“I’m actually on my way out now,” Milo said, moving to stand beside me. “Xander’s letting me tag along with him tonight.”
“Hayden’s doing a private preview of the new summer menu,” I said. “For friends and, umm. Well, I guess we are friends. But I think I’m invited because he likes to invite people who run food businesses, y’know? He says we’ve all gotta stick together. I agree.”
I was rambling. Not least of all because Milo’s hand had brushed against my sleeve anddammit,Dante really was right. About everything.
Everything about me, anyway. I still wasn’t convinced Milo was as interested as Dante thought.
“I won’t keep you, I’ve got secret girls’ business with Dawn,” she said with a wink. “Don’t come back too early unless you love looking at fabric samples.”
“Noted,” Milo said, smiling at her. Not the salesman smile, a real one. I wondered if he’d noticed yet what I knew about Roxie’s feelings for Dawn.
Not that I thought Dawn had clued in. Roxie was obviously patient.
“C’mon,” I said, nudging his elbow and trying to ignore how it made my stomach flutter. “Hayden will give us disappointed eyes if we’re late.”
14
MILO
“Who isthis?”a tiny, dark-haired man with the most incredible green eyes asked, looking up at me like a cat looking at a mouse, wide-eyed and attentive. “Where did you find him and does he have a brother?”
Xander snorted beside me as an older, taller man appeared behind the tiny one, putting a hand on his waist and dropping a kiss on his head.
“Seth, this is Milo. Milo, this is Seth, who doesn’t mean it. And his husband, Mark, who loves him very much.”
“Who says I don’t mean it?” Seth asked, giving me a once-over with sparkling eyes. Behind him, Mark snorted.
“That one’s Xander’s,” Mark murmured. “You don’t have a brother, do you?”
“No, sorry,” I said, unsure what to make of the two of them.
Seth made a noise almost as sad as the one Orion had earlier. Mark chuckled, and it was one of those deep, warm chuckles that went right to my bones and I understood the appeal of him right away. Not tome, exactly.
But then I was distracted.
Did Xander telling me I smelled good mean anything? Aside from that Zara had great taste in cologne and I’d be a mess without her patient guidance?
Did Iwantit to mean anything? On the one hand, I was pretty sure I’d blown my chance. On the other, it was probably a bad idea, considering everything.
On the third hand, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about Xander. I thought about him constantly, even when I was supposed to be thinking about other things.
That wasn’t really a change from normal, but it was so much worse now that I’d met him in person.
“You made it,” Wes enthused, slipping between the crowd and coming to clasp Xander’s shoulder, squeezing it firmly. “Glad you’re here.”
That was sincere, and I could see how much it meant to Xander. He’d told me yesterday that he was pretty new in town—the bakery had been open less than a year—and how much it meant to him to be accepted into the community like this.
It meant a lot tomethat he’d take me along. I wasn’t planning on embarrassing him, but it was nice to be trusted not to.
“Thank you for inviting us,” Xander said.
Wes glanced at Seth, then toward what I assumed were the doors to the kitchen. “You’ll be okay with Seth, right?” he asked.
“I already invited Milo to a threesome, so we’re best friends now,” Seth said. “Go tend to your perfect, gorgeous, anxious wreck of a husband,” he added, making a shooing motion.
Relief broke over Wes’s face, and he patted Seth on the shoulder on his way past, heading for the doors I’d noticed earlier.
“C’mon,” Seth said, threading his arm through mine and tugging on it. “If Xander’s not planning to show you off, I will.”
