Jeremy raised his eyebrows. “Sweet tooth?”
Stirring, Harrison nodded. “Sugar is my kryptonite. But when I’m running on three hours sleep, it keeps me going.”
“Big night?” Jeremy asked, wondering what kind of mischief Harrison liked to get up to when he was supposed to be sleeping.
“Not really.” Harrison stirred the coffee and took another sip. “Perfect,” he said with a satisfied sigh. “How’s the convention treating you?”
“Fantastic,” Jeremy replied with a grin. “But I’ll be glad to get back to the more relaxed pace of my store.”
Harrison leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table between them. “Tell me about it.”
“AboutFandom? It’s my own little piece of geek heaven.” Jeremy spent the next few minutes giving Harrison a brief rundown of his pop culture store. He’d opened the doors more than four years ago and its success was a huge source of pride for him. He may have started to ramble after a while, but he loved talking about his business and Harrison seemed happy to listen.
“It sounds like my kind of place,” Harrison said when he was done. “Maybe I’ll drop by sometime and check it out.”
“You should,” Jeremy agreed. “Although I have to say,” he allowed a mischievous grin to curve his lips, “Dalek drawings notwithstanding, you don’t look like you have a geeky bone in your body.”
Harrison’s gaze dropped to the cup he held loosely between his hands. “Sometimes the alignment between what you see and what you get isn’t exactly straight.”
Jeremy chuckled. “Yeah well, neither am I, so that’s not a problem.” He finished the last of his coffee before adding, “I should get back.”
“Me, too.” There was a brief hesitation before Harrison reached into his back pocket and pulled out a business card. “This has my mobile number,” he said, holding it out across the table. “In case you ever feel like giving me a call.”
Jeremy stared at the card. He wanted to take it. He really wanted to, but he held back. “I’m not actually on the market right now.”
Harrison’s brow furrowed. “You have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?”
“Neither,” he admitted, shaking his head. “But I did have a boyfriend, until a few months ago, and I’ve decided some alone time would be good for me—at least for now.” It had actually been more than six months since he walked away from the toxic life he’d been living with Aaron and he’d put that part of his life behind him—or so he liked to think. It was what he’d done next that had him reluctant to get involved with anyone new.
After breaking up with Aaron, he’d barely paused long enough to catch his breath before tumbling headfirst into a relationship with two people he’d only just met. They’d been like three lost souls, drawn to each other in a time of need. He didn’t have any regrets. The relationship had been exactly what he needed at the time and had helped him in ways he couldn’t hope to describe. But in the end there was no denying that, while his new lovers cared about him, they had ultimately fallen in love with each other.
It hadn’t taken him long to realise he was clinging to them, using them to fill the void breaking up with Aaron had created in his life. He’d decided then that going from one relationship to another wasn’t going to help him heal the parts of himself Aaron had broken, and he’d vowed to take a step back from sex and dating. He needed time to prove he could be fine on his own before he could trust himself to be with someone else.
“Maybe you should keep it anyway, just in case,” Harrison suggested, dropping the card on the table in front of him. “You never know when you’ll want some lettering done for your store.”
Jeremy bit down on his bottom lip as he picked up the card. Maybe he was over-thinking this. He may have made the decision to be single, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have some fun when the opportunity presented itself. “I do have a largish space above the sales counter,” he said as he stood. “It’s got posters on it right now, but they’re looking a bit ragged.”
“Sounds perfect.” Harrison rose, and they walked together in the direction of Jeremy’s stall, tossing the takeaway cups into a bin on the way. “Let me know if you want me to take a look at your space. Then we can discuss how you want me to fill it.”
Blood rushed in Jeremy’s ears and the noise of the bustling crowd receded to a dull hum. Harrison continued to walk at a steady pace beside him, as if he had no idea his words were ripe with innuendo. Jeremy sneaked a glance at the other man’s face and saw his smug expression. Oh yeah, he knew all right.
Jeremy grinned as they came to a standstill beside his stall and turned to face each other. “I’ll, um…” His voice came out as a rasp and he cleared his throat, licking his lips before he tried again. “I’ll think about it.”
“So will I.” The heat in Harrison’s gaze was enough to have Jeremy breaking out into a sweat. “It was good to meet you, Jeremy.” He walked away then, leaving Jeremy to stare after him like some lust-addled teenager.
“Who was that tall piece of gorgeous?” Kat stopped beside him, a bundle of folded t-shirts in her arms.
Jeremy’s eyes dropped to the card in his hand. “Potential business contact.”
Kat put a hand on his arm, looking up at him excitedly. “Can I be the one to make contact? Pretty please?”
“Not a chance,” he told her as he slid the card into his back pocket. “This one’s all mine.”
