by M. J. O'Shea
“Sure,” Tristan said. His voice was still quiet, but he sounded more like himself. Maybe the Village had that effect on him too.
Henry squeezed his hand and tried to convey how much he felt for Tristan, how perfect he felt when they were together. It hadn’t been long, but Henry’s mind and heart had already gone crazy places, the kinds of places where he’d go with Tristan to England to meet his family, where he’d ask Tristan to move into his apartment. Those kinds of places. Henry didn’t know if he should be more thrilled he was feeling it, or terrified it was the worst idea ever.
THEY THANKED Ollie for the ride once he pulled up to Henry’s building, trotted across the sidewalk, and walked up three flights of stairs, fingers loosely curled together. Henry wasn’t quite ready to let go of Tristan yet.
Everything took another shift for the better when they crossed the threshold of his apartment, then changed into slouchy T-shirts and sweats. Getting rid of the uncomfortable dress-to-impress clothes made it feel more like them. Being in his place, surrounded by his low-maintenance things and watching Tristan’s stress visibly melt away, helped too. By the time Henry started crowding the counter with cannoli ingredients, he felt normal again.
Yes. Baking was good. Baking always helped.
“What am I going to do?” Tristan had gotten much better over the past few weeks. He’d not had much practice, obviously—Henry pegged him as someone who got shoed out of the kitchen by his mom on a regular basis—but he wasn’t inherently awful. He was a quick learner, and it had gotten to the point where Henry barely had to give him instruction at all on the more simple things.
“Do you want to roll the shells or make the cream filling?” Henry asked.
Tristan grinned at him. Henry knew that smile. It was saucy and comfortable and cute, one of Henry’s favorite things. “I’m awfully good at making cream filling,” Tristan said.
Thank God. They were back to normal, dorky, bad-joke normal. Henry snorted. “That’s terrible. Not even original.”
“You’re laughing.”
“Because you’re a dork. I like it, though. Not gonna lie.”
Henry attacked Tristan with kisses to his neck and jaw and mouth, pinned him against the counter, and twined their fingers together. Weeks in, and Henry still couldn’t get enough of Tristan’s kisses. He wanted to kiss Tristan always, every day, every minute. It was hard, sometimes, to get through a day at the bakery without spending the whole time thinking about getting home to Tristan’s kiss and touch and body. He’d screwed up a number of recipes because he’d spaced off daydreaming of the night before, salt instead of sugar, too much butter. Part of him hoped he’d get over the initial love-struck haze soon so he could go back to functioning like a normal person, but part of him wanted to stay buried in it forever.
Tristan laughed softly against Henry’s mouth and kissed him deeper. He untangled their fingers and cupped Henry’s ass, hauling their bodies close, closer. Henry wasn’t sure he was up for baking anymore.
“Hey, um, do you want to do this tomorrow?” he asked. He nipped at Tristan’s lower lip and swiped the area gently with his tongue.
“Why? I’m not tired.”
“Tristan,” Henry moaned.
“You have been promising to teach me cannolis for weeks, you know.” Tristan still ground their hips together hard, the damn tease. He leaned over and sucked a light bruise into Henry’s neck. Henry planted his palms on the counter and pushed back with his hips.
“You sure about that?”
“Mmmhmmm. Time to bake.”
Henry took a deep shuddery breath and stepped back. “You suck,” he muttered.
“Later,” Tristan whispered with a wink.
Henry didn’t know why he even liked him.
IT WAS really late by the time they made it to bed, too late to start any of the things Tristan had promised earlier. Henry was trying to pretend he didn’t have to get up in four hours to bake. He’d had a hell of a lot of painful mornings ever since Tristan had crashed into his life. He had no regrets, though. Besides, he could always wake Tristan up in the morning. Tristan owed him a few hours of help to repay all of the distraction he’d caused.
“Hey,” Henry said quietly. “You did really well on the cannolis. They were fantastic.”
“Think you could sell them in Honeyfly?” Tristan asked. He looked hopeful, although he had to already know the answer.
Henry smiled. “By taste? Absolutely.” He kissed Tristan on the nose. “We’re still going to have to work on the presentation a little bit.” He thought of the pile of lopsided cannolis with filling squishing out the sides and chocolate sloshed all over the edges. Millie’s sons would still inhale them, because they did taste fantastic. Looks would come in time.
They were quiet after that. Henry wasn’t really tired. Nights with his parents left him both exhausted and wired, typically. This one was no different. Plus, he’d had a truckload of sugar, tasting Tristan’s creations. He stared at the ceiling and traced a pattern on Tristan’s pale, smooth back. Tristan tended to flop out on his stomach, head cradled in the crook of Henry’s shoulder, hand curled under Henry’s thigh. It looked wretchedly uncomfortable to Henry, but Tristan seemed to love it, so he just went with it. Henry just kept stroking his back, up and down, across his shoulders. He’d learned early on it would put Tristan to sleep in a heartbeat. He loved to be stroked, like a big, overgrown kitten.
“Henry?” Tristan said quietly long moments later. “You up?”
“No,” Henry chuckled. “I’m moving my hand in my sleep.”
Tristan turned, sleepy soft, and cuddled up to Henry’s side. “It could happen. I’ve got you fairly well trained, after all.”
“Not that well, my darling. Not yet, at least. Can’t sleep?”
“No. You can’t either?” He dropped kisses on Henry’s shoulder and slid his hand across Henry’s belly to cup his hip, fingers slipping under his thin pajama pants.
“I never sleep well after a visit to the homestead. I don’t know why. I slept just fine when I lived there.” The residual discomfort had faded while he and Tristan baked, but it was still there, lingering in the corners, keeping him awake.
“It’s so different here than at that house.” Tristan nuzzled Henry’s neck. “I can feel you everywhere in this flat. No part of that place seems like you.”
Henry couldn’t disagree. “It doesn’t really seem like anyone, does it? None of the main rooms were ever designed to look like an actual home. More like a spread in a design magazine.”
“I don’t understand that, really. I’m glad for you that you’re not there anymore.”
“I pushed hard when I was there.” Henry chuckled. “Plastered my room with posters my mother hated, hung out in the kitchen with the cook a lot.”
“You must’ve driven your mom crazy.”
“Only because I didn’t really fit appearances. Other than that, we didn’t have a lot of contact. I can’t explain it to you. I know your family is close. It must sound so alien.”
“Nah.”
Tristan kissed his shoulder again. The small kisses made Henry shiver. He ran his own hand down Tristan’s back until his fingers came across the soft, fleshy rise of his ass. Henry loved Tristan’s ass, that it was more generous than the typical guy’s, round and muscular from years of rugby, fun to grab and slap and hold onto. He didn’t think he’d ever get sick of it.
“I had friends who weren’t close to their families. Americans don’t hold the monopoly on dysfunction.”
“Good to know,” Henry said with a chuckle.
“You think your dad will ever like me?”
That took Henry by surprise. Nobody had ever asked that before. Not outright. Mostly, the guys would get stars in their eyes when they saw Henry’s childhood home and all the trappings that went with it, but the stars would fade when they sat down with his parents and felt the politely glacial chill. Tristan had never seemed impressed with the house, the car, or the glamor
of the Upper East Side. But the chill? That was inevitable. Henry hated to think what would happen when the guy he was seeing didn’t care about the good stuff and only got overwhelmed with the bad. Might as well come out with it.
“Do you really wanna talk about this, babe?” Henry asked.
“It doesn’t have to be a big discussion. I was just asking.”
Henry shrugged a little, bumping Tristan’s head. “Probably not, then. But don’t take it personally. He barely likes Trix and me. I don’t think my dad has time to care about anyone who doesn’t expand his bank account. He’s married to Livingston’s, and he always has been.”
“I get it. It’s just hard to be around people like that.”
Henry sighed. Moment of truth. “Please tell me if tonight freaked you out and we’re going to get awkward and then all of a sudden you’ll forget to take my calls and I’ll never see you again. I’ve been through it before after a guy met my family, and if it’s going to happen again, then I’d like some warning.”
Tristan sat all the way up in bed, so quickly that Henry barely had time to miss the warmth of Tristan’s body against his skin. “What are you talking about?”
“I, uh.” Henry didn’t know how to continue. “My family has been a deal breaker for people I’ve been with in the past. The money seems fantastic from a distance, but I guess nobody likes to feel disapproved of, and my parents disapprove of the universe as a rule. Nobody is going to win them over wholeheartedly. Not even their own children. It’s not an easy position to be in for a partner who isn’t from that world.”
“So you’ve had boyfriends leave you because your dad is a bit of a dick?”
Henry smiled weakly. “I guess you could put it that way. It’s the simple version.”
“Well, I’m not going to. No awkward drift, no missed calls.” He leaned forward and kissed Henry. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Don’t you know how I feel? I mean, I’ve never….” He looked unsure, like he didn’t think he had the right to finish his sentence.
“Never what?”
“I’ve never been in love before,” Tristan murmured. “Not like this, anyway.”
Henry’s heart all of a sudden picked up in his chest, thunk, thunk, pulse racing, head spinning. Tristan had just said he loved him. Henry hadn’t been to that place with anyone since the boy he’d dated back in college. He sat up in bed as well and wrapped Tristan in his arms. “Me too. I mean, I feel it too.”
Jesus. To go from the uncomfortable parent talk to love in under a minute. No wonder his head was spinning.
“I didn’t know if it was right to say. It’s so soon. But you’ve turned my whole world upside down, made me want different things, you make me so happy.”
Henry kissed Tristan all over. His neck, his face, his lips all got showered with waves of tiny kisses. “You make me happy too. I’m glad you’re not going anywhere.”
Tristan shook his head and nuzzled Henry back with kisses and nose rubs and little tickles. “Don’t say that again,” he muttered. “I’m not leaving.”
“I won’t.”
“ARE YOU sure you can’t play hooky again today?” Henry kissed him, sucking and nibbling at his bottom lip and trying to work his fingers into Tristan’s waistband. “It would be nice to have you around.”
“I wish I could,” Tristan groaned.
He’d never loved going to work and had actively disliked it most of the time since he’d been in the US, but that morning, there was nothing in the universe he wanted to do more than stay with Henry, cozied up in his warm, golden kitchen, and watch him bake, maybe even help him a little bit. Kiss, touch, walk home hand-in-hand. It seemed like such a fantasy, one that a day at Blanchard and Starr would effectively kill, drain the lifeblood out of, and pound into the ground for good measure. Tristan leaned back against the butcher block and contemplated any and every excuse he could think of for why he shouldn’t have to go to work.
“I’m drawing a blank. I really need to go in. Fuck, I don’t want to. I’m so tired of the games and the constant jockeying.”
“You can stay here. Just say you don’t feel good. Maybe whatever you had last week is making a comeback?”
“You, sir”—Tristan poked at Henry’s chest—“are a bad influence. I’d really like to take you up on it too, but I need to go over these layouts with Shatara and make sure the—you know what? My job is boring. I won’t torture you with it.”
“It’s not boring.” Henry had always done his best to act interested in what Tristan did. Tristan didn’t blame him for not being very enthralled.
“It is. Listen, why don’t I try to get out early so we can go out and grab a bite to eat before you have to get to bed?”
“You think you can do that?”
Tristan grinned. Probably not, but he’d make it happen. Even if he had to haul his whole desk home and work late into the night after Henry fell asleep, he’d make it happen. “No problem,” he said instead.
Henry plucked a huge blueberry muffin from the rack next to them. “You need to go. Wouldn’t want to be late. They might not let you leave if you piss them off.”
“Is that for me?” Tristan eyed the muffin. Henry broke off a piece and popped it in Tristan’s mouth, then leaned in for a kiss.
“I’ll put the rest of this in a bag. You need to go.”
Tristan was about a heartbeat away from whining before he realized that was supremely unattractive and he could suffer in silence. He still didn’t want to go to work. Shocker, that.
Muffin in hand, Tristan gave Henry one last lingering kiss, then made himself walk out the door before it became impossible.
“OKAY, TEAM. Let’s do the Monday rundown.”
It was the same every Monday morning. They’d all gather together with the department heads and go over their accounts, the ones they had, ones they were trying to win, ones they wanted to try to win. Mostly, Tristan didn’t listen. When he was assigned to a team, he did his best job to make sure everything went well. Until then, he didn’t have anything to do with the process.
He really only wanted to think about Henry, anyway. After the weirdness of the dinner Friday night, they’d had such a magical weekend, and he felt like an arse using that word, but how else could he describe it? They’d been glued to each other’s sides all weekend. Tristan had gone to the bakery to work on his laptop, they’d made dinner, spent hours in bed. It had been perfect. He wasn’t in the mood for reality to intrude just yet. He could still taste the muffin Henry had given him less than an hour before. Probably wasn’t a good sign that Tristan was done with work for the week by Monday morning, an hour after he got there.
Tristan heard his name and looked up. It was Terry, Tristan’s direct boss, speaking as usual. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice.
“… the team did a great job. After our success with the Charity Parker fragrance, we’ve been branching into the teen market more. We want to tackle more fragrances, some of the teen clothing lines.”
Richard, who was Terry’s boss and someone Tristan rarely, if ever, saw, spoke up. “And then there’s project Indigo, as our team here affectionately dubbed it.” Richard chuckled. It looked about as forced as anything Tristan had ever seen. “I’m sure a few of you have heard that there’s been talk of Livingston’s department store looking for new representation for their expansion ad campaign. The company is going national. I’m sure you know they’re high-end, they’re exclusive, and they’re a very big fish that we have little hope of even getting near. But they’re also shopping around and looking for new blood. If we could land them, it would raise our profile astronomically, so any connection, no matter how tiny, could potentially help put us on their radar.”
Tristan’s heart started to race immediately. It wasn’t just the name, although he was so deep that any mention of Henry or his family tended to make Tristan’s body stand on edge, little feelers all over ready to grab any small detail. It was the fact that his boss—no, his boss’s boss—w
as standing up there wanting any tiny chance their company had to get near Henry’s family.
And he was right. An ad campaign as big as the one they could potentially do for Livingston’s would completely change the profile of Blanchard and Starr. And most likely the career of whomever brought it to them. It could be really exciting work. A game changer. But still, another, far larger part of him felt really weird hearing about Henry’s family from anyone but Henry himself. Like, Richard was talking about Henry’s father, the man whom he’d sat across from at dinner on Friday night. It was uncomfortable to think of him in a business way. Of course, he was quite aware of who they were and—
“Tristan knows the family,” nosy Cassie from Friday said.
Jesus bloody Christ on a bloody fucking stick. Tristan was brought out of his internal debate. He really hadn’t planned on saying anything. At least, he thought he hadn’t been. Right? It would be weird to ask Henry for a meeting with his father. Henry had nothing to do with that part of his family and he was so iffy about it to begin with, and things between him and Henry were so amazing. Tristan cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him again like they had on Friday when he’d been talking about going to dinner at their house. Except this time, it was four times as many people peering at him curiously.
He thought of what Shatara had said a few weeks before. Hold the cards. Share the cards. This could be his way in if he wanted to take it.
“You have an in with the Livingstons… Tristan, is it?” He knew he wasn’t imagining the look of incredulity on Richard’s face. Since when did nobodies from a village in the middle of nowhere, England, have connections to society-page royalty? Probably never, except this one time.
Tristan felt a weird combination of gratified, smug, and supremely uncomfortable. “I’m, um, seeing Bradford Livingston’s son, Henry. So, yes. I do know them.”
