Aaron eyed it, glancing between the giant basket and the restaurant. “So did we just drive here so we could look at it before we have a picnic on the side of the road?”
“Nope. This place is totally awesome. It’s a seafood joint—lobster, clams, shrimp, mussels, corn on the cob. Some great desserts. But they don’t have a lot of sides and they don’t have a liquor license. So patrons are free to bring the extras with them.” He hefted the basket and patted its bottom. “Wine, bread, and salad courtesy of my sister, Eliza. That’s why I called her.”
“I’ve… uh… never eaten lobster before. Not a whole one anyway.”
“Really?” Cody’s grin turned wicked. “Then I’m totally ready to pop your lobster cherry. Let’s go.”
WATCHING AARON eat lobster was better than porn. The look on his face when he tasted the first succulent bite. Oh my God. Cody had to wriggle on his tree-stump seat to adjust his pants. And when Aaron sucked the meat out of the claws? Just kill me now.
“Mmmm. Wow. Man.” Aaron licked butter off his fingers. Gah! “How did I get to be thirty-seven years old without ever having a whole lobster before?”
“I take it you’re a fan?”
He grinned, his lips glistening with residual butter. “Are you kidding? I’m the new president of the fan club. Although….” He glanced at Cody through his lashes, a totally flirtatious look. “The experience is definitely enhanced by the company. And the ambience.” With a lobster claw in his hand, he gestured to other patrons crowding the sea of red tables around them, the fire pit, their picnic basket. “This place—The Place—is great. Thank you. I can pretty much guarantee I’d have never found it on my own.”
“Well, it’s a much better experience with other people anyway.”
To distract himself from Aaron’s enthusiastic slurping of lobster legs, Cody topped off their wine. “So this is your first time in the state, and obviously Connecticut is now at the top of your list of favorite places. Out of everywhere else you’ve traveled, though, what’s number two?”
Aaron ducked his head, fiddling with his corn cob. “I don’t travel.”
“Well, I mean, sure. I get that you’re not a guy who sails the ocean blue, but on land anyway.”
“Seriously. I don’t travel. This is the first time I’ve been out of Southern California.” He wiped his fingers on a wad of napkins and took a gulp of his wine. “I was raised in Fullerton, and I’ve never been farther south than San Clemente or farther north than Ventura.”
Cody’s jaw dropped. “What? Never?”
Aaron shrugged. “I almost went to San Francisco with my high school debate team, for the state speech tournament, but I didn’t qualify.”
“On purpose?”
This time it was Aaron’s turn to goggle. “How would you know that?”
“Oh, just a lucky guess.” Cody leaned his elbows on the table. “So if you’re the kind of guy who hates surprises—and trust me, I’ve gotten that memo—why suddenly decide to change careers and coasts?”
“Well, it’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“Kangaroos and jewelry stores. With a side order of traffic and smog.”
Cody blinked, his corn halfway to his mouth. “Huh?”
“It was a kind of evil harmonic convergence. We had a client who wanted to brand his company with a kangaroo logo, so my boss instructed me to find all instances of kangaroo logos within the current trademark and copyright window.” Aaron took another healthy swig of wine. “Do you know how many companies use kangaroos in their advertising in the United States alone? And don’t get me started on Australia.”
“I can imagine.”
“No, I’m pretty sure you can’t. God knows I didn’t. And most of the earlier instances haven’t been digitized. It was microfiche and worse. The most mind-numbing thing ever.”
Cody tried to imagine Aaron, with the bright intelligence and joy in his face at the Seaport Shipyard, stuck in a cubicle somewhere hunched over a microfiche and shuddered. “Nightmare.”
“Absolutely. Then, I got stuck in traffic again on my way to work—which is, mind you, five miles from my… my condo—for an hour and twenty minutes. There was a smog advisory for the fifth day in a row. I was not happy—hell, I was barely breathing. Then, I hit the mall on my lunch hour—”
“The mall? You? You don’t seem like a mall kind of guy.” Cody grinned as he dug lobster meat out of the shell. “More a Lands’ End catalog, ‘give me one of each color polo and another dozen pairs of chinos’ dude.”
Aaron blushed, brushing at his plastic lobster bib with his long, tapered fingers. “That was a lucky guess.”
“Nope. I’m just a very astute observer.”
“Anyway, it was for lunch, not shopping.” He sighed. “Bad move.”
“What, the mall was infested with zombies and you had to shoot your way out?”
“Worse. It was infested with my ex and his new boyfriend. Of two freaking months, mind you. They were….” Aaron’s gaze shifted to a point beyond Cody’s shoulder. “They were in the jewelry store. Trying on wedding rings.”
“Oh, man.” Anger surged through Cody’s chest, that some douchebag could do that to Aaron. “Was it a rough breakup?”
“In hindsight, it was probably for the best. But at the time, I thought a permanent hole had been punched in my heart.” He met Cody’s gaze again, his eyes so sad that Cody wanted to jump up off his tree stump and hug him. “The reason he broke up with me was because I wanted to get married and he… didn’t. I guess he just wasn’t interested in getting married to me.”
“Jeez, Aaron.” Cody reached across the table with both hands to grab Aaron’s fingers, butter, lobster juice, and all. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
He squeezed Cody’s hands and then let go to pick a piece of Hiran’s naan out of the picnic basket. “It wasn’t your fault.” He took a tiny bite of the bread, then shredded most of the rest of it over his half-eaten corn. “Besides, if he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here now, right?”
“So what—you just decided to get the hell out of Dodge so you wouldn’t see them again? You could always just change your lunch destinations, right?”
“It wasn’t about avoiding them. It was about the whole—” He made a circle in the air with the remains of the naan. “—shape of my life. The job, the Southern California bullshit, the relationship that wasn’t. I needed to change.”
“You mentioned you were homeless the day we met.”
“Yeah. Like an idiot, I put my condo on the market too. I found out I had multiple offers about a minute before you walked up.”
“But an offer isn’t a sale. You’re not actually homeless, right?”
“No. But if I reject all of the offers—which are all above the asking price with no contingencies—I’ll have to pay a huge penalty. And considering I quit my job before I got on a very expensive plane, my resources are dwindling.”
“I get why you wanted to change jobs, and even why you might want to jettison the whole California rat race.” Cody couldn’t have stood it for a minute. “But there are a lot of places in the country who hire both history teachers and librarians, probably a bunch that do both, like Hillview. Did you look at other places? You probably had a lot of other choices.”
Aaron picked up his wineglass with a wry smile. “To be honest, I only looked at Connecticut.”
“Really? Why?” Cody offered to top off Aaron’s wine again, but he shook his head. “I mean, Connecticut is awesome, but you didn’t know that then.”
“Holiday Inn.”
Cody paused, raising his eyebrows at Aaron. “Why would a hotel chain make a difference? You’re not even staying at one.”
Aaron chuckled. “Not the hotel chain. The movie. Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. One of the local TV stations used to broadcast it every Christmas Eve, with the most egregiously offensive bits cut out, and my aunt and I always watched it together. It was a safe haven for me. Comfort
ing. Something I could count on. Watching Bing Crosby build his own belonging place despite everyone else’s expectations.”
“Okay. I’ll bite. I take it Bing’s belonging place is in Connecticut.”
Aaron nodded. “There’s a scene, after Fred Astaire’s fiancée runs off with a Texas millionaire. Fred isn’t even in the scene. It’s between his manager and a guy who’s, I don’t know, a maître d’? A waiter? I was never sure. But when the manager asks if he’s seen Fred, the waiter guy says yes. Twice—once when he asked for scotch and soda—a bottle of each. And the next time when he asked which way is ‘Connect-i-cut.’ When I saw my ex shopping for rings with his new boyfriend after telling me he didn’t believe in marriage—the first thing that popped into my head was, ‘Which way is Connect-i-cut?’ I found the job listing online the same day.”
“Well….” Cody’s eyes prickled, and he gulped half his water to ease the thickening in his throat. “I’m glad you navigated your way to us.”
Aaron smiled, gesturing to the remains of their meal. “I have to say, though, that my first experience is a lot less traumatic than Bing’s first. I believe he fell into a snowbank.”
Cody finished his wine, mind racing. If Aaron hadn’t actually sold his house yet, he could still change his mind. I need to sell him on Connecticut. I need to sell him on me.
They topped off their dinner by sharing a piece of The Place’s Mississippi mud cake, then packed up the picnic basket. Night had fallen by the time they walked back to the car.
“So how was losing your lobster virginity?”
Aaron’s smile glinted in the parking lot lights. “The earth moved.”
Cody laughed. “Excellent. Well, since it went so well, how do you feel about another voyage of discovery tomorrow?”
Aaron’s smile faltered. “Uh… voyage? I don’t think—”
“Hey, it’s just a figure of speech. No actual watercraft involved. Oh right.” Cody slapped his forehead. “You’re a history teacher, not language arts.”
“You have to admit that my context with you has been very maritime-focused. I think I can be forgiven jumping to that particular conclusion.”
“There, see? You can’t leap into new situations, but you can leap to conclusions.” Cody clucked his tongue. “Really, Aaron.”
“I know. It’s all part of that risk-averse thing. Expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed.”
“Well, forget that. What I meant was how about another outing—”
“Another date?” Was that a hopeful note in Aaron’s voice?
“Yes. Another date. I consider it my sacred duty to introduce you to everything about my home state that will absolutely convince you that your first big risk was a success and you leaped in the right direction. Consider it positive reinforcement.”
“‘Positive reinforcement’? I thought you were a computer science major.”
“I had to take other classes too. Psychology 101. It fulfilled my social science requirement. I know just enough to be dangerous.”
He unlocked the car and stowed the basket in the rear seat. As he settled behind the wheel, he said, “I’m not just a tour guide at the Seaport, you know. I’m fully qualified to introduce you to the finest Connecticut has to offer.”
“Is that so? What are these famous qualifications? Special training? An endorsement from the governor?”
“My birth certificate. I was born here.” He pulled out into traffic. “Connecticut has everything you could want within a very short distance. You’ve got the ocean. You’ve got mountains.”
“California has that too.”
“Yeah, but in Connecticut you can get from one to the other in less than an hour. Hell, you can take a drive and hit all six New England states in less than six hours. We have manageable-sized states here.”
“Manageable, huh? Well, it’s true that Connecticut is barely bigger than LA County.”
“Do you like hiking? That’s safely land-based, right?”
“I’ll have you know that I’m an experienced pedestrian. But how rough is the terrain? I’ve got running shoes with me, but not hiking boots.”
Cody shot Aaron a grin. “Don’t worry. The hills above New Haven are manageable-sized hills. No pitons or belaying pins required.”
“Well, in that case, sign me up.”
Cody pulled up in front of Aaron’s Airbnb. How had he gotten here so fast? He should have detoured, maybe taken a drive along the shore, but no help for it now.
“Pass me your phone. Let’s not repeat yesterday’s mistake.” When Aaron handed it over, Cody entered his contact details. “Can you meet me at my place tomorrow? It’s closer to where we’re heading.”
Aaron accepted his phone and sent Cody a text, a wry smile on his face. “I am capable of navigating the roads, even without a sextant and a chronometer. Google Maps is a wonderful thing.”
“About ten o’clock? We can have lunch on the trail.”
Okay, now comes the awkward part. They looked at each other in the dim glow of the street lights. Aaron’s glance flicked to Cody’s lips. Yes, please. Given Aaron’s look-before-you-leap nature, Cody didn’t want to make the first move. He held still, tried for an inviting smile.
But Aaron opened the door. “Thank you. I had a really wonderful time.”
“So did I. See you tomorrow?”
Aaron nodded and got out. He raised a hand in farewell after he closed the door, but didn’t walk up the path. Instead, he stood, hands in his jacket pockets, until Cody finally convinced himself to put the car in gear and drive away.
Chapter SIX
THE NEXT day, Aaron was still kicking himself for not going in for the kiss. It was clear that Cody would have accepted it. But is “accepted” the kind of kiss I want? Wayne had sometimes acted as if Aaron’s desire for closeness, for affection, was an imposition that he had to put up with in exchange for fucking.
Why did I ever think marrying him would be a good idea? Clearly Wayne had done him a favor by dumping him. I should send him a thank-you note.
As he was preparing to leave for Cody’s, he checked his email, his belly dropping when his inbox contained nothing but the regular payment reminder from his mortgage company. It’s Saturday, for crying out loud, and my interview didn’t conclude until after three o’clock on Friday. He couldn’t reasonably expect a response from Hillview yet. But then, “reasonable” had gone out the window the minute Aaron decided to take a running leap at a new life in Connecticut.
Dr. Kensington had said they’d notify Aaron by the end of the week. Hadn’t he? Or was it “within the week”? Which week was he talking about? God, Aaron had been so high on the postpresentation rush, he couldn’t remember much of anything.
I remember Cody’s laugh. Cody’s eyes. Cody’s mouth.
Urgh. Not helping. He had a voicemail from his real estate agent—two in fact, both of which had arrived during his dinner with Cody last night. He’d been avoiding them, because she no doubt wanted him to make a decision. He wasn’t ready for that.
He checked his hair in the mirror one last time—what good will that do? It’s not as if it ever looks any different—and headed to his rental car, way too early as usual.
According to his phone’s GPS, Cody’s house was only ten minutes away by the turnpike. If Aaron showed up on the doorstep way before time, Cody would be forced to let him in, acting like he wasn’t inconvenienced. Aaron had endured far too much of that with Wayne—although Wayne had never bothered to hide his annoyance.
Cody isn’t Wayne. With his joy, his exuberance, the way he flung himself at life, he’d never betray his irritation—hell, he probably wouldn’t even feel it. If his plans were overset, he’d accept the new situation and make it just as joyful, just as exciting, just as fulfilling as what he’d originally planned. Spontaneous delight. Aaron wished he could tap some of that himself.
But maybe I can bask in his, at least for a little while. And in the meantime, I won’t strain it by being
too freaking early.
So Aaron took an alternate route, the same one they’d taken the night before, with a couple of detours to explore side roads and drive along the shore. He managed to combat his chronic early-itis and pull up in front of Cody’s house at nine fifty-eight.
Aaron had never studied architectural history, so he couldn’t place the style of the three-story house. Maybe Victorian? But not the turreted, gingerbread kind. Whatever it was, with its cheerful yellow paint and white trim, it was charming and perfectly maintained.
Aaron mounted the wide porch steps, heading for the door on the far left that Cody had told him led to his apartment, but before he could ring the bell, Cody popped his head out of the other door.
“Hey, you made it.”
Aaron lowered his hand and stepped back, checking the brass number plate over the transom. “I’m sorry. I thought this was your apartment.”
“Oh it is. I rent from my sister and brother-in-law, remember?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “This is their place, and since my niece is having a rough morning, I was hanging out to give her a little support. Come on in. You can meet some of my family.”
“Uh… sure.”
Cody held the door for him, and Aaron brushed past into a vestibule, a low bench on one wall and a line of coat hooks on the other.
Cody placed his hand in the small of Aaron’s back and guided him into a sunny—empty—living room. “Keep going. We’re in the family room at the back.”
Ignoring the way his skin buzzed under Cody’s touch, Aaron asked, “What’s up with your niece?”
Cody slowed down, glancing through an arch into a short hallway before turning to Aaron. “She’s upset because her teacher didn’t like her history report.”
“A history report? I got the impression she was pretty young.”
“She’s six.” He smiled wryly. “Going on thirty.”
“Six? What kind of report do they expect? I don’t have a lot of experience with six-year-olds, but I’m pretty sure expository writing isn’t in their standard skill set.”
Mystic Man Page 5
