Page 14 of Abbott’s Lost Spoon

“If you’ll ask me.”

I cupped his jaw and tipped his face up to mine. “I will, and the same goes. If you have anything you’d like to do together, my answer will be yes.” I bent and brushed his lips with mine, once twice, then, as his arms came around my neck, we kissed in earnest for a long moment. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“Please. Good night, Soren.”

“Night, Abbott.” One more sweet kiss, and I watched him go inside and close the door.

The caffeine was wearing off and tiredness coming back. I had worked all day, driven a couple of hours, and spent most of the evening “up in the sky.” Making beautiful memories with a man I would get to speak to in the morning.

What could be better?

Chapter Eleven

Abbott

Our first date had gone so well that when I woke up the next morning, I questioned whether it had been a dream. Since then, things had gotten better. We talked almost every day, and when we didn’t talk, we texted a couple of times.

More than once, a quick hello turned into an hour-long conversation I didn’t realize had gone on so long until I noticed the call length on my phone. We were getting to know each other bit by bit, and every new thing I learned about him had me liking him more. From what I could tell, he felt the same about me.

I’d seen my friends a couple of times since the date, and they were encouraging my belief that things were headed in a very daddy direction.

Luke sent a message to the group chat telling us he wanted to meet for ice cream before our night out. He didn’t even pretend there was something subtle about it. He said, “Let’s go visit Daddy Ice Cream.”

There were a thousand reasons why that was probably not the best idea. But could I think of a single one? No. They wanted to meet Soren, and maybe they could give me some advice tailored to us. I wanted to see him anyway, so any excuse should work.

We met at the parking garage nearby and walked the rest of the way together. And as all good friends did, they teased me along the way about my hot ice-cream daddy. None of them would be jerks when we got there, but leading up to our arrival, they were having a good time. Fair enough. I was too.

Brock held the door open for us, and we walked in. Soren caught my gaze and broke into a smile.

“That was for you, wasn’t it?” Luke said.

Looked like they’d mess with me here too.

Couldn’t be helped.

We got in line, which was longer than I thought it would be. From the looks of the crowd, the local high school had just gotten out, and all of them headed here. It was great for Soren’s business and gave us time to figure out what we wanted to eat. But it also meant that we didn’t really get to talk as much as I wanted to.

During the first lull, Soren came over, and I introduced him to everybody, and I called him Soren. Not “the guy I’m dating.” And then I felt guilty about not saying he was the guy I was dating. That was what we were doing, right? Dating? Why did my brain always have to complicate everything?

“You were all there the night I met Abbott.”

“We were, and you’re the one who gave him back his spoon,” Sammy said.

He smiled at that. “I was more than happy to reunite them.”

Soren got called back to the counter, but he never went long without looking over and making sure we were okay, which, of course, Luke noticed and decided to comment on. Often.

Finally, things slowed down enough that he came over with his own bowl of strawberry-cheesecake flavor which we all tasted before he had a bite, and we chatted, the group of us, mostly about ice cream and topics that didn’t matter. But it wasn’t the conversation that hit hard. It was the way my friends were able to be themselves with him. None of them were nervous or had their best customer-service-type demeanor on.

Brock was Brock, and Luke was Luke, and Sammy was Sammy. Witnessing that Soren could be around my friends and they were that comfortable—it mattered because they mattered. I’d never be one of those guys who fell in love and forgot his friends. This outing was a hint that I could have both, and I wouldn’t need to compartmentalize.

All too soon, it was time to leave. Soren had work to do, and we had plans. Tonight was the night the daddies got together, which meant we were all free to have our own fun. Usually, we went to each other’s houses. But tonight, we’d decided to hang out in the little room, play, eat snacks. We hadn’t gotten much further than that, but we were going to have fun. What we didn’t realize was that the daddies had a similar idea…and this time, they had Soren with them.

We barely made it into the club before Brock spotted Zeph sitting next to Will, who was sitting next to Soren.

“We should go say hello, don’t you think?” Brock grabbed my arm.

He’d sworn up and down that under any other circumstances, he’d have gone straight into the little room because daddy nights were for daddies and little nights were for littles. That this wasn’t about snuggling his daddy. There was probably some truth in that, but more likely it was because Soren was there, and my little friend group had put on their matchmaker hats.