“Thanks. I’ll go grab the cooler from my car. I brought lobster rolls today, but I tweaked the sauce a little bit. I tried it last night, but you’ll have to let me know what you think.”
“I’m sure it’ll be great,” Shiloh tells me. I nod, sending one last look Nils’ way before leaving the boat. I don’t think either of them are good food testers. They always tell me everything isgood and then stuff their faces like they’ve not eaten in months. I’m pretty sure itisall good, but I’m also pretty sure they have opinions about what they actually like and don’t like. One day maybe they’ll share them with me.
When Nils sees me coming with the cooler, he raises his arms for me to hand it to him, having climbed down from theDrifter. His hair is tied low at the nape of his neck today, beanie pulled down to cover his ears from the air, cold even in the workshop.
When we leave the shop in the early afternoon, Ewan is waiting in the car park. I glance over at Shiloh in time to see a smile spread across his face, and he raises a hand to wave. Hopping out of his vehicle, Ewan waves back.
“Hello, boys,” he calls, rounding the back of his SUV and lifting the hatch.
I glance over at Nils. In the bright light of the day, I can see the gold tones in his brown eyes and the way snowflakes catch on his lashes. Not just his butt that’s distracting, then.
We rode in together, as we’ve been doing every day since we started dating. He’d stopped by my house early a few mornings in a row, and I hadn’t caught on until the fourth day. He was asking for more time together, which I, of course, am more than happy to oblige. I’ve managed to convince him that it’s better we trade off days in order to make it fair, but I can tell he’d prefer I let him drive me all the time. Sneaking another look at him, I think maybe I’ll let him have his way the rest of the week. Gentle caretaking seems to be Nils’ love language.
“Everything okay?” Shiloh asks, putting a hand on Ewan’sback.
Ewan looks at him with an expression to rival the sun on a summer day but otherwise doesn’t react. They don’t seem to be a PDA sort of couple, but then I rarely do see them together out and about. As Shiloh recently put it to me, they “prefer to only be around themselves.” With Nils standing close enough to me that his hand brushes mine and I can smell the engine grease on his skin, I think I know exactly what Shiloh meant.
“Everything’s fine,” Ewan replies. “I just came to bring Oliver a gift.”
Shiloh, walking over to inspect what he brought, grumbles about me getting more gifts than he does. Nils huffs a soft laugh but otherwise remains silent. Touching his hand, I walk over to join Shiloh next to Ewan.
“Yeah? What did you bring me?” I have a feeling I know what it is, since Ewan gives only one kind of present: art.
And sure enough, the back row of seats is folded down to accommodate a canvas resting on a tarp, the painted side facing upward. Tilting my body to the side, I crane my neck and smile.
“Matches the one you already have,” Ewan tells me unnecessarily, pressing his hands into his lower back and arching into a stretch.
“This is perfect. I can put them both in my bedroom. They’ll look amazing right next to one another. And I can choose a paint color for the walls to match. Perhaps ‘Santorini blue.’” I glance back at Nils, happy when I see recognition in the tilt of his head and the knowing eyes on mine.
“Think you can fit it in?” Ewan asks me. “Otherwise, I cancome by your place before we head home.”
“We can fit it. Although you should probably stop giving me these. It doesn’t seem like a good business decision, handing away art for free. People would pay a lot of money for this.” I pause, looking down at the canvas and gently resting my fingers on the corner. “Me. I am people.”
He laughs, stepping back toward Shiloh when Nils moves closer to help me pull it from the trunk.
“Nah. Friends-and-family discount. I was just messing around. And like you said, it’ll look good next to the other one. No sense in selling half of a matched set to someone else.”
I don’t bother trying to argue that a matched set is only a matched set if people know there are two. He could just as easily have put this up for auction and let me have mine. Nobody would have been the wiser. But in the same way that helping me with chores seems to make Nils happy, giving gifts brings Ewan joy. I can’t say I mind being on the receiving end.
Nils and I get it tucked into the back of my SUV, the canvas a lot easier to handle with two pairs of hands than one. Ewan, sharp hazel eyes on us, seems to notice the lack of a vehicle in the lot at the same time Nils slams my trunk closed.
“Rode in together?” he asks lightly.
“Yeah. We’ve been doing it for a couple weeks. We’re neighbors, so it makes sense. Save on fuel and…stuff.” I trail off, not sure what other “stuff” is being saved by carpooling. Greenhouse gases, I suppose. Wear and tear on the car. All things I should care about, and good reasons to ride together. Of course, the only reason I really care about is the extra hour and a half of time I get with Nils per day, trapped in a small space. This morning, he held my hand. But yeah, sure, fuel is the reason. Definitely.
“Mm.” Ewan hums, a slightly knowing tilt to his mouth as he looks between us. For half a second, I wonder if I said that bit about holding hands out loud, but then he turns to Shiloh and slaps him lightly on the butt. “Meet you at home? I started dinner in that slow cooker thing.”
Shiloh looks slightly dismayed at this but rallies, murmuring an agreement to Ewan and saying his goodbyes to me and Nils. We split off to our vehicles. I check over my shoulder as I snap my seat belt into place, making sure the painting won’t move during the drive home. It’s wedged pretty firmly against the back of my seat, though, very close to being too long for the space. I think I’m going to have to move painting the bedroom up my list of projects—I can’t wait to hang these up on the wall.
“I don’t think Ew-ew-ewan is a very good cook,” Nils says softly as I back out of my space and turn onto the road. I laugh.
“No, I don’t think so either. Sometimes Shiloh asks me for recipes because he likes to cook, but I don’t think it’s safe the other way around. Ewan is a throw-it-all-together-and-hope-it-works sort of cook. Which is fine, but you have to sort of know what you’re doing. And I’m pretty sure Ewan doesn’t.” Nils chuckles under his breath. “Shiloh told me he was going to have to hide the spices. No spice use for Ewan until he can be trusted with them.”
Nils holds his hand out to me, waiting until I slide my fingers between his to give me a little squeeze. The holding hands isnew just this week and feels as shiny and good as a lucky penny. When we reach my house, I feel his fingers loosen as I bring the vehicle to a stop. Instead of letting him go, I use our linked hands to tug him gently toward my side of the car. I kiss him once on the mouth and once on the back of the hand before I let him go and put the vehicle in park. Nils, ever the patient one, waits until I turn the car off to gently touch my chin, directing my face back toward him. His lips are cold and chapped, cheek scratchy with stubble where it brushes against my skin.
We don’t make it far into the house—painting forgotten in the car—before I’ve backed him up against the wall and have my hands on his face. Nils’ fingers, cold from outside, sneak under my layers to find skin. I shiver when he cups my ribs, breath catching in the thin space between our mouths. Nils, in the way of a person who is good at everything they do, is an excellent kisser. I slide my thumbs from his nose across his cheekbones. Nils, silently watching me, presses his fingers to my skin, hands firm like he’s holding me up. His irises are so dark brown they look like extensions of his pupils, liquid pools of black coffee.
I watch his eyes close as I lean in to kiss him again, senses caught between the smell of winter and grease, and the taste of salt on his lips. I could stand here all day, holding Nils against the wall and being held in return. It has been so, so long since I’ve welcomed the touch of someone else, so long since I’ve felt I could trust it. I breathe softly as Nils pulls away, nose skating across my jawline and down my neck. His hands slide down to my waist, fingers dipping just slightly below the line of my jeans.
