He quickly changed the topic, asking me how his cupcakes tasted, and they were great, so I turned the question back on him and asked about his birthday plans.
Toby and Keat are throwing me a small thing.
Hopefully no flames, and remember to always extinguish a candle if you leave it in a room alone, I typed, my fingers acting too quickly once more. I shouldn’t have been instructing him on life, he was grown man, and even if he dressed so sweetly, that didn’t mean I could just infantilize him as well. Didit?
Thank you for letting me know, and if I want your attention, I’ll just leave one of them lit?he asked.
I couldn’t quite tell if he was being serious. My brows arched together as I stared at the message. If he wanted my attention, all he had to do was ask for it. I hoped he wouldn’t burn the entire building down just to get my attention.
Don’t do that. I sent.
If you need my attention, I’ve got plenty of it to go around. What do you need attention on?I followed up quickly.
There was a moment where three little dots appeared and then disappeared. I wondered if it was something I’dsaid—I was falling asleep in my armchair, so I might not have been quite so switched on. “Balls,” I let out, getting up out of the armchair and turning the TV off with the remote. The crumbs dropped to the ground, and I sniffled a little in laughter at the name of the bakery. Oh Crumbswas right, and if I’d been hungry enough, I might even have wanted to attack them with a little mouth-to-floor suction. I wasn’t above that, believe me.
I wandered into the kitchen where some of the leftover cupcakes had been put. I’d sampled a few at the station—and claimed them since my mouth cooties were on them according to Janey. I took a bite out of a chocolate one, standing and smiling at the deliciousness.
Anyway, what does a guy like you do with his nights?he asked.
Looking at myself, the answer was unclear.
If I’m not at the hall, I’m usually home, or on a walk, depending on the weather,I replied.
Are you not going to ask me the same?This was some newfound confidence. I didn’t know how to respond to him when he was being a little sassy, but maybe he was being playful and I was misreading the signs—I seemed to have a habit of doing that, unless they were work related.
What do you like to do with your nights?I asked him, just as he’d wanted me to.
I genuinely want to know now,I added.
The picture in my mind was of him and an open book where he was drawing cakes, cupcakes, and other ideas for what to bake. In my mind he was also covered in glitter, like so much glitter it made my nose twitch to sneeze—far from the cakes.
I like to read and play, like fun play stuff, obviously all very SFW.
Which I knew to meansafe for work. I still didn’t quite know what he was saying. It was like he was trying to tell me something, and I was Mr. Oblivious. Unless he was handing me a vodka soda with a lime wedge and had his hand snug on my crotch, I wouldn’t know if this was just his interest in me or my brain was telling me I was interested in him.
“Huh,” I said, looking around at my empty apartment. It wasn’t lived in at all. The walls hadn’t been painted or papered since I moved in, and nothing else ever got done, mostly because I didn’t spend much of the day here. “Come on, brain, you can reply.” I tapped my fingers on thecounter, hands on either side of the phone, watching it like he was going to give me something else, but... he didn’t.
Your cakes were delicious, by the way. And I’ll come back tomorrow for some more.It was the only way I could end this thing and see him tomorrow as a temperature check—a literal one too. I needed to know how hot that damn oven went, and why it was causing him such a struggle.
Perfect! I’ll have your belated birthday present ready for you!he sent, and a weird sensation came over me. My palms became sweaty, my stomach felt tingles, and my ass clenched tight. The last time this happened was after a spicy curry that I’d told the state fire captain I could handle—I very much could not handle it.
But I could handle Caspian, and I could handle these emotions running through me.
I didn’t want a present, but the idea of it now... there was excitement in me. And yet, I didn’t want it. I was the gift giver, so to counter that, I’d have to give himanothergift. Maybe I’d learn a little more about why he felt the need to tell me about his playing wassafe.Was there anotsafe version... and if so, how could I score an invite to it?
Oh balls. I was falling.
This was a crush. In my thirty-seven years, I’d never really had a crush. I’d even married a woman when I was eighteen—the save-sex-till-marriage type—and while I’d loved Samantha, our marriage had ended a year later in an annulment—so were we even technically married?Afterwards, I moved to Sugar Bay and stayed in the closet.
Sure, there were hot men in those fitness magazines, but they were jerk-off material, not the type of material that woke up part of my brain and body like I was taking part in some holy event.
Caspian was my holy event—or holey because I wanted a piece of that... cake.
3. CASPIAN
Kicking my feet and giggling, I couldn’t believe what we were texting him. The three of us had come together to ultimately form one brain, and that brain was in charge of flirting, because we were a bit of a mess when it was just one-on-one.
All three of us, in our matching teddy bear onesies, sat around in a circle—except for Keaton who occasionally paced as he tried thinking back to his elitist education that taught him big words. We were having a picnic-style dinner for my birthday. Plenty of cake, candies, and apple juice boxes. They werelittleessentials. Without a juice box, I would just refuse—or cease to exist.
