“You make me feel good inside,” I told him. That was one way to explain the butterflies he gave me—and for a grown-ass adult man to admit to anyone I they butterflies was going to be met with concerned looks. “Butterflies,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t look at me any differently.
He hugged me now, pressing the front of the teddy bear against me. I just wanted one hug to be chest to chest. “I have butterflies too,” he said. “Also, do you like what I brought?”
“Mostly dessert,” I said.
“And spaghetti letters,” he said. “One of the tins you brought last night.”
“You want them again?” I asked.
He smacked his lips and nodded. “They’re so good, obviously.”
“Okay, okay, well, what else do you want?” I asked, gesturing to the counter where I’d emptied the bags.
“I actually had an idea,” he said, his voice soft. “In the Tupperware.”
There was a box filled with a white-something. I just assumed it was another ice cream or dessert. “Yeah, what is it?”
“Pizza dough,” he said. “I made it myself. It’s ready to be rolled out and stretched.”
“Oh. That’s amazing. You—you wanna make pizzas?”
He nodded. Fuck. I didn’t have anything else for it. I feltlike a failure. I didn’t have anything here for him. I knew I’d been too impulsive in asking him to come over tonight. We’d only had our firstdatething last night, this was all too soon, and yet, his sweet face calmed me—and those thoughts—as if to say it was actually all okay.
“I brought a pizza tray, and something I usually do is actually use the spaghetti letters in their tomato sauce as the pizza base,” he said. “It’s actually so fun. And I brought a Tupperware of cheese.”
There it was, that second Tupperware of white stuff. “Oh. You’re prepared.”
“I’m a bit of an anxious planner sometimes,” he said, pulling out a large circular tray. “But if you don’t want to make pizza, we don’t have to.”
“I actually bought more of the spaghetti, and I bought some instant mash. I heard littles like making volcanos out of them,” I told him, somewhat apprehensively. I didn’t know if I was on the right track, or the right sites for information. And I wanted to be informed. I didn’t want him to tell me what he wanted, I wanted to give it to him and see him happy that I justknew.
He gasped. “I freaking love that! We always make such a mess with mash, so we don’t make it a lot. And yes, dinos, mash, gravy in the middle. We usually see who can make the biggest volcano and stuff.”
“I think we’ll save that one for another day,” I told him. “I think making pizzas would be fun, and maybe I’ve bittenoff more than I can chew, inviting you over, but I stand by my decision. At least we’ll be undisturbed here.”
“Unless you get a call,” he said, brows raised in concern.
“That only goes off for major emergencies,” I told him. “And right now, the only major emergency happening is you taking that bag off so I can get to you.”
He dropped the bag. “It’s just clothes. Now, what did you say you wanted to do with me?”
9. CASPIAN
Daddy lifted me up into his arms and carried me to his bedroom. It was dark, but empty. He placed me on his actually comfy bed, and I sank into the blankets, feeling absolute pleasure from the softness of it all. I made an angel in the covers, arms and legs up and down.
Daddy watched me, smiling so big. “I’ll go get your night light to see what it does to the room.”
Once he was out of the room, I took the moment alone to look at the pictures on his nightstand, and just as he’d said, one was his sister’s family, and the other was him as a kid. I knew there was something sore about his relationship with his father, and I wasn’t going to prod that wound open. I just knew my body would give him extra squeezes—though it wouldn’t make much of a difference because his muscles were so damn hard.
“My sister is the only family that matters,”he said, startling me as he caught me looking at the pictures—like I wasn’t supposed to. “And it’s okay, I’ve processed most of it.”
“Like therapy?” I asked, my jaw tightening, not trying to pry. “Because that’s—”
“Yeah,” he said, his face lit from beneath by the night light in purple. “I think a therapist was the first person I ever said I was gay to. After that, I knew there was nothing wrong with me, but I’ve just kept it to myself because I always feared it was more effort than it was worth.”
“Oh.” I sat upright on the bed to fully see him now in the light.
“Except, and this is going to sound cheesy, but you’ve been hammering away at it,” he said, sitting on the bed. He lay back, looking at the ceiling, and I sat on his belly. “Every single time I saw you in the bakery, every false alarm.”
