Chapter Fourteen
“You remembered how I take my coffee,” Zach enthused as Flynn sat down opposite him in the same cheerful little café they’d met up in weeks ago.
He’d been worried about seeing Flynn again when he’d been invited here, but as soon as Flynn walked in the door carrying the reusable cup Zach had given him last time, he’d started to feel like things were going to be okay.
And then Flynn had smiled and waved at him before heading straight for the counter and ordering, still smiling at the barista but playing with the wedding ring he was still wearing.
Zach had caught the moment of disappointment on the barista’s face. It wasn’t that he wanted the guy to be miserable, but it was nice to see Flynn was… laying claim to him.
Yeah, that was exactly how Zach wanted to think about it. Maybe he was reading too much into the gesture, maybe he was stupidly getting his hopes up, but Flynn was still smiling shyly at him. Plus, he was dressed up in a crisply-ironed shirt in a deep charcoal color that made his eyes look even more blue than usual, and he was freshly shaved.
Everything about him screamed that he was trying to look good, and… well, there was no one else here to look goodfor, was there?
“Of course,” Flynn said. “Hard to forget that you like to ruin perfectly good coffee with three sugars.”
Nothing about the way he said it was cruel. He wasjoking.
Zach was so relieved that Flynn still felt like they could joke. He’d been afraid things would be weird between them now.
“Says the man who told me last week that there was nothing that couldn’t be improved by adding more bacon.”
“That’s because that’s afact,” Flynn said, holding his cup in both hands in front of him, thumbs stroking up and down the sides.
Zach stared at them, transfixed by the action, definitely not imagining Flynn’s hands anywhere else. No matter how much he wanted to.
They had a serious conversation to get through, first.
Zach wrinkled his nose. “Chocolate, maybe. But not bacon.”
“Have you ever had chocolate-covered bacon?” Flynn asked. “Because I can agree that chocolate improves it.”
A shudder ran down Zach’s spine at the thought. “Gross,” he said. “Disgusting.”
Flynn chuckled. “I’m gonna get you some so you’ll know how wrong you are. And if you hate it, more for me.”
As much as Zach had absolutely no interest in discovering for himself what chocolate-covered bacon tasted like, he was glad Flynn was talking about the future as though they were still going to be hanging out regularly.
That was the thing Zach wanted most. Flynn was a good friend to have, and fun to be around, and he didn’t want to lose him.
“I take it back, you’re the worst husband,” he said, though he wasn’t serious. He was definitely the best husband Zach had ever had.
Of course, Zach had only been married the once, but he hadalmostmarried Aiden. Even with his worries over how his relationship with Flynn was about to change, this was definitely better than the alternative.
“Yeah, about that,” Flynn began, looking down at his coffee cup. “I really need to apologize to you.”
Zach’s stomach sank.
He’d been sosurethat Flynn was going to admit to… curiosity, at least, but he was apologizing. Presumably because kissing Zach wasn’t something he wanted to do again.
“You don’t,” Zach headed him off. “Worse things have happened to me.”
“That doesn’t mean that what I did wasn’t wrong,” Flynn said. “I should never have just… kissed you out of nowhere like that. No matter how much I wanted to.”
The plastic chair he was sitting in creaked as Zach shifted his weight, which drew more attention to the movement than he would have liked. Flynn looked up, meeting his eyes, and he knew that his feelings on the subject were written all over his face.
“Wanted to?” he asked meekly, his cheeks already flushed at the thought.
Flynnwantedto kiss him? He’d hoped to hear that, but he hadn’t realized how damned good it would feel until Flynn had actually said the words.
