“I proposed before his dad showed up,” Noah corrected. “About… two seconds before that.”
Tia laughed brightly. “Oh! Okay, that makes sense. I was wondering why Benji didn’t say yes right there. So, when did he officially accept?”
Noah held back a wince. “He hasn’t. Not yet anyway. He isn’t ready.”
“Oh…kay,” Tia said. “Huh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense too. Heisonly twenty-one.”
“Twenty,” Noah corrected.
Tia cackled, rocking back against the couch. “God! I forgot he can’t evendrink. You wouldn’t be allowed an open bar at your own wedding!”
“We could sneak him a champagne flute,” Noah deadpanned.
Tia laughed louder. “Man, maybe it’s good he said no.”
Noah paused, stung. He had been expecting Tia to be on his side.
“You always said I wasn’t too intense,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “That I just needed to find the right person for it.”
“You’re not too intense,” Tia assured him with a fond eyeroll. “And Benji seems like a good match! But if he’s not ready, he’s not ready. And youhaveonly known each other for six months.”
Noah knew it. Tia should have been right—itdidmake sense, logically. This was another classic case of Noah getting too intense, yet again. The exact thing he’d been trying to tamp down his entire romantic life, the thing his partners warned him about time and time again.
But it didn’t feel like it.
“But I do know him,” Noah protested. “I know all of him. And I love him. I’d marry him tomorrow if he’d let me.”
Tia groaned. “Please tell me you’re not going to do some stupid swoony shit to talk him into it!”
“I won’t,” said Noah, who had been daydreaming about doing exactly that.
Somebody knocked on the door.
“If that’s a hundred roses,” Tia said jokingly.
“Not this time.” Noah got up and headed for the door, head full of silk and collars and expensive paints.
He opened the door.
Chet Caulfield glared back at him. There were two men behind him with cameras, stepping back to get both Chet and Noah in frame.
“Mr. Stern,” said Chet. “You must be the man who bought my son.”
CHAPTER 7
Benji woke up to a light but insistent knocking on his bedroom door.
He pushed himself up groggily. His hole hurt, his throat ached. He felt tender and well-used and deeply satisfied.
There was a thermos of tea on the nightstand. Benji smiled at it, then got up to tug on a pair of boxers and answer the door, expecting to see Max looking annoyed.
“This had better be good,” he called as he walked for the door.
“I don’t think it’s great,” came a muffled voice.
Benji frowned. That wasn’t Max. That wasn’t even Henrietta, the maid who sometimes had questions about where to put Benji’s art supplies.
He swung open the door to see Tia standing in the hallway, fiddling with her sparkly glasses.
