“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he said.
Sitting there like something lost in time was an elderly mini golf course, complete with half-toppled windmill and what looked like a drunk clown head grimacing at them.
“Mini golf? Seriously?”
Of course they ended up playing. The obstacles were chipped, and the clown at hole six only had one eye, but Christian still beat the course record.
Well, he would have, if not for cheating cheaters who cheated—aka Dave Mitchell, who moved his damn ball in front of Christian’s and stole the win. Which Christian was definitely not bitter about. At all.
“Cheater,” Christian said, but for some reason, he couldn’t stop smiling and it just didn’t sound threatening enough.
Back on the main drag, they found a dusty little antique-cum-junk shop, and Christian pretended to care about a hundred cracked picture frames and chipped glass dishes because Dave looked like he was cataloging treasure. Christian leaned against a display case and just watched him, arms crossed, seeing the tiny pinch between Dave’s brows as he deciphered the handwriting on a vintage postcard like it might hold a secret.
And then Dave threw his head back and laughed, and it was like sunshine had cracked into the heart of the shop—warmth and goodness andlife.
“What?” Christian asked, though he was already smiling.
“If you’re gonna start a postcard with ‘You’ll never guess where we are,’ it’s probably best not send it with a picture of the place where you are on the front,” Dave said, voice still unsteady with laughter.
Christian couldn’t stop himself. He leaned in to look at the card in Dave’s hands, using the move as an excuse to kiss him.
Dave huffed a soft laugh against his mouth. “What was that for?”
Christian shrugged. “No reason.” Except that he’dwantedto. And sometimes it still stunned him, how much he did.
Dave arched an eyebrow, amused. And pleased. Really pleased.
Christian huffed, suddenly and bizarrely shy. “Don’t make it a thing.”
“Wasn’t gonna,” Dave said, but his smile lingered like sunshine anyway.
* * *
For lunch, Dave chose a place that seemed to be a throwback to better times in the town, with white tablecloths and linen napkins that made Christian itch just looking at them. But the food was good, and Dave was happy, and Christian found he didn’t really mind.
“You going to order dessert?” Dave asked, when they were done.
Christian shook his head. “Nah. Saving room to steal yours.”
Dave rolled his eyes. “You’re unbelievable.”
“You know it,” Christian said.
Once Dave’s coconut pudding arrived, Christian stole a spoonful before Dave had lifted his own spoon.
And Dave let him. He even pushed the dish a little closer, and Christian thought maybe he’d done something amazing in a past life to deserve this. Then he realized what a Dave-type thought that was, and mentally kicked himself.
Both their phones sounded at the same time. Riley, with a picture of…
“Is that Diablo being friendly with Mayhem?” Dave asked, tilting his phone as if that might change what he was seeing.
“Oh, God, that’s going to be a disaster,” Christian said, trying for gloomy and missing. It was sogoodto see his horse happy, even if he was making catastrophically bad friendship judgments about one of Tristan’s damn goats.
They wandered again after lunch, aimless in the fall sunshine. It wasn’t much of a place—just a grid of streets with too many vacant storefronts and a smell of sun-baked asphalt clinging to everything. But Dave was beside him, close and easy, and Christian didn’t think they’d ever just existed like this, with no pack responsibilities or interruptions. Just the two of them, together.
They ended up by a tiny municipal park, which was little more than a patch of grass with one sad-looking slide and a battered picnic table. Christian bought an ice cream sandwich and a fruit popsicle from the grocery store opposite, checked the ingredients automatically, then lobbed the popsicle at Dave as they dropped onto the bench.
He let the silence stretch. As always with Dave, he felt no pressure to fill it.
