Rainbow Sprinkles

by Anna Martin

  “Thanks, Alana,” he sang.

  Cooper didn’t make friends easily and neither did Alana, which was maybe what drew them to each other. She was quiet and sarcastic, witty and dry, and Cooper got her sense of humor immediately. Alana made him laugh.

  She was a few years older than him and styled herself like a goth who had grown out of her goth phase. That meant Doc Marten boots and ripped tights and short shift dresses when she was outside of work, and black jeans and winged eyeliner when she was in.

  Cooper walked right by her and out the back, ducking out of his apron and hanging it on the back door. The blast of warm air hit him in the face, and he exhaled heavily, blowing his hair back from his forehead.

  “Damn hot,” he muttered to himself, pushing his hair back as he walked around the building.

  Drew was waiting, wearing workout gear again—a navy T-shirt stretched tight across his chest and loose shorts.

  “Hey, hot stuff,” Cooper said with a grin.

  “Hey yourself. Thought I’d stop by, say hi, see if you wanted to go out for dinner tonight.”

  Cooper smiled and leaned in to press a chaste kiss to the corner of Drew’s mouth. “Can’t. I have to work.”

  “Damn. Tomorrow?”

  “I pull doubles three nights a week. My next day off is Monday.”

  Drew hummed low in his throat and reached out to run his hands up and down Cooper’s arms. “Okay. I have Monday off too, if you want to spend the day together? Do I sound too desperate now?”

  “No.” Cooper felt the smile tugging at his mouth, no matter how hard he tried to fight it back. “Monday’s good for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  Drew looked at him for a moment, then leaned in and brushed their mouths together. Cooper pushed back, close-lipped, then pulled away sharply.

  “Not in front of customers,” he murmured, aware he was still in uniform. “Come on.”

  He slipped his hand into Drew’s and tugged, taking him around to the back of the building where people who did smoke took their break. Here he was free to reach up and thread his fingers into Drew’s hair, tugging his mouth down for a slow, intense kiss.

  From there, it got worse.

  Drew hitched up his shirt and got his palms onto the bare skin of Cooper’s waist, steadying him as their kiss grew hotter. His thumbs stroked back and forth over Cooper’s hip bones, and goddammit, Cooper knew he was chubbing up.

  It was filthy, the way Drew licked into his mouth, fingers tightening on Cooper’s waist. Drew was taller, meaning Cooper had to roll up into the kisses, reaching for that sweet slide of tongue on tongue.

  “Fuck,” Cooper muttered, pulling away, and Drew laughed.

  “Yeah. Fuck.”

  Cooper pressed another wet kiss to Drew’s lips, then stepped back with real regret. “I have to go back to work before I fuck you up against a dumpster.”

  “That would be… inelegant.”

  “Yeah. You want anything before you go?”

  Drew quirked an eyebrow and took a step forward, reaching for Cooper’s waist again.

  “Except that, Mister.”

  “Damn. Nah, I’m gonna head to the gym.”

  “Okay.” Cooper knew he was grinning like an idiot and made no attempt to hide it. “I’ll see you on Monday?”

  “Yeah. I’ll text you. We can make plans.”

  “See you later.”

  Drew stole another kiss before he jogged away, laughing, and Cooper wished he did smoke because hot damn, he needed one after that.

  He took a moment to compose himself, then ducked back into the building.

  “Nice break?” Alana asked, way too innocent for Cooper’s liking.

  “Lovely, thank you.” He wrapped his apron back around his waist, washed his hands, then went out back to check stock levels. Predictably, Alana followed him.

  “Don’t you have work to do?”

  “I’m taking a break,” she said sweetly, hopping up to sit on one of the big chest freezers. “Tell me about your hottie.”

  “Drew.”

  “Yes, Drew the hottie.”

  “He took me to Disneyland.”

  “He didn’t,” she laughed.

  “Totally did. We spent the afternoon there. Then he took me home and kissed me good night. I feel like I’m in a romantic comedy, Alana.”

  “You didn’t fuck him?”

  “No! He’s not, like, a Grindr hookup. He’s not one of those guys you fuck and never see again. He wants to date me.”

  “Do you even know how to do that?”

  “Hey,” Cooper protested. “I date.”

  “Since you got here?”

  “There was that one guy.”

  Alana tipped her head back in exasperation. “Please tell me you’re not talking about Matt.”

  “He was nice!”

  “He was a total dick who didn’t want to be seen in public with you in case anyone thought he was gay.”

  Cooper pulled his clipboard from the back of the door, the one that had his checklist on it. There were two stock freezers back here, so he could easily start with the one Alana wasn’t sitting on.

  “Maybe I was just waiting for the right guy.”

  “Cooper Reed,” Alana said, sounding gleefully scandalized. “Are you a closet romantic?”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Maybe.”

  “Well, let me know how it works out for you. I could be tempted to change my mind.”

  “You, Alana?” Cooper said. “Never.”

  COOPER WAS not nervous. Absolutely not. He didn’t get nervous.

  If he’d changed three times so far this morning, that was just because he didn’t know what the weather was going to be like.

  It was California in April. The weather was going to be fine.

  His phone buzzed with a message.

  I’m outside. Want me to come up?

  Cooper had cleaned up, just in case, but there was no need to jump the gun. Plus, he was scared that once he got Drew alone and in the vicinity of flat surfaces, he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

  I’m on my way down, he sent back.

  He shoved his wallet into his jeans pocket and grabbed his keys from the bowl next to the door. It only took a minute to jog down to the parking lot and slide into Drew’s car.

  “Hey,” he said, leaning across to kiss Drew, quick and sweet. “How are you?”

  “Good.” Drew kissed back slower and squeezed Cooper’s thigh. “You look great, by the way.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, I thought we could go down to Venice.”

  “Do you have roller skates? Are we going to skate down the street holding hands?”

  Drew’s face fell, and Cooper hated himself. “I’m only messing,” he said, pushing at Drew’s shoulder. “That sounds great.”

  “You sure? We can do something else if you want.”

  “No, I’m just a sarcastic shit. Ignore me. Venice sounds perfect.”

  “Okay,” Drew said, and turned the car over.

  It really was the perfect day for just walking along with no place to go, no rush, no pressure. The temperature danced around the mid-80s, the sea breeze gently licking at their skin. Cooper would be the first to admit he wasn’t normally a beach sort of person. He had been terrible at surfing when he’d tried it in his teenage years, and unlike most of his peers, the thought of having sex on the beach was slightly terrifying rather than lustily erotic. Just imagining all the places the sand could get made him want to shudder in horror.

  He couldn’t tell Drew that, though. Not sweet, earnest Drew, who just wanted to take him somewhere nice.

  And with Drew, it was nice. For the first half hour or so, Cooper kept reminding himself this was supposed to be fun. After a while, it hit him—he didn’t need to keep repeating it. He really was having a good time.

  Venice was one of those weird places where the new and old clashed together wonderfully. Cooper found he
loved all the street art, the brightly colored storefronts, the performers along the boardwalk hawking for trade from the tourists. The tall palm trees waved lazily back and forth in the wind, and the ocean turned to white foam as it crashed onto the beach. As long as Cooper could stay up on the boardwalk, it was perfect.

  Drew stopped them at a cart selling handmade leather cuffs and woven bracelets.

  “Want one?” he asked, smirking and raising his eyebrow.

  Cooper laughed. “Sure. Let me pick one for you too.”

  The woman who owned the stall had incredibly tanned skin and wore loose, Aladdin-style pants. Her long blonde hair was twisted into dreadlocks and her fingernails were painted different colors. Drew seemed completely enchanted.

  “I think we both need ones we can take off easily,” Drew said. “I’m not allowed to wear any kind of jewelry for my job, and Cooper works in a kitchen.”

  Cooper leaned in close to Drew’s neck while the girl went to the other side of the stall. “Flirt,” he breathed against him, just to watch him flush with embarrassment.

  “Stop it,” Drew hissed back.

  Cooper laughed and gently elbowed him.

  For Drew, Cooper picked a simple tan braided bracelet with a popper snap to hold it in place. That way he could take it off for work.

  “I like this one,” Drew said, brushing his fingers over a dark red leather band that would slip on over Cooper’s hand.

  “Me too.”

  “Great,” the girl said. “Do you want me to bag those up for you?”

  “No, we’ll wear them now,” Drew said.

  Cooper insisted that they pay for each other’s; that way it was more romantic. He wasn’t naturally romantic—or he’d never particularly felt that way before Drew.

  So when Drew reached over and gently threaded their fingers together, Cooper decided to just go with it. He could do it: walk along the beach, flip-flops in one hand, the other linked with another guy. It wasn’t natural for him to be so open like this, but he could do it for Drew.

  The sun was warm, and Cooper tipped his face up to the sky and smiled.

  “Just so you know, I won’t be around next weekend,” Drew said.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going home to see my mom.”

  “Aww,” Cooper teased, squeezing Drew’s hand. “I should probably call my mom, actually. I haven’t spoken to her in weeks.”

  “Yeah, I usually try and go back and see them every other month or so.”

  “You got any brothers or sisters?”

  “Nope, just me.” Drew kicked his feet through the sand. “My dad’s a dentist, and my mom works in the finance department in my old high school.”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “In Portland, the Northwest quadrant, if that means anything to you.”

  “I’ve never been there,” Cooper admitted.

  “You should go. It’s nice.”

  “Hipster city,” Cooper said, bumping against Drew gently. Drew laughed.

  “Yeah, probably. I stayed close to home for school—went to Oregon State.”

  “For their theater program, right?”

  “Yeah. It was a good school. I’m still waiting for my big break, but maybe one day.” He shrugged.

  “You never told me how you ended up working at Disneyland.”

  Drew huffed a laugh. “Jeez.”

  “Now you gotta tell me,” Cooper said, grinning.

  “Okay.” He stretched his neck from side to side. “I suppose it’s not really that interesting. I was at an audition in LA for some commercial—which I didn’t get, by the way—and this girl was there, and I got to talking to her. Turns out her name is Madison, and she works at Disneyland.”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s this whole audition process….” Drew waved his hands around. “I have some dance experience, which helped a lot, from what I’ve been told. They like good dancers at Disney. You don’t audition for one character in particular. They get you to try out for a lot of different parts. Then they make a decision from there. It’s got more to do with your ‘look’ than any particular talent. I’m sure they turn away a lot of talented people because they don’t look right.

  “Anyway. I got through casting and the audition, and I’m the right height and the right pants size, so they offered me a job. It meant I could move here and be closer for other work, auditions and stuff, you know? So I took it.”

  “So you’re an actor.”

  Cooper said it like it was a statement.

  “Well, yeah. The Disney thing is an acting job, Cooper. The scheduling team is really good at letting us swap shifts and stuff if we have auditions to go to. I don’t work much, but I’ve gotten a few jobs since I moved here. Mostly commercials and music videos.”

  “That’s good,” Cooper said softly. “It’s good that you can make a career out of doing something you love.”

  “How about you?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What do you love?”

  Cooper laughed. “Not working behind a bar, that’s for damn sure. I don’t know. I never went to college—”

  “Why not?”

  “There wasn’t anything I particularly wanted to study. My grades were good, but I looked at the cost of college and how much I’d need to work to be able to afford it and still be paying off the debt for the rest of my life, and I suppose I couldn’t justify it to myself when I wasn’t dying to do one thing or another. I decided to get out of San Diego and head north. I was supposed to go to San Francisco, but I got stuck here.”

  “And what now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What are you planning to do next?”

  Cooper shrugged. “I might keep moving north. I don’t know yet.”

  “Hey,” Drew said softly, squeezing his hand. “You wanna stop and get a drink or something?”

  “I’d prefer to take you back to my apartment so we can fuck like bunnies.”

  The flush that spread across Drew’s cheeks and down his neck was extremely satisfying.

  “Sounds good to me,” he said, clearly trying to play it cool.

  “Let’s go.”

  “SO, UH, it’s not much,” Cooper said as he unlocked the apartment door. “But it’s home, for now.”

  “You have your own place. You’re doing better than me.”

  “Come in. Do you want a beer or anything? Soda?”

  “I’ll take a Coke, if you have one.”

  “Sure. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Not nervous.

  Drew toed off his shoes and wandered through to the living area, looking at the photographs Cooper had tacked to the walls.

  “You take these?”

  “Nah, my sister did. She’s a photographer. Mostly weddings, baby shoots, that kind of thing. But in between times she does the more arty stuff.”

  “She’s good.”

  “Thanks. I’ll tell her you said so.”

  He pulled two cans of Coke from the fridge and went to stand next to Drew.

  “That’s my mom,” he said, pointing to the dark-haired woman in the picture. “My grandma, my great-grandma, my youngest sister, Shannon, and her daughter, Grace.”

  “Five generations.”

  “Yeah. That was last summer. Grace was only a few weeks old, and our great-grandma died just before Christmas. So it was kind of a rare opportunity to capture all the generations together.”

  “You look like your dad.”

  Cooper laughed, his eyes following Drew’s to the next picture over. “Yeah, we get that a lot.”

  Drew took the two Cokes from Cooper’s hand and set them aside, then took Cooper’s hands and wrapped them around his own neck.

  “I like you,” he said, with the sweetest little grin, and Cooper felt something swoop in his stomach. “I’m just saying because, I don’t normally, I don’t know. Do this, I suppose.”

  “Go back to a guy’s apartment on a Monday afternoon with the expe
ctation of having sex?”

  Drew laughed, tipping his head back, and Cooper gave in to the temptation to lean forward and press his lips to that long, strong column of neck.

  “That,” Drew said, nudging his nose against Cooper’s hairline.

  “I like you too.”

  “Good.”

  The first kiss was soft, warm, something sweet and comforting, and Cooper let himself be carried away on it. Drew wasn’t like any other guy Cooper had slept with, and that was okay. Drew was something different, something better, and this time he was going to go with it.

  He rucked Drew’s shirt up, getting his hands on smooth skin, then decided to keep going and tugged the shirt off over Drew’s head.

  “I knew it,” Cooper muttered, pressing his palms to Drew’s chest.

  “What?”

  “You’re fucking perfect.”

  Drew chuckled. “I’m really not. But thanks.”

  He really was. Almost too pale for California, he had sparse blond hairs between his pecs, pink little nipples, and a dusting of freckles over his shoulders. Cooper leaned in and pressed a kiss to his sternum, dragging his lips over tacky skin.

  Cooper kept his hands on Drew’s waist and walked them backward to the bed, almost collapsing onto it when his knees hit the edge. Drew caught him by his shoulders, laughing into their kiss, and tugged Cooper’s shirt off before they shuffled onto the bed together.

  From there it was slow, easy kisses. Now that he’d been given permission to touch, Cooper couldn’t keep his hands off Drew’s skin. He brushed his fingers over thick muscles and soft hairs, the tight pucker of his nipples, the light rough scratch of stubble on his jaw.

  They undressed each other with sure fingers, stealing touches as layers were unwrapped and new things exposed. Cooper trailed his tongue over the sharp jut of Drew’s hip bone, teasing and loving the reaction.

  “You got any preferences I should know about?” Drew asked, pitching his voice low and teasing as he kissed up the side of Cooper’s neck.

  “I’m a pretty open-minded guy,” Cooper said. He reached down and squeezed Drew’s cock once, his grip firm, loving the stifled moan that fell from Drew’s lips. “But I think I want this inside me.”