9. Thump That Melon
Thump That Melon
LUKE
L uke sighed and stared at the selection of melons. Should he toss his money away on fruit?
Yes, actually, he should.
Recently, he’d been surviving too much on ramen, pizza, and burgers. Deep down, he knew french fries stopped counting as a vegetable after being cooked in so much oil.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten a raw vegetable or a piece of fruit.
He was probably in danger of getting scurvy.
Of course, if the odds were that high, it was likely that most American college students across the country were likely to get scurvy, and he couldn’t remember hearing of any cases of scurvy on campus.
He closed his eyes and groaned at his thoughts. That was all ridiculous.
But when he opened his eyes again, he was still standing in the produce section of the market one bus stop away from the house. He’d enjoyed having the day off from work. Classes had flown by. He’d caught up on his laundry and located a rare book through the college library loan system.
On his way home, he’d thought he’d pop by the store and pick up something healthy to eat.
Unfortunately, healthy meant chopping, mixing, and cooking many ingredients.
But he didn’t want to get a bunch of food to cook one meal and then have the leftover ingredients end up going bad before he found the time to make another meal.
Plus, there was the whole overload from trying to decide between too many options.
Not to mention that it had been a long day, and now he was out of the energy he needed to even make a decision.
Ugh .
This was a mistake. He should get a frozen pizza and call it a night.
And now he was back to getting scurvy.
Stupid melons. Why is adulting so exhausting?
“Do you know how to tell if one is ripe?”
Luke jumped at the sudden voice on his right. He’d been so lost in his wallowing that he’d not even heard someone approach him. He twisted around, expecting the speaker to be one of the grocery workers or even a nosy customer, but it was neither.
It was Matteo.
Holy. Shit.
“You thump it,” Matteo continued, a huge smile on his face.
Luke continued to gawk at him, his brain a useless lump of gray mush filling his skull. Matteo was here. Matteo was talking to him. Smiling at him.
Say something, you idiot! Make some noise! Bark, goddammit!
Before Luke could so much as grunt, Matteo lost his grin, and his beautiful face scrunched up as if he were wincing. “Wow! That sounded a lot better in my head. Now that the words are out, I…wow…that was bad. Did that sound creepy and perv-y?”
“No!” Luke blurted out. His brain gave a tiny cheer at locating the cells that controlled his mouth. Now, to keep from saying anything stupid.
“Are you sure? Because that sounded bad to me.”
“Yes! I m-mean no! I-I mean, it didn’t sound bad to me. I-I was just surprised, that’s all. Lost in thought.” Luke clamped his mouth shut to stop his stammering and applauded his brain for only sounding like a partial idiot instead of a full-blown idiot.
“Okay. Good.” Matteo exhaled loudly, and his grin returned in full force, killing off the few working brain cells Luke had left. “I don’t think we’ve ever been introduced. I’m Matteo Zito.”
“Yes, I know.” The words tumbled out, and all Luke could do was slap his hand over his mouth after the fact. “I mean, I’ve seen you around.”
That was not better. He sounded like a stalker now.
But Matteo continued to grin at him. “I’ve seen you, too. Luke, right?”
“Yeah, Luke Carter,” he breathed, pretty sure he was going to expire on the spot.
His body couldn’t take the roller coaster it was on.
Yet, if he died right here in the middle of the grocery store, he was okay with it.
He was having sort of a conversation with the hottest man he’d ever met, and Matteo was smiling at him. What more could he possibly ask for?
“The guy with the ravens.”
Now he really wanted to die. Of course, that was what Matteo remembered him for. He’d probably heard all the weird rumors and obscene talk.
“Crows, actually.” He corrected Matteo in a mumble and turned his attention back to the long shelf of fruit in front of him, but he didn’t see it. His appetite was gone now. Maybe he should swing by the frozen-food aisle and get a pint of Rocky Road.
Fuck being healthy.
“Oh, shit! Sorry. I didn’t think crows got that big. That’s why I thought they were ravens. They’re bigger than crows, right?”
Luke sneaked a peek at Matteo out of the corner of his eye to find that the man was still grinning at him.
He didn’t seem to be mocking Luke or to be creeped out.
If anything, he seemed relaxed and friendly.
And, of course, ridiculously sexy. Today, he was wearing a pair of dark jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with a light jacket.
His hair was perfectly windblown with some long strands hanging over his forehead.
Luke ached to run his fingers through Matteo’s hair and finally discover if it was as soft and silky as it looked.
The man could have pulled double duty in shampoo and toothpaste commercials.
“Ravens are typically bigger than crows, but I think the crows hanging out on campus are just well fed. That’s what makes them so big.”
Matteo grunted. “Makes sense. College students are constantly leaving food around for them to scavenge.”
“You…” he started, but the words died on his tongue as met Matteo’s wide and friendly gaze. He didn’t appear to scare Matteo. In fact, he appeared genuinely interested. Now Luke simply had to remember not to inundate him with useless bird knowledge that no one other than himself wanted to know.
“Did you train them?”
“No.” He huffed a little laugh and shook his head.
“Crows are smart. They’ve learned to watch out for me.
I feed them nuts and other snacks occasionally.
” He smiled and searched his mind for something else to talk about when his evil, useless brain was kind enough to call up the last time he’d seen Matteo.
The day the crows had chased those frat boys and Matteo across the quad.
Luke gasped so hard he choked on the air.
Matteo hit him several times on the back as Luke coughed, trying to catch his breath and remember how to breathe like a normal human being.
“I didn’t train the crows to attack anyone!” Luke forced out in a rough voice between the coughing.
“What?” Matteo screeched, his eyes so wide they looked like they were going to roll out of his head. “Oh! That day on the quad!”
“Yeah! I didn’t—I mean—the birds…are you okay?”
Fuck! Couldn’t someone come along and bury me under the ten-pound bags of potatoes? This is painful?
Matteo laughed and gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “Yeah, I’m okay. Was just scared more than anything. No harm done. The crows were trying to protect you, right? I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No big deal.”
“Protect me?”
“Yeah, because those assholes poured their drink on you. Right?”
Luke squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. For a heartbeat, he considered agreeing with Matteo, but he couldn’t. That was the kind of “harmless” lie that would come back to bite him in the ass.
“No,” Luke groaned. “I did that. As I was getting ready to leave with my friend, I grabbed my drink, and the lid came off my cup.”
Matteo hissed, and Luke opened his eyes to see Matteo wince. “Man, that was a fucking bad day for you.”
“Pretty much. Do you mind if we talk about something else?” He would prefer to go the rest of his long life without ever having to think of that horrible day again.
“Yes!” Matteo moaned, as if he were drowning in relief. The young man’s face went blank for a second, and his eyes darted back and forth as if he were searching his brain for a new topic. His expression lit up like a thousand-watt bulb. “So, do you come to this grocery store often?”
Luke’s mouth fell open.
Matteo’s swarthy complexion turned bright red two seconds after he finished speaking. Luke could see the exact second it clicked in Matteo’s brain what he’d said. If he hadn’t been so shocked, he would have been laughing.
“No! No! No! I didn’t mean it like that!
” Matteo’s hands shot up toward Luke, but he seemed to have forgotten that he had one of those plastic baskets in his right hand, so it went with his hands and nearly hit Luke in the face.
Luke jerked out of the way before Matteo could clock him with it.
Matteo cried out and whipped his hand away.
The basket flew free behind him. Thankfully, there was no one else in that part of the produce aisle, and the basket bounced harmlessly across the worn linoleum.
“Oh, my fucking God,” Matteo muttered as he marched after his errant basket. “I’m not this big of a dork.”
Secretly, Luke prayed he was, because it made him that much more perfect. Sexy, kind, and a bit of a dork. Was there any more intoxicating combination in the world? At the moment, Luke was going to say hell no.
Matteo walked to him, his footsteps just a shade short of being called a stomp, and let out a heavy breath. “What I meant was that I’ve never seen you in this store.” He squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. “Now I sound like a stalker spouting the world’s worst pickup lines. I?—”
Luke had pity on the poor man and placed his hand on Matteo’s shoulder.
He squeezed, stopping his words. “No, I don’t get to shop for groceries that often.
I work two jobs plus take classes. Keeps me busy, and I eat a lot of crap.
That’s what I was doing when you came over—trying to figure out something healthy to eat. So I don’t get scurvy.”
He should have stopped prior to that last sentence of scurvy nonsense.
Whatever. Matteo didn’t seem to mind since the guy was flashing him a big “thank you” look.
“Smart. Healthy is good. I try to pick up something from here every Thursday night, so I know I’ll have at least a couple of healthy meals a week,” Matteo replied.