hadn’t cut it. He knew they loved him, but for real, he was all cried out and just couldn’t go there right now.

  Well, maybe not all cried out, if the hot sting behind his eyes meant what he thought it did.

  Shit.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket, flashing the dark screen at them in a bid for mercy.

  “I’ve got to take this call,” he lied. “Be back in a second.”

  They let him get away with it, and the sound of the little bell over the door of the bakery marked his bid for freedom as he escaped. He thought about walking back to Sir Reads-a-lot, but as pathetic as it sounded, he just didn’t have it in him. Instead, he leaned against the sun-warmed brick next to Delicious’s front door, telling himself for the umpteenth time to get a grip.

  He’d broken up with more men than he wanted to count. Nick shouldn’t be any different.

  He squeezed his eyes closed, not thinking about the way Nick had kissed him. Jeremy had never been kissed quite like that before. He would have bet anything that Nick had meant it. That it had been real. That it was the start of something, rather than the end.

  But, really, it shouldn’t surprise him that he’d been wrong. Wasn’t that pretty much guaranteed, given his track record?

  He scrubbed the heel of his hand against his eyes, realizing as he did that he was still clutching his phone. It had been five days in the cone of silence, and he kept wanting to text Nick. They hadn’t actually fought about anything. It wasn’t technically even a breakup. So he should be able to, right?

  But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  Nick didn’t seem to like to text, anyway. Of course, Jeremy could always call instead… but what would he say?

  I miss you.

  Please stay.

  I don’t know how to get over you.

  I don’t even want to.

  Jeremy huffed out a breath, shoving the phone back in his pocket. Gavin had a couple of hanging flower baskets near the bakery’s entrance, a riot of gorgeous color that was almost offensively cheerful in the face of the devastation that used to be Jeremy’s heart. Oh, good. There was a crinkled brown one buried amidst all that bright radiance. Jeremy reached in and pinched it off, feeling a little better when it crumpled in his fingers.

  His eyes roved over the blooms, searching for more. They really were pretty, shriveled ones notwithstanding. Maybe he should get some flowers for the front of Sir Reads-a-lot.

  But no.

  They’d just end up dying at the end of the summer, and summer was almost over, anyway.

  Okay, well, technically summer hadn’t quite started yet, but same difference.

  The flowers would be gone too soon, so really, there was no point, right? They might change things for a little while, but they wouldn’t stick around long enough to do anything but make him want more. And once they left, his life would be emptier than if he’d never had them in the first place.

  Delicious’s be
ll sounded. Jeremy wasn’t surprised, even though he didn’t bother to turn around. He’d known his friends wouldn’t leave him alone forever. A part of him was even grateful.

  “Deadheading therapy?” Gavin asked from behind him, squeezing his shoulder.

  “Just trying to do my part to keep the neighborhood from going downhill,” Jeremy said, pinching off another dead flower.

  “Mm,” Gavin said, waiting.

  Jeremy sighed, turning to face him.

  “You okay, sweetie?” Gavin asked.

  Jeremy nodded, refusing to let his eyes well up again.

  “That boyfriend comment seemed to bother you,” Gavin said, reaching out to wipe the moisture from Jeremy’s cheeks. “Did you and Nick have a fight?”

  “No,” Jeremy said, tempted to leave it at that. Telling Gavin the details wasn’t going to help anything. Wasn’t going to change it. “He’s, um, moving back to Seattle,” he said anyway.

  Gavin’s eyes softened in sympathy.

  “You know we weren’t technically dating, Gav,” Jeremy said, wondering if saying it out loud would suddenly make it feel true. Would make it stop hurting. “It was all just… pretend.”

  “You liked him,” Gavin said. Not a question.

  Jeremy’s throat closed up again, and he nodded.

  “Worse, I thought he liked me,” he said, once he could. “Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like we were faking it. Or at least, it did for me. I thought…”

  …that it was real. That it would last. That he might start to love me back.

  Gavin didn’t make him say any of it out loud, though. He just hugged him. Which actually did help, after all. A little bit.

  “Seattle isn’t that far,” Gavin said, even though they both knew it wasn’t true.