I roll my eyes even though I know he’s right.
Knowing I need to distract myself, I turn back to the piles of recipes on the table. I fan them out, ink-smudged and flour-dusted, and start arranging them as they’ll appear in the cookbook to get a sense of the aesthetics I’m aiming for.
A grease-stained card slips free from the breakfast pile and flutters to the floor. I pick it up by the corner like it’s fragile.
Cinnamon Vanilla French Toast
The paper smells faintly like nutmeg and coffee. God, I haven’t made this since my father passed. It was his favorite.“I’m telling you, Beckett, you’re God’s gift to breakfast.”I smile at the memory, deciding to add that one to the very front of the pile, needing the man who supported me in every way to have his own place in the book.
Sex with Beckett was… unreal. The way he softened under my hands, the way his breath stuttered when I found the pace that unraveled him—yeah, that’s burned into me. I keep catching flashes of his face after, loose and wrecked and smiling like I’d taken the weight off his shoulders. Maybe I looked the same. Probably did.
It took a lot of restraint not to just shove my cock into his pretty tight hole right away, but when it sucked me in like it had been waiting for its perfect fit, it about did me in.
What stays with me more than the spice is the trust. He handed me the reins without flinching, and for someone like me, that’s not a small thing—it’severything. But sitting here at my station, waiting for my next client, I don’t feel like I’m the one holding them. If anything,he’sgotmeby the heart. I want to text him, ask how his day’s going, whether the new dish he wanted to try out at Dragonfly came together, or if he’s landed on a title for his cookbook. I want the small stuff, the morning-after jokes, the mid-shift check-ins, the “ate yet?” and “come over.”
That’s what scares the hell out of me. It’s been a long timesince I called anything a relationship. You spend enough years alone, and your life snaps into a rigid pattern—where the shoes go, how the coffee’s made, what time the lights go off. But Beckett rains down on those lines like they’re chalk on the pavement, and I’m not angry about it, I’m… relieved.
I thought control was my oxygen, the only way I could survive. With him, it feels more like a jacket I can take off and hang by the door. I don’t lose myself. I don’t feel the impulse to control. It’s jarring but also freeing as hell. And when I dare to look toward the future, it’s him stealing half my fries, arguing about movie choices, falling asleep on my couch after he’s made me taste test a new recipe. I don’t feel trapped, I feel alive.
So yeah, I’m tempted to keep pretending I’m untouchable. But the truth is simple and inconvenient, and I’ve been doing nothing more than fight it. I want him. Not just the way he comes apart in my hands, but the way he laughs, the way he listens, the way he allows me to be more than the guy who always has a plan. I realize what that feeling is, and it knocks the wind right out of me.
I startle when there’s a knock, and I look up to see Jaxon standing in my doorway.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” I echo.
“How’s it going?” He steps into my station, eyes tracking the stencil on my tray like he’s looking for clues.
“Fine. Waiting for my next client. Finishing his sleeve.”
“Sweet.” He rocks on his heels. “I’m heading out—grabbing Alex and hitting the shelter. With the open house next weekend, he wants every animal looking like a calendar model.”
“Yeah, it sounds like a good time. I’ll be there.”
One of Jaxon’s eyebrows climbs.
“No, I’m not getting a pet.”
“Famous last words,” he mutters.
“Fuck off. Is that all you wanted?”
“I was gonna ask how you’re doing, but maybe now I won’t.”
“One could only be so lucky.” I roll my eyes.
He ignores that and takes a seat.Why is he sitting down?
“So tell me, my dear oldbestfriend, how are you?”
The question lands like a jab.
“I need next Thursday off,” I blurt, needing to get this conversation over with.
“Sure, got a hot date with Beckett?” he smirks.
“Nope, my father.”
