by E M Lindsey
He wasn’t sure if it was out of necessity or if Raphael was a minimalist, but either way, it fit him. The place had a sort of rich, woodsy smell from a little oil diffuser on the kitchen counter, and the air was cooler than Lorenzo normally kept his place.
“Can I just,” he gestured with his elbow to the kitchen counter, and Raphael nodded, walking behind him at a slower pace. “Most of this is pre-cooked. My mom’s trick with her sauce is to cook it all up, and then let it sit in the fridge for like four or five days so the flavors really marry together. Then you have to eat it right away, but it never lasted in our house.” He was well aware of the high tension in his tone and the fact that he was rambling.
And from the way Raphael laughed behind him, he was pretty sure the other man noticed too. “I have wine somewhere if you want some.”
“I still need a pill at night, so I’m not supposed to be drinking,” Lorenzo said, ducking his head low toward the counter as he picked at the seal on the container.
Raphael let out a small sigh, then shuffled around the counter, using it for balance with one hand as he reached for Lorenzo’s arm. “Water is great. You didn’t need to do all this.”
“I promised. And you brought me food and drugs,” Lorenzo reminded him. Raphael’s hand was warm as it encircled his wrist, and it was grounding. He’d never had a friend like this—who liked to touch, who liked to be in his space without wanting something physical. It made him nervous, but it made him hungry for it. He used to envy people who had those kinds of friendships, the easy casual affection that seemed so deep and so genuine.
He wanted to hold on with both hands, but he didn’t want to scare Raphael off.
“This is more than a thanks,” Lorenzo said after a beat.
Raphael blinked at him, then slowly withdrew his hand. “I told you, it’s not a good idea if we…”
“Look, you are hot,” Lorenzo interrupted. “Stupid hot. But I don’t want to sleep with you.”
Raphael raised a brow. “Okay?”
“I went on a date with Wilder last night, and we kissed,” he blurted. He looked away, not able to meet the sheer rise of joy in Raphael’s eyes. “And if I’m with him again tonight, I’m going to get hard—and when it happened last night, it hurt so bad I wanted to pass out.”
There was a silence so heavy, he could almost hear the flecks of dust in the air as they blew past his ears. Then Raphael threw his head back and gave a deep, rich belly laugh. “Ach du heilige scheisse. You’re serious, aren’t you?”
Lorenzo didn’t know what the German words were, but he could tell from his face it was subtle mockery. “Yes. So, I’m here to visit my new friend and thank him with dinner that I meticulously researched, and also give my dick some time to heal so I can kiss him without wanting to cry.”
Raphael reached out for him again, and Lorenzo expected a pat on the shoulder or a gentle hand-squeeze, but instead the man gathered him close. Lorenzo towered over Raphael by at least six inches, yet he felt small in his arms and weak against the strength of them. He dropped his forehead to Raphael’s shoulder and sighed out a breath.
“Tell me this thing with Wilder isn’t a bad idea. I like him a lot, and I did not come to Cherry Creek for this.”
“It isn’t wrong because you didn’t come here for this.” Raphael eased Lorenzo’s face up and braced himself with a firm grip on his shoulders. “You can have both things, you know?”
“Both things?”
“A path to find something good in your life—a way to be happy with yourself. And you can also find someone who makes you happy separate from that. Wilder doesn’t have to be anything more than just a man you like.”
Lorenzo hadn’t realized just how badly he needed to hear that, but the relief of it was like a gut-punch. “Oh.”
Raphael chuckled and gave his cheek a pat. “Make me some dinner, and I’ll find a movie we can watch, hmm?”
Lorenzo’s face softened, and he stepped back from Raphael’s touch. “Yeah. I can do that.” He turned to the stove as Raphael walked out of the kitchen, and he let himself just stand there for a long moment and feel.
“Is your mother still alive?” Raphael asked an hour later as they were scraping the last of the vegetables and sauce from their plates.
Lorenzo’s brows lifted. “Yes?”
“Is she still in love with your father?”
Lorenzo realized where he was going with that statement, and he rolled his eyes, snatching the plate out of Raphael’s hand and walking to the sink. He’d kept the place relatively clean—a new thing he was trying since he’d been humiliated by the state of his apartment when Wilder had come over.
He wanted the embarrassment he’d been through since arriving in Cherry Creek to mean something—to help him find whatever sort of substance it was he was looking for.
Stacking the plates in the sink, he moved back to the sofa where Raphael was still sprawled with his legs on the table, and as he sat, Raphael’s thighs began to tremble. “Shit, are you…”
“Spasms,” Raphael said, his voice a little tense. His eyes shut, and his mouth formed a thin line, but he didn’t move to stop them, so Lorenzo held back.
“Hurts?”
“Not as bad as when I was a kid. But it’s not comfortable.” He muttered a long string of soft German under his breath, then heaved out a sigh when the tremors started to calm down. “I was on my feet a lot today. Using my wheelchair helps, but I like walking.”
He said it with a sort of defensive tension Lorenzo recognized all too well—like maybe he was about to be given the third degree over why he didn’t just use his chair all the time. It was only funny because Lorenzo had been asking himself over the last week why he’d let himself avoid every hard decision in his life.
Why had he been so weak?
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Lorenzo offered.
Raphael snorted. “Cook me more food?”
Lorenzo gave him a flat look. “Really?”
“You asked.” Raphael’s grin softened, and then he shifted close enough to lay his head on Lorenzo’s shoulder, and he nestled in. “I like you.”
The tone was nothing like the way Wilder had used. There was no desperation, no passion, no want. Just a simple fact. Raphael was his friend because he liked Lorenzo. He found worth in him beyond what Lorenzo could offer. He was too afraid to accept it, but too lonely to deny what Raphael was offering so readily and so easily.
He slung his arm around Raphael’s shoulders and let him settle in closer. “Why are you single?”
“Too many reasons to list. Mainly because I haven’t found anyone I want to date. It’s hard work, and it never ends well.”
“Never?” Lorenzo pressed.
“For me.” Raphael let out a sigh. “You’re not trying to play match-maker with me, are you? Jayden starts up his nonsense every couple of months, and I don’t need another one of those in my life.”
Lorenzo bit back a comment about how he wasn’t going to be around that long, because frankly he wasn’t sure what the future held. He liked Wilder—and he would eventually reach the fork in the road where he’d have to choose, because Wilder wasn’t going to be like Simon. There would be no closing the bakery doors and riding off into the sunset. They were new—they were more than new. They liked each other, but their lives were strangers, in different universes.
“I just wondered. I don’t think relationships are the only way for people to be happy.”
Raphael chuckled, sounding tired. “They aren’t. Birdie—have you met him?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“He’s the Captain of the Fire Department. He also has the blacksmith booth at the market.” When Lorenzo shook his head again, Raphael shrugged. “We fuck sometimes.”
Unable to stop himself, Lorenzo startled. “You fuck sometimes?”
“He’s nice and very attractive. Very good in bed,” Raphael said, looking up with a wide grin. “But he doesn�
�t date. He’s…” His brow furrowed, nose wrinkled. “I can’t remember the word. He doesn’t ever want relationships.”
“Aromantic,” Lorenzo murmured. He’d thought that about himself once, but he knew it wasn’t true. Just because his relationships never had meaning and never lasted didn’t mean he didn’t want one.
“It’s just as well. He’s not my type. But he’s happy, you know? Just as he is—with his job, and his hobby, and this town.”
“Is that you too?”
Raphael shuddered out a sigh, then turned his face into Lorenzo’s side and groaned. “No. But I wish it was. It would make things so much easier. It does help that I haven’t met someone that makes me feel that…spark, you know?”
“I do,” Lorenzo said softly. Because he did—god, he did. And he knew he would do anything to keep it.
“I’m not unhappy with life, even when I’m lonely.”
Lorenzo felt that—deeply, profoundly. He turned his head and laid his cheek on Raphael’s hair and let himself take comfort in this moment that cost him nothing beyond a new, fragile friendship. “I thought I was. I mean, I thought I was content, at least, but I’m not so sure anymore.”
Raphael hummed. “Do you want to talk about your date? I’m assuming you were wrong about it not being one.”
Rolling his eyes, Lorenzo sighed and shifted so they could cuddle a little more comfortably. “I was too afraid to assume, you know? He’s such a good person. He’s… I don’t know how to feel like I deserve this chance with him.”
“Being yourself is a good start,” Raphael said, elbowing him gently. “Being kind. Appreciating him. It’s not complicated.”
Lorenzo bit hard on his lip. He knew all of this already. He was a stranger to real, actual intimacy, but he was old enough to know the basic mechanics of making a relationship work. “Do you think,” he started, then stopped because he didn’t really have a question to ask. Or, if he was being brutally honest, any question he did have, he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer.
After a beat, Raphael pushed away from him gently and settled with his feet in Lorenzo’s lap. They were stiff, his muscles small with very little give, but Lorenzo decided to return the earlier favor and started to massage him.
Raphael’s head fell back with a small groan, and Lorenzo smiled. “I knew this friendship was a good idea.”
Lorenzo snorted. “Thanks.”
“I mean it. More than just dinner and massage, but I do appreciate it.” Raphael opened his eyes to shoot Lorenzo a wink. “And to answer your question…”
“I didn’t really ask one,” he muttered, and Raphael huffed a laugh.
“Yes, you did, even if you didn’t say it. The truth is, you’re over-thinking it. You have a rare opportunity—thanks to the life you’re trying to escape—to make this work. Yes, you have another life in California, but it doesn’t have to stay there, does it?”
Lorenzo wanted to contradict him—wanted to find something in his life he had created that was permanent. Something that needed him home. But the reality was the opposite, and it hurt to admit it, even in his own head. “No. It doesn’t.”
“Maybe something in your life was just waiting for someone like Wilder to come along,” Raphael offered, then dropped his head back down and closed his eyes again. “Maybe your path was always meant to lead you here.”
Lorenzo allowed those words to sink in. He’d never really been the sort of person who believed in fate or predestined paths. He wasn’t sure there was anything in the universe that gave a shit enough to dictate the future of one single, pointless human being. But it was nice to think of himself as important—even if it was only for a moment.
And the fact remained, Raphael was right. California had no hold on Lorenzo, so assuming Wilder would want him to stick around, there was nothing holding him back.
Lorenzo was grateful for the pills, but frustrated that he was sleeping in late and taking twice as long to shake the fog from the narcotics. The morning after the goat incident, he’d showered and looked down in faint horror to see faint purpling rising to the surface of his flaccid cock. He examined his balls in the mirror after and found a corresponding bruise on the side, but there was no swelling, and apart from the pain when he was erect, he wasn’t pissing blood.
He didn’t have any of the signs Parker had warned him about, so he wasn’t panicking over his health, but he was still mortified at being seen this way. It was bad enough now that Wilder had seen him almost cry when he’d sported a half-chub behind the zipper of his jeans, and although Wilder had still seemed interested after their kiss, he hadn’t so much as texted him after that.
And two days had come and gone.
Lorenzo wasn’t normally a man prone to panic—he had long-since accepted that he was a person worthy of ghosting. But he was hoping things with Wilder would be different.
Halfway through brushing his teeth, Lorenzo’s phone buzzed, and he nearly dropped it in the toilet as he fumbled for the screen to turn it on.
Wilder: Can you come by the shop before I open?
Lorenzo: What time do you open?
Wilder: Eleven.
Lorenzo: Be there.
His heart thud wildly against the inside of his chest, and he took several calming breaths, then moved to the kitchen for water since coffee would only make his nerves worse. It didn’t sound like a break-up text—not that they had established any kind of relationship that would require a break-up. A sort-of date and a minute-long kiss counted for nothing, at least in his experience. He wanted more, but he knew that was going to take time.
He was beyond begging though. His first instinct was to make himself as pretty and expensive-looking as possible, to find some way to peacock himself in front of Wilder so the other man would find reasons to keep him around. But he was trying to break his old habits. He wanted Wilder to see the other things about him, to dig deep and find bits and pieces of him worth keeping around that didn’t have anything to do with money or sex appeal.
He wanted someone—he wanted Wilder—to look at him as he was, in his sloppy sweats and an old t-shirt, and see him as a man worth trying for. For so many years, he’d heard too many people say it was impossible to love someone if you didn’t love yourself.
And that thought terrified him, because most days he didn’t even like himself. He stared back at a reflection he barely recognized and wished he’d drawn a different lot before his soul came to earth. But he was capable of love. He knew that. He loved his siblings, and he loved his parents. He loved Gabby even if she would never return the sentiment.
He was even coming to love Raphael as one of his first friends that wanted him around just because. And it didn’t feel less than just because his own self-worth had hit rock bottom. But maybe they were on to something. And maybe that’s what Wilder was trying to tell him.
He felt nervous as he escaped from the Manor without Raphael noticing him, and he decided to walk the half mile to Indulgence. The warm air and the soft summer breeze helped his shoulders relax and clear his head a little as he headed down the sidewalk.
In the courtyard across from the fire station, he could see the Fire Chief standing at attention and another tall, dark-haired man in front leading the rest of the crew though exercises. Had it been any other day, he might have stopped to watch. He appreciated a fit human body in all forms, and he had absolutely spent his money on firemen calendars in the past.
But right now, his mind was focused on one thing—whether or not Wilder was going to end the best thing that had ever happened to him before it even began.
His heart was in his throat, but he reached for the handle to the bakery door and tugged. His foot slipped off the step with the force of his pull and with the way the door had no give, and he started to panic before he remembered that it was before the shop opened. He pressed his head to the glass and peered in, considering knocking before he realized Wilder wouldn’t hear him.
Lorenzo: I’m here. Front door.
> Wilder: Come around to the back, it’s open
Lorenzo shoved his phone into his pocket and made his way around the corner, into the alley, where he saw a heavy green door propped open with a milk crate. He heaved it wider, then slipped inside, and was instantly overwhelmed with the rich smell of cake and frosting. He had never had much of a sweet tooth, but he’d skipped breakfast, and he remembered the way Wilder’s cupcake had melted in his mouth.
He followed the scent down a short corridor, which opened up to a main kitchen area, and he found Wilder at the baking table staring right at him with a soft grin. It was the smile on his face that made everything relax, that made his knees want to give out. And it felt like an overreaction, so he pushed it aside and crossed the room, propping his hip against the table.
‘Good morning,’ he signed.
Wilder’s smile widened. ‘Morning. Sleep okay?’
Lorenzo shrugged. ‘Drugs are knocking me out pretty hard.’
At that, Wilder’s brows furrowed. ‘Is the pain that bad?’
‘Worse at night,’ Lorenzo answered, but this was the last thing he wanted to be talking about right then. He glanced at Wilder’s ears and saw his hearing aids weren’t in, and as much as he wanted to switch back to speech, he didn’t. ‘It’s getting better.’
Wilder hummed, then reached around Lorenzo to push a bowl of what looked like whipped butter from the edge, then he carefully slid his arms around Lorenzo’s waist and held him. “Is this okay?”
Lorenzo’s entire body felt flushed and hot, and he nodded as he dragged his fingers into Wilder’s hair and cupped the back of his head. “Yes. I…is this okay? Your hearing aids…”
“I can hear a little of what you’re saying since there’s no other noise in the room. I had to take them out this morning. I have Meniere’s disease, and they tend to make my vertigo worse. I had a really bad day yesterday. I couldn’t get out of bed, so Dmitri had to run the shop, and it’s been off and on this morning.” As he spoke, Lorenzo noticed the way his eyes trembled back and forth, like a spasm.
