I’m Van Fucking Holt. I can handle this.
After adding a banana and chopped fruit bowl for himself, he paid for his basket of stuff and headed back. Slowly. The sidewalks were already bustling with the brunch crowd at ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, and he caught fragrant whiffs of bacon and cinnamon over the salty sea air.
The elevator ride was over too fast, and he stood outside the hotel door. He didn’t have a key, which required him to knock, only his hand wasn’t working. He was ten minutes past his thirty-minute return time, so they should both be dressed and decent.
If either one of them answered the door in a towel, he was a dead man.
He knocked.
The door whipped open fast. Benji grinned at him, his hair still damp and uncombed. But he was fully dressed in board shorts and a sleeveless graphic tee. “Hey. You were gone so long I thought maybe I’d scared you off.”
Van pulled back hard on his need to reach out and ruffle that damp hair. “You didn’t scare me off,” he said with just enough sneer to back up his words, which were not true at all.
“Did he bring coffee?” Joshua asked. He was sprawled on the haphazardly made bed, also dressed, thank fuck.
“Sorry, no.” Van pulled his two items out of the plastic bag and dropped it onto the bed by Joshua. “I didn’t even think to.”
“The bathroom has one of those single-serve pod things in it,” Benji said. “I’ll make you some. Van?”
“No thanks, I don’t drink coffee.”
“Smart man. I got addicted in college. By that guy.” He pointed at Joshua, who was digging into the bag of supplies.
“Joshua mentioned you met in college.” That seemed like a safe topic. Van stayed near the door, telling himself it was so he could talk with both Joshua, on the bed, and Benji, who was fussing with the coffee pot in the bathroom.
“Yup,” Benji said. “I was a freshman and he was a junior. I was shocked someone as smart as him was interested in me. I mean, he was computer science with a minor in Spanish, and I was still undecided, leaning toward a music major that I never ended up finishing anyway.”
“You’re plenty smart,” Joshua said. He’d unearthed the ibuprofen and a bottle of water. “Just in different fields than me. Plus I know dick about music.”
Why did he have to say dick?
Benji seemed to have conquered the coffee pot, because he emerged from the bathroom wearing a triumphant smile. “Coffee’s coming, babe.”
Joshua beamed. “Thanks. Is there enough for you, too?”
“Yeah, I’ll make mine next.”
Guh. Could they be more adorable?
Van intended to eat the banana first, except he realized that was probably not the best thing to be eating in front of two guys who kept making googly eyes at each other. So, he opened the cut fruit instead and used his fingers, because he’d been too distracted to grab a plastic fork. Benji tore into one of the sandwiches and had half of it scarfed down by the time Joshua’s coffee was done. He went into the bathroom and fixed it upbefore delivering it to his boyfriend. The domesticity of it, the fucking familiarity of a ritual years old, made Van’s insides ache with want.
He’d never had that.
Joshua guzzled the mug of coffee before poking at one of the sandwiches.
“I wasn’t sure what you guys would like,” Van said. “So I grabbed a few random choices.”
“You did good,” Benji replied. He came out of the bathroom with his own steaming mug of coffee, the fragrance of which was filling the room. “Joshua isn’t a big eater when he’s hungover, even though food helps. Actually, he’s a big baby whenever he doesn’t feel well.”
Joshua flipped him off, which made Van laugh. And then ache a little bit more.
“It’s not my fault I’m prone to germs,” Joshua said. “Meanwhile, that one”—he pointed dramatically at Benji—“somehow manages to escape every single cold and flu season without a single sniffle.”
“So you balance each other out,” Van said.
“I guess we do.” Joshua grinned. “So what about you, Van? You don’t drink alcohol or coffee, and you’re over there eating fruit for breakfast. You’re probably the healthiest person I’ve ever met.”
If only that were true.
