“I enjoy you, too,” Seth agreed. It was a shame this whole thing couldn’t last a little longer, but he intended to make the most of Oz while he had him.
Curling up against him on the floor totally counted as doing that.
Chapter Eleven
“I didn’t think you were serious when you said you were making me breakfast,” Seth said as he wandered into the kitchen. Oz turned to glance at him and saw that he was still naked, which wasn’t a bad way to start the morning at all.
“It was part of the deal, right?” Oz said, gesturing to the kitchen table with the spatula he was holding. “Sit. Relax. I owe you one.”
“You’ve already paid your debt in full, but I’m not gonna stop you.” Seth sat at the table as instructed, yawning widely.
In his own home, where he was comfortable, he was even more adorable in the morning.
“Well, I hope you’re hungry,” Oz said, sliding the last of the pancakes he’d made so far onto a plate. They weren’t anything special, but he’d seen how much Seth enjoyed them last weekend.
“This is easily the sexiest you’ve ever been,” Seth said. “In front of me, at least. Half-dressed and providing food.”
Oz chuckled as he picked up the plate, moving it over to the table along with the assortment of spreads and syrups he’d found squirrelled away in Seth’s kitchen.
It was a nice apartment, with a stylish, practical kitchen full of beautiful fixtures and fittings. Much nicer than his own, although he’d always been comfortable where he lived.
He wasn’tuncomfortablehere, but it didn’t seem like a place someone actually lived. It felt like Seth was living in a display home.
He didn’t seem to notice or care, so maybe that was just his taste. Or maybe he was used to it. Maybe normal people actually didn’t leave their socks under the coffee table and then forget to pick them up for a month.
“That’s a low bar,” Oz said, although he really liked Seth’s approval and valued it for its apparent rarity. He seemed like a hard man to impress.
“You’d be surprised. I wake up alone a lot.” Seth reached out to take a pancake from the huge stack Oz had produced, not even bothering to put it on his plate before tearing off a chunk and stuffing it in his mouth.
Apparently, table manners were only for when he was in public.
Oz didn’t mind that at all. It was good to know that Seth was comfortable enough around him to drop the Fortunate Son persona.
On the other hand, he wasn’t thrilled that Seth’s life was obviously not as charmed as it seemed on the surface. He didn’t like to see anyone unhappy.
“I don’t think I’ve ever left without saying goodbye,” Oz said. “Maybe in college. I’m not saying I’m perfect, here, but…”
“You are perfect, though.”
Oz paused at the sincerity of Seth’s tone, like he was stating an established fact instead of voicing an opinion, or trying to flatter Oz.
If Oz was perfection, Seth’s standards really were low.
“I’m a long way from it, but I am trying,” Oz responded. Part of him wanted to reach out and hug Seth, but he knew that wouldn’t necessarily be welcome. Seth might have been aware that he buried himself in distractions to stop himself from having to feel things, but that didn’t mean he wanted to stop doing it.
Oz couldn’t really see what he could do about that. He was about to fly to the other end of the country, and then maybe he’d occasionally see Seth at family get togethers. By that time, they would both have moved on. Hopefully, they’d still be friends, but Seth couldn’t be his responsibility.
If circumstances were different, though, Oz might have wanted him to be. There was a lot of good in him, a lot of things to like.
A lot of things to fix, which was Oz’s big weakness. He couldn’t look at a bird with a broken wing without wanting to pick it up and take it inside.
His mom had gotten tired of his collection of injured animals early on, but Oz had kept sneaking them into his room and helping them heal as well as he could, crying over tiny funerals for the ones that didn’t make it.
Seth would probably have laughed at him for that.
“These pancakes are amazing,” Seth said, changing the subject so bluntly that there was no hope of going back. “How are they so fluffy?”
