Chapter 24
#COMFORTFOODANDFEELINGS
MADDOX
I stared at the ingredients spread across my kitchen counter like I was preparing for surgery rather than cooking dinner.
Mom’s handwritten lasagna recipe—faded ink on a card stained with years of use—sat propped against the flour canister, her careful script a reminder of all the family dinners I was trying to recreate.
The nerves jangling in my stomach were ridiculous. I’d made this lasagna dozens of times. It wasn’t complicated.
But tonight felt different. Tonight, I was trying to impress someone I truly cared about, and the stakes felt impossibly high.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
Adrian
What exactly does one wear to a Maddox Sullivan date?
I grinned despite my nerves, typing back quickly.
Just dress comfortably.
Adrian
Define “comfortably.”
If I recall correctly, you once told me my fashion sense was ‘I just wandered off the cover of Lumberjack Quarterly’ so I’m not sure I’m the person to ask.
The pause before his response felt endless.
Adrian
While that is true, and BTW I stand by my assessment, I still need to know what to wear tonight!
Anything’s fine. Surprise me.
Adrian
Will you at least tell me where we’re going on this date so I can make an informed decision? What if I show up naked?
That would definitely be surprising considering your sensitivity to cold and tonight’s expected low temps, but I can’t say I’d be upset about it.
I set the phone aside and tried to focus on browning the meat, but it was hard now that I had a certain image in my head.
“You’d better save the leftovers,” Maya said, coming up behind me and peering over my shoulder. “Because that smells amazing.”
“You’re welcome to stay and join us,” I said. “The point of the date is a comfortable night in. Having annoying siblings around is part of that experience sometimes.”
Her grunt of annoyance was expected and only made me smile more. “I have my own date to go on, thank you very much.”
I spun around and pinned her with a glare. “With whom? And why am I just finding out about this?”
Maya’s face lit up with her laugh. “Oh, that’s rich. Your boyfriend gets to sleep over, and I’m not even allowed to go to dinner and a movie with someone?”
“You didn’t answer the question. Also, you’re seventeen.”
She rolled her eyes. “For six more weeks. And it’s Tomás. We’re going to see The Frostbite Directive.”
“That sounds ridiculous,” I muttered, turning back to the meat sizzling in the pan. “But if it’s just Tomás, that’s fine.”
He was a good kid who worked part-time for Lennon at the ranch. He and Maya had been friends forever.
“I’ll remember you said that,” she singsonged as she danced toward the door, grabbing her coat from the hook before flitting out into the darkened night.
I was too distracted by my nerves to do more than throw her a wave over my shoulder and tell her to make good choices.
When was the last time I’d been this nervous about anything? When was the last time someone’s opinion had mattered this much?
The truth was, I’d never tried to impress anyone the way I wanted to impress Adrian.
With Michael, things had been easy from the start—we’d fallen into a comfortable routine without much effort. And if I were being totally honest, we’d fallen out of our relationship the same way.
This was different. More important. I wanted Adrian to see a side of me I didn’t show most people. I wanted him to know he was worth any amount of time and effort. I wanted to show him without words how I felt about him.
Which was a tall order, even for my mom’s amazing lasagna.
I finished the sauce and drained the noodles before assembling the lasagna and sliding it into the oven.
After making the salad and opening a bottle of red wine to breathe, I glanced at my handiwork.
In addition to the fairy lights I’d strung around the windows, candles flickered on every surface that wouldn’t constitute a fire hazard, and I’d even dragged out Mom’s good dishes—the ones we only used for special occasions.
The coffee table was set with mismatched napkins, and the quilt Adrian had admired the first time he’d been here was now folded neatly over the back of the couch, ready for snuggling later. I’d even cued up Die Hard on the television so I could educate him on the finest Christmas movie ever made.
Everything was perfect… or as perfect as I could make it in a small apartment above a hardware store.
So why did I feel like I was about to jump out of my skin?
A knock at the door interrupted my spiraling anxiety. I wiped my hands on a dish towel, took a deep breath, and opened the door to find Adrian Hayes in matching flannel pajama pants and top sticking out from under my old hardware store hoodie.
He was also wearing slippers. Actual slippers.
His hair was artfully mussed, like he’d run his fingers through it just enough to look effortlessly attractive, and his cheeks were pink from the cold. He looked comfortable and relaxed and absolutely fucking gorgeous.
“Perfect,” I said aloud, unable to keep the grin off my face.
Adrian raised an eyebrow. “You have to be kidding. No restaurant’s going to allow me in pajamas. I’m only wearing this to prove a point. You need to tell me what to wear. I brought options.”
“Who said anything about a restaurant?” I stepped aside to let him in, catching the scent of his cologne mixed with the crisp winter air.
He stopped just inside the door, taking in the fairy lights and candles and the smell of garlic and herbs wafting from the kitchen. Something soft crossed his face, surprise giving way to something warmer.
“Maddox,” he said quietly. “This is…”
“Dinner,” I finished, suddenly self-conscious. “I hope you’re hungry.”
“Starving,” he replied, but he was looking at me instead of toward the kitchen, and the heat in his eyes had nothing to do with food.
I led him to the small dining table near the living room windows, where the fairy lights cast everything in a warm golden glow. Adrian sat down carefully, running his finger over the edge of his plate.
“These are beautiful,” he said.
“They were my mom’s. She only brought them out for special occasions.” I paused, realizing what I’d just admitted. “I mean—”
“This is a special occasion,” Adrian said simply, meeting my eyes. “Our first real date.”
I met his eyes. “You wanted the Maddox Sullivan experience, right? Well, for you, tonight, that means home-cooked comfort food. A movie you haven’t seen—but definitely need to. And absolutely no cameras in sight you need to perform for.”
His smile was radiant. “A night in just for us?”
“That’s the deal. What do you think?”
“I think you need to lose more bets because this sounds amazing.”
But as I served the lasagna—layers of meat and cheese and pasta that had taken me three hours to perfect—I knew we were both aware that tonight was more than the settling of a debt.
This was me trying to show Adrian what I could offer. Not fancy restaurants or expensive wines, but something made with my own hands, in my own home. Something made with care… for the man I already cared about more than was probably wise.
Adrian took his first bite and closed his eyes, a soft sound of pleasure escaping him.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “Maddox, this is incredible.”
“My mom’s recipe, too,” I said, warmth spreading through my chest at his reaction. “She’d be very impressed to hear I made it on my own and it isn’t terrible.”
“Did she cook a lot?” he prompted with a smile.
“Oh yeah.” I nodded. “Ours was the house where everyone congregated, hoping to get asked to stay for dinner.”
“God, I had a friend like that,” Adrian remembered with a laugh. “Jack Klingman. One of his dads made the most amazing burgers and homemade fries. Every Friday night, we’d all hang out at Jack’s after shooting hoops in hopes they’d ask us to stay.”
“Yeah?” I smiled softly. “It’s great that you had that experience. It was rare to find a family with two dads around here when I was young… which is maybe surprising, given what a queer haven Legacy’s become in recent years.”
“It was pretty great,” Adrian confirmed. “I liked his dads better than the burgers, honestly. Seeing them together made me feel for the first time that being attracted to other guys was a totally normal thing to do.”
I watched him carefully. “And what did your parents think about Jack’s dads?”
He shrugged. “They politely ignored them. The Klingman family didn’t have much money, which meant they were irrelevant. Why spend time with people who can’t do anything for the business or your reputation?”
I reached over and covered his hand with mine. “Do you remember the first date we had, the one at the Marian Lodge, when you went over to meet those girls and their family?”
He crinkled his forehead, remembering. “The family from Virginia? Yeah.”
“I overheard them outside, when they first saw you. One of the girls said you changed her life. You posted something about burnout. And then another time, you posted about your parents. Something about family complications.”
Adrian’s fingers tangled with mine as he held on.
“Yeah. That was last Christmas. It kind of sucked. My parents made a big deal of inviting me back to Connecticut for the holidays. I canceled a trip to Puerto Vallarta with some friends in LA and flew back. It was nice, at first. My mom gushed over how popular I was online. My dad asked me questions about social media and how it worked being an online influencer. It was… pretty fucking validating.”
“And then?”
“And then Dad asked if I could put him in touch with the CEO of one of my sponsors, which just so happened to be a Fortune 500 company.” His bitter laugh broke my heart.
“He thought that my little ten-thousand-dollar sponsorship, in which I posted about their trendy sparkling water, would somehow translate into his being able to sell the company insurance. Enough to level up his damned company. What a moron.”