Recipe for Two

by Tia Fielding

  Suddenly Wyatt’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Hey, Wyatt, it’s okay, I’m sorry, whatever—”

  “No, no, it’s good tears. I’ve been thinking about that, too.” Wyatt wiped his eyes and chuckled wetly. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never cried as much as I have since I met you.”

  “That sounded like high praise,” Izzy deadpanned. Then he smiled. “I agree. I don’t…I guess it’s a heart thing. My dad used to say tears came from the heart, not the eyes.” He wasn’t sure how or why he remembered that, but he did and felt happy about it.

  “I guess so. Makes sense to me.” Wyatt pulled Izzy closer and pointedly kept tugging until Izzy hovered over him.

  Izzy took the hint and lowered himself gently until he was lying on top of Wyatt, but kept most of his weight on his lower body as Wyatt spread his legs to make room for Izzy’s hips to slot inside them.

  “I love you,” Izzy whispered. “We have the place for hours and hours. Wanna get naked with me?”

  Wyatt laughed with obvious delight. “Oh, you romantic you.” He lifted his head to kiss Izzy. “You know, yeah, I think I do want to.”

  They undressed clumsily, laughing at dodging elbows and kissing every chance they got. Izzy couldn’t remember ever having fun like this when it came to sex.

  “That thing you said I might be, demisexual? I did some research and it sounds about right. When I think back on other people I’ve been with, the sex was always better when it was someone I really had a connection with,” Izzy murmured as he pushed the pillows into place and watched Wyatt get settled.

  “Oh? I’m glad you have a word for it.”

  He watched as Wyatt took hold of his own cock and began to stroke it slowly.

  Izzy’s mouth watered. “Gimme that,” he said, swatting at Wyatt’s wrist as he settled between his legs. He watched as precome formed at the tip of the pretty cock in his hand and then licked it away, humming at the taste. “I don’t know how this is perfect, too.” He gave Wyatt’s dick a few strokes, then put his mouth around it and went to town.

  Who would’ve thought he’d love sucking cock so much? No, not just any cock though. Wyatt’s. He hummed around it and watched as Wyatt’s stomach contracted.

  Izzy grabbed the lube he had on the bedside table and slicked his fingers. Then he pulled off Wyatt’s cock and showed his fingers to him.

  “Do I put this stuff on my cock and jerk off while I suck you off, or can I try fingering you?” He mouthed along Wyatt’s dick again, waiting for him to make a decision.

  “F-fingers, definitely,” Wyatt said finally, his voice breathy as fuck, and his eyes darker than ever. “Please.”

  Izzy made sure to be as gentle as he could, feeling glad that he’d done the dishes so his fingers were squeaky clean now. It felt weird, thinking about not hurting someone as much as he did with Wyatt. If it was up to Izzy, no harm would ever come to his love.

  Izzy crooked his fingers and found what he was looking for. The precome taste in his mouth intensified as did Wyatt’s little noises.

  “A-another one?”

  Surprised, Izzy carefully tucked a third finger inside Wyatt and kept on rotating his wrist as he fucked Wyatt with his fingers. He felt powerful, being in control of Wyatt’s pleasure like this. He knew all the power was Wyatt’s though. Everything would stop immediately if Wyatt said so. But it was Izzy’s job to give Wyatt what he wanted and that felt sexy as hell.

  “Ugh, Izzy, stop,” Wyatt panted.

  Izzy pulled off his cock and raised his brows as he stilled his hand, before ever so slowly pulling out so he wouldn’t hurt Wyatt. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, I just…” Wyatt looked anywhere but at Izzy. He seemed to take a couple of deep breaths, then, with a determined expression on his face, he looked back at Izzy and said, “I want you inside me.”

  Izzy almost inhaled his spit and coughed a couple of times. “You do?”

  “Yeah, I mean…don’t you?”

  “Of course I do, if you’re ready,” he replied quickly.

  “Yeah, but Izzy, are you ready?” It felt touching, the way Wyatt took care of him just as much as the other way around.

  “Yeah, I want you. More than I’ve ever wanted anyone.”

  They’d texted about sex, so he knew they wouldn’t be using condoms since they were both clean. That alone would make this different and well, he thought he was ready.

  Izzy got to his knees and grabbed the lube again. He slicked his cock and put more of the stuff inside Wyatt, who hissed at the cold touch.

  Izzy winced, but then Wyatt pulled him down into a kiss and he was blindly moving his hips and somehow he managed to almost get it right while Wyatt sucked on his tongue.

  In the end, he had to pull his face back. “W-wait, I got to…hold on.” He grabbed his cock and carefully pushed inside Wyatt. Both of them groaned loudly, only stopping when Izzy bottomed out and froze.

  “Oh God,” Izzy whispered. He closed his eyes at the feeling of being inside Wyatt. Because yeah, he’d had sex before, even anal with a girlfriend years and years ago, but nothing about his previous experiences with sex had prepared him for this.

  “Move,” Wyatt moaned, wrapping his fingers around his own dick.

  Izzy leaned in to kiss him a few times, long and sweet and slow, until Wyatt laughed into the last one and pushed him away. “Now, Izzy, stop stalling.”

  “Okay, okay…” He hadn’t been ready, not even close, but maybe he could last for a bit with the most urgent feeling having passed. He was closing in on thirty for fuck’s sake, he should be able to last—yeah, yeah, or maybe not.

  He rocked with Wyatt, who angled his hips to do something to change the angle and began to let out these little punched out mewls. That sound, the desperation and pure need of it, went directly into Izzy’s balls.

  “Oh fuck, I’m gonna…”

  He picked up speed for maybe ten wild thrusts, then came harder than he ever had before.

  Wyatt’s body gripped him almost violently before he could pull out, and he started to get too sensitive for it to feel enjoyable. Fuck, maybe next time he’d get Wyatt to come first and then—he moaned at the thought as he finally separated from Wyatt.

  “T-that was…” Wyatt looked blissed out as hell. “Oh wow…”

  “Yeah, I…wow…” Izzy did the mildly disgusting thing and grabbed his T-shirt off the floor, then wiped them both down with it.

  He collapsed next to Wyatt and they started to giggle together.

  “Next time, if you’re in the right mindset, I think you should do that to me.” Izzy thought maybe Wyatt wouldn’t want that when he was having a girl day. Or maybe he would, who knew. “I had no idea it could be this good,” he added as an afterthought.

  Then his brain reminded him that it had been Wyatt’s first time, and he turned to look at Wyatt. “Was it okay? I mean, it was your first time and I sort of forgot, so I—”

  “Hey, breathe, baby. It was…it was so good. I don’t think it could’ve been better.”

  When Izzy let himself sink into Wyatt’s loving gaze, he saw only honesty and felt so, so relieved. He’d never been anyone’s first before.

  “Okay, good.”

  “We should probably shower,” Wyatt suggested a while later, and Izzy agreed. It just felt like such an ordeal right then.

  “I need an incentive, I think,” he grumbled.

  “How about we shower, make some tea, and watch whatever you want?” Wyatt suggested as he prepared to roll out of bed.

  “Yeah, okay. Sounds good.” Nothing had ever sounded better.

  Chapter 21

  The first time that Wyatt topped, it was a messy disaster and was over in about ten seconds. Wyatt wasn’t even sure he managed to bottom out before he came, and his face burned with humiliation as he blurted out his stammering apologies. And Izzy only laughed, and rolled over, stretching his inked body like a cat luxuriating in the sun, and grinned up at him.

 
; “Guess you think I’m really hot, huh?”

  “It’s not funny!”

  Izzy’s smile vanished, and he tugged Wyatt down beside him. “It doesn’t matter, sweetheart. We’ve got all the time in the world to build your stamina up.” He kissed him. “You wanna finger me while I jerk off?”

  Fuck. Izzy was so shameless when it came to sex, and Wyatt really hoped he could learn to be like that as well. And it would also be good if he could last longer than ten seconds the next time he tried to top.

  He was eager to try again the weekend after Harper left, because Dad and Justin were taking Lettie to some dog expo thing in Ventura, and since the speaker she wanted to see—an expert trainer Lettie followed religiously on YouTube—wasn’t giving her talk until late afternoon, they’d decided to stay overnight and make a weekend of it.

  Justin was slowly coming around to the idea of Izzy spending time at the house. He knew now that Izzy hadn’t been lying about his panic attacks, but sometimes Wyatt figured he was still stubbornly clinging to his first impressions just because he didn’t want to admit he’d been entirely wrong about Izzy, even after that whole speech he’d given Izzy after his attack: “I’m so sorry for everything that has happened. But you’re going to be part of the family and we take care of our own.”

  There was wiggle room, Wyatt figured, between accepting someone was part of the family, and being overjoyed about it, and Justin was determined to exploit it as long as he could. Justin might never be Izzy’s best friend, but he’d taken him to the family doctor and got him a recommendation for medical marijuana. Getting the card seemed like a waste of money and time to Wyatt since it was legal for Izzy to buy weed anyway, but Izzy didn’t complain about all the hoops he had to jump through for the card. The card was more for Justin’s peace of mind than anyone else’s, Wyatt figured, and allowed him to let Izzy stay on the property in good conscience.

  It would take a while to get the card, but in the meantime Izzy had bought a couple of edibles and kept them in a tin beside his bed. He hadn’t used any yet. He’d thrown out his old weed.

  “I messed up a lot when I was younger,” Izzy said one night, tapping his fingers against his knee as he and Wyatt watched a movie. “I made a lot of bad decisions. I don’t want to do that again.”

  “You won’t,” Wyatt said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  Wyatt shrugged. “Maybe I do.”

  “I was angry a lot of the time,” Izzy said. “At my mom, and my stepdad. At my teachers. At fucking everyone. I was angriest at myself, I think, and now I look back and wonder why I couldn’t give myself a break, you know? Why’d I hate myself like that? I was just a messed-up kid.”

  “What would you tell that kid now?” Wyatt asked softly.

  Izzy was silent for a long while. Then he leaned over and took Wyatt’s hand. “I’d tell him to be patient, because some day he’s gonna meet someone who loves him a hell of a lot more than he deserves.”

  “But I don’t deserve you either,” Wyatt said, lifting Izzy’s hand and pressing his lips to his knuckles. “I was messed up too. I still am. Maybe I didn’t act out like you did, but I hated myself too. And then this guy came along who didn’t care about the difference between a baker and a pâtissier—”

  Izzy huffed out a laugh at that.

  “And he didn’t care that sometimes I’m a boy and sometimes I’m a girl and sometimes I’m in-between.” Wyatt’s eyes stung with unshed tears. “You didn’t know why you hated yourself, but I always knew. And the thing I hated the most? You don’t even care about it. Izzy, you’re nicer to me than I’ve ever been to myself.”

  “So this is us then,” Izzy said at last. His voice sounded scratchy. “Just two people who are nicer to each other than we are to ourselves.”

  “Yeah,” Wyatt said. “I think we can make that work, right?”

  Izzy laughed quietly. “Yeah, I think we can.”

  * * * *

  Dad and Justin and Lettie left for Ventura early on Saturday morning, and Wyatt started planning dinner immediately. Dad’s kitchen was always well-stocked, so there was no danger that he’d need to race out and grab ingredients. He just wasn’t sure what to make. He went and inspected the recipe books on the shelf in Dad’s study. He avoided the ones written by Dad—Dad had made his name with kid-friendly family recipes, and Wyatt wanted something a little more special.

  He flicked through a few books and found himself coming back to the sticky fig lamb cutlets with warm bean and couscous salad. That seemed special without being too extravagant, and he hoped it wouldn’t be too intimidating for Izzy, whose tastes didn’t seem to run much beyond the basics at all.

  He called Harper to check.

  “No, that sounds good,” she assured him. “What about dessert? Oooh, you make amazing vanilla bean panna cotta!”

  “I’m going to make cupcakes.”

  “For a romantic dinner?”

  “Yes,” he said firmly. “I want to make him cupcakes.”

  “Okay, so that’s half the night figured out,” Harper said.

  “What’s the other half?”

  “What are you going to wear, Wy?”

  Wyatt’s heart sank. “I…I don’t know.”

  “How about that green button-up shirt you got last Christmas?” Harper asked. “That looks really good on you.”

  Wyatt hummed noncommittally.

  “What?”

  “I kind of…” He swallowed. “I kind of woke up this morning not being a boy.”

  “Oh,” said Harper. “Oh.”

  Wyatt was glad they were on a phone call and she couldn’t see him wince.

  “Okay, so you know you’re welcome to raid my closet, right?” Harper asked.

  “I…” He swallowed again.

  “Only if you want,” Harper said. “But you’re welcome to.”

  Wyatt thought back to what Izzy had said about how smoking hot Harper had looked when he’d met her. “What were you wearing when you met him?”

  “My yellow sundress,” Harper said. “Actually, I think I left it there because I figured the weather here turns on a dime and jeans are usually a better option.” She didn’t push him. Didn’t tell him to do it. She only said, her voice softening, “It would suit you, I think.”

  His voice shook. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “But whatever you’re comfortable in.”

  Wyatt squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Now,” Harper said, her voice rich and warm. “You’re baking bread too, right? Because I don’t care how everyone hates carbs these days. Warm home-baked bread is a fucking delight.”

  Wyatt laughed, the tension bleeding out of him. “Yeah, of course I’m baking bread. That goes without saying.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Harper said, and distracted him from his lingering nerves by telling him all about her weird new neighbor, the kitten she’d ‘accidentally’ spotted on her local shelter’s website, and the hot guy in Hugo Boss suits she kept running into in the elevator at work.

  * * * *

  Izzy was working until the afternoon, so Wyatt had most of the day to prepare and to…to freak out. He found the yellow sun dress hanging in Harper’s closet and held it up against his body. It was pretty. Definitely pretty. Maybe smoking hot too—but would Wyatt be either of those things if he wore the dress? He figured there was only one way to find out.

  He shucked his clothes off in the middle of Harper’s bedroom and tugged the sun dress over his head. He’d expected it to be tight across the bodice, but he guessed his lack of boobs made up for the additional width of his shoulders. And it’s not as though he was much broader than Harper anyway. He’d always been skinny. One of the thin spaghetti straps slid down his shoulder, and Wyatt tugged it back into position and stared at himself in Harper’s mirror.

  He couldn’t tell if he looked like a girl, or if he just looked like a boy in a dress.

  He unfastened his hair. Ruffled it to give it some body, and oh
—there she was. The pretty girl staring back at him, eyes as big as an owl’s because she didn’t quite know how to process what she was seeing either.

  And it was all cosmetic, Wyatt knew. The dress and the hair didn’t make him a girl—it was something far deeper below the surface that did that—but this was how the girl wanted to look. This was how she saw herself.

  Wyatt smiled slightly, and the girl’s lips curled up in the reflection in the mirror.

  For years Wyatt had been trying to deny her, and now here she was. And she was pretty, and she was smiling, and she had a date tonight with a gorgeous guy who loved her.

  * * * *

  “Holy shit,” Izzy said when Wyatt opened the door. “You’re beautiful!”

  And he said it with such wonder in his voice that Wyatt didn’t have a chance to feel weird or awkward or anxious, only adored.

  “You’re the most beautiful girl I ever saw,” Izzy said. He sounded breathless as he leaned in. They kissed, and Wyatt melted into it.

  “Come inside,” Wyatt said when they broke the kiss at last. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  The dining table was set, and Wyatt had even lit some candles, but it was a wasted effort because Izzy could hardly tear his gaze away from Wyatt long enough to even notice how nice everything looked. Wyatt figured the table could have been covered in old newspapers instead of a linen tablecloth and Izzy wouldn’t have picked up on it.

  The thought that Izzy couldn’t look away from him was thrilling. Wyatt had put on a little eyeliner and some pink-tinted lip gloss before, but he’d never felt bewitching like this. It was a heady feeling.

  They ate, sitting next to each other at the dining table. When Wyatt had set the table first he’d had them on opposite sides, but the Abbot’s dining table was huge, and he didn’t like that they’d be so far away from each other. So he’d set their places beside one another instead, and they leaned into each other as they ate, and touched hands, and smiled.

  “I never had anyone do anything for me like this before,” Izzy said. “I feel like I’ve stepped into a dream.”

  “Me too,” Wyatt said. He bit his lip. “It’s not too much, is it?”