He was crouched on the floor near the back counter, gathering up wrapped candies and tossing them into a box. His hair was disheveled, sticking up in several directions, and he wore sweatpants and a tank top that showed off his arms. He looked up when Dakota took a step forward, and his eyes went wide.
“Dakota? What are you doing down here?”
“I heard crashing.” Dakota looked around the shop again, taking in the full scope of the disaster. “What happened?”
Kivani stood up, brushing his hands on his sweatpants. “I’m doing inventory. Or trying to. I knocked over a whole shelf of stock boxes like an idiot.”
“At three in the morning?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Kivani bent down and picked up another handful of candies. “Figured I might as well be productive.”
Dakota walked farther into the shop, stepping carefully around the scattered candy, looking at Kivani, who was watching him with an expression Dakota couldn’t quite read.
“This is a lot of mess.” Dakota’s voice was soft, swallowed up by the quiet shop.
“Yeah.” Kivani dropped another handful of candies into the box. “I’ve got it under control though. You should go back to bed.”
Dakota looked at the floor, at the hundreds of individually wrapped pieces scattered everywhere. Kivani would be down here for hours trying to clean this up alone. “I could help.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to.” Dakota pulled his hair back and twisted it into a knot at the base of his skull, securing it with the elastic he kept on his wrist. “But I’m awake now anyway.”
Kivani studied him for a long moment, and Dakota felt that same awareness from earlier wash over him, the sense of being truly seen. “Okay. Thanks.”
They worked in silence, moving around each other in the small space. Dakota started on one side of the shop, gathering candies by flavor and color, organizing them into neat piles on the counter. His fingers moved quickly, sorting and stacking, finding a rhythm in the repetitive motion.
Kivani worked on the other side and Dakota found his attention drifting, his eyes tracking the way Kivani’s shoulders flexed when he reached for something on a high shelf.
The way his forearms looked under the pendant lights, strong and defined.
The way he moved with such ease through the space, like he knew every inch of it by heart.
Face hot, Dakota looked away and focused on his pile of strawberry taffy.
They met in the middle of the shop, both reaching for the same scattered box at the same time. Their hands collided, and Dakota quickly pulled back. Kivani picked up the box and handed it to him, their fingers brushing again.
“Thanks,” Dakota mumbled. He took the box and turned away, his heart thundering.
The silence between them felt different now. Not comfortable exactly but charged with something Dakota didn’t want to name. He could feel Kivani’s presence behind him, could sense when he moved closer or farther away without even looking.
Dakota crouched down to gather a cluster of candies that had rolled under one of the display cases. When he stood up, Kivani was right there, close enough that Dakota could smell his soap, something clean and subtle. Dakota’s breath caught, and he took a step back, hitting the edge of the counter.
“Sorry,” Kivani said, moving to give Dakota more space. “Didn’t mean to crowd you.”
“It’s fine.” Dakota’s voice came out higher than normal. He cleared his throat and set the candies on the counter, arranging them in careful rows.
They kept working. Dakota organized boxes while Kivani restocked the display cases, and slowly, the shop began to look normal again. The floor was clear. The counter was neat. The copper pulling machine sat in its proper place.
Dakota was lining up the last few boxes when he felt Kivani’s eyes on him. He looked up and found the guy leaning against the far counter, arms crossed, watching with an expression that made Dakota’s stomach do a full somersault.
“What?” he asked, his hands stilling on the box he was holding.
“Nothing.” Kivani didn’t look away. “Just watching you work.”
“Why?”
“You’re very methodical. Everything has to be perfectly straight.”
