Logan
Back at the SUV,I thought with some envy about the easy way Jake had talked on the phone to his husband. He opened the console between the seats and gently settled Declan’s bear claw bag inside as if it was made of glass. He gave the bag a loving pat, and I had to snicker over it.
“What?” He flashed me a grin, and I stared too long at his soft-looking plush lips, my chest going light like a weight had been lifted off. “He won’t be happy if anything happens to it.” His amusement was infectious, and I found myself really smiling for the second time today. Jake gave me a friendly wink and backed out of the spot while I buckled my seat belt.
“He likes them that much?”
“You don’t?”
“Well, I wouldn’t toss it in the trash if Declan said he didn’t want his.”
Jake snorted and gave me another warm smile that had my heart skipping. I glanced out the window at the lakefront, confused and strangely happy. “The first time we had those bear claws was a transcendental experience. We’d never been to the market before, but PD kept telling me to come over because of all the good food. He’s out on his bike a lot, so he sees damn near everything that goes on in the city. He brought me one to the shop, and I almost passed right out in my own chair, I swear. Declan had to give me mouth to mouth.” He chuckled to himself, and when I glanced back, I caught him giving his junk an adjustment. I turned my eyes forward fast.
“They are good,” I agreed, but maybe Jake had a serious sweet tooth because he seemed really keyed-up about the pastries. His excitement was charming and had an answering feeling blooming in my chest. He started a story about a client who wanted to eat a taco while he was getting a tattoo of a taco on the back of his neck, and well before the story was over, he turned the car onto the highway. I glanced out at the quickly falling snow, maybe the last hurrah for winter this year. “And then the bastard starts choking when I go over his vertebrae. PD gave me hell about that whole thing for a year, but it was nearly a religious experience for the guy.”
“And he almost saw heaven,” I murmured.
Jake snorted and gave my knee a shove. “I’m totally adding that to the story the next time I tell it. ‘And he almost saw heaven.’ ” He chuckled under his breath and shook his head.
“Where are we going?” I glanced at him, and he lifted his dark eyebrows.
His smile spread ear to ear. “It’s a surprise.”
I had a moment of unease, but Jake and Declan had both been great so far. I tried to talk my stomach into calming down. Jake wasn’t Miranda. He wasn’t waiting to spring some weird trap on me around every turn. I settled back and tried not to imagine a thousand different awful scenarios. It had been a while since I’d had anynicesurprises in life, and the first one I’d had recently started with Declan asking me to come to New Gothenburg. I took that as a good sign.
We rode along for a while, and Jake navigated streets near the lake until we were outside of the city. I had no idea which direction we’d gone, but trees slowly crept in to crowd the edges of the two-lane road. The snowy gray sky above us was a bright, foggy river edged by charcoal skeleton branches. “Here we go,” he said and turned down a narrow lane. Muddy tire tracks had beaten down the snow. He gunned the engine and went up an incline that banked steeply, which was unusual for this area and had me gripping the dashboard.
“What are we doing?” I asked again, and he laughed as we broke over the crest of a ridge. Nearby were signs of civilization that had me feeling better. He parked next to a Jeep in a line of cars. Not too far away from the edge of the makeshift parking lot was a large bonfire with people gathered around it. A teenager looked like he was tossing wood onto the flames. Farther out were picnic tables, most crowded with people in spite of the frigid temps, but when I stared longer, I noticed everyone was bundled up to be outside, so it made sense.
“There’s Dec,” Jake said, and sure enough, his blond hair glinted in the sunlight where he stood a short walk away at a picnic table under a tree. As Jake turned off the engine, I continued to study Declan. He slipped on a heavy winter cap with an easy grace I envied, and there was an honest-to-goodness picnic basket sitting in front of him on a table, in spite of the weather. Jake hustled out of the car, and I followed him.
“The lights are still on,” I said as he rushed off toward Declan, and he laughed and came back to turn them off. When Jake was done with the SUV, he breezed past me and grabbed my hand as he tugged me toward Declan, who clapped his gloved hands together when he saw us.
“Hey, you two! It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here, and I don’t mind it, but why aren’t you dressed for it?” He plucked at his gear, and he was outfitted for skiing or a long snowy hike.
“It’s colder up here on the hill than it was at the markets,” Jake said, and I shivered as wind cut through my jeans and seemed to prove Declan’s point.
Declan laughed and turned toward his basket. He pulled out a large Christmas-looking red-and-green-striped thermos. “Here, this will warm you boys up.” He twisted off the lid, which doubled as a mug, and poured a cup of steaming dark liquid. “Here, Logan.” I took the mug he offered, then sniffed. Chocolate and sugar hit my nose, and when I sipped it was sweet and luscious, just the thing to top off the bear claws from earlier and put me over the edge into a sugar high.
“Careful with that,” Jake said on a laugh. “He boozes it up.”
“Really? I can’t taste it.” I eyed the mug, and Declan grinned. With his boy-next door charm, I’d never have believed it, but Jake nodded at me. Declan took the mug back and sipped some, surprising me that he didn’t mind sharing, before he set the mug down and gestured at a pile of heavy winter gear he had laying on the table bench beside him.
“I’m so glad we had a short practice. Come on, suit up, boys.”
“What are we doing?” I still wasn’t clear on what we were up to today, though a winter picnic was fun, especially if Declan had brought clothes for me to wear.
Declan pointed at a truck nearby and grinned. While Declan’s lips were thinner than Jake’s, they were pinker, and matched his harder, angular face. For a second their handsomeness knocked the breath out of me. Together they were almost overwhelming. I focused in on what Declan wanted me to look at. The truck had an open window and a popped-out awning similar to a food truck, and out front was a squat black machine that clanged to life. A man crouched next to a hose, connected to what I realized must be an air compressor, and inflated something.
Declan’s smile snagged me into staring when I glanced back. “Okay, so what is it?”
“Inner tubing! I think they call them snowtubes here in New York, but it’ll always be inner tubing to me.” He winked. “They rent them out over there.”
Jake had already begun to sort through the piles of clothing and gestured me over. I stepped uncertainly to his side as he passed me a pair of black snow pants. Declan had brushed the snow off the bench at some point, or at least I assumed he’d done it for us, so I sat down, and he laughed when I tried to tug the pants on and they got stuck on my shoes. I flushed as he went to a knee and helped me work off my sneaker. I jammed my foot through the leg, and he popped a boot on my foot that didn’t belong to me.
“Jake’s?” I asked.
“Yep, I don’t mind,” Jake said and handed me a thick black sweater. “Dec loves to be outside in the cold. I have a fuckton of warm clothes.”
