Chapter Two #2
By the time they finally reached the counter, Zack had built a closing argument for mint chip that sounded more suited to a courtroom than an ice cream parlor.
Colton got a scoop of coffee and a scoop of vanilla in a waffle cone.
Zack ordered mint chip and strawberry in a cup, then added rainbow sprinkles, tongue resting against his top lip like he was performing complicated surgery.
“Sprinkles?” Colton considered, but decided his cone was already amazing without decoration.
“Color has value, Colton. Some of us embrace joy.” Zack licked his ice cream, and Colton zeroed in on the way his tongue circled the cold treat, how the muscles in his throat moved as he swallowed.
Motherfuck.
“Some of us are adults.”
“Debatable.” Zack kept licking his ice cream, seeming unaware of the effect that tongue was having on Colton.
Outside, they carried their ice cream around to the picnic tables behind the shop.
A few broad trees cast enough shade to make the air pleasant, and the boards of the table were warm under Colton’s forearms when he sat.
Bees drifted lazily near a planter full of petunias.
Somewhere nearby, somebody was grilling, smoke and char floating on the breeze.
Zack sat across from him, then immediately changed his mind and slid onto the same side, angled toward him. Better for conversation, presumably. Also better for Colton’s restraint, if the goal was to test it.
First lick of coffee ice cream tasted bitter and creamy, the cone sweet and crisp. Next to him, Zack gave a soft moan in reverence.
“Still toothpaste?” Zack swiped the tip of his tongue over his plump lips.
His mate was out to kill him.
“Still a dental product.”
“Hopeless.” Zack scooped up some strawberry next, and a tiny dot landed at the corner of his mouth.
Colton couldn’t rip his gaze away.
When Zack caught him staring, his mate wiped it away with his thumb. “You could’ve told me.”
“I was considering my options.” Colton’s voice had dropped to a husky pitch.
“Oh my God.” Zack laughed, and the sound landed warm somewhere low in Colton’s ribs. “We’ve known each other less than a day.”
Time wasn’t a factor to shifters. Colton had been alive for a little over three hundred years, always on the lookout for his mate. “Felt longer.”
Something softened in Zack’s expression before his smile tipped sassy again. “That could be charming, or it could be the kind of thing said by a man with several hidden wives.”
That made Colton give a toothy smile. “Promise. No wives.”
Zack bumped arms, wearing a mischievous grin. “Good. I don’t have the wardrobe for that kind of scandal.”
They sat there and ate, talking in the loose, easy way that usually took longer to earn.
Zack had opinions on everything. Bad carpet.
Good coffee. Why cherries in fruit salad were an act of aggression.
Why old movies were either unbearably glamorous or aggressively beige.
He spoke with his hands and his mouth and his eyes, every bit of him involved, and Colton found himself watching every detail.
The quick arch of a brow. The way Zack’s smile sometimes arrived half a second late.
The tiny pause before some of the jokes, as if he was checking the room before telling them.
With surprising ease, his mate pulled things out of Colton. He was normally a private man, but he wanted to share his life with Zack, including the darkness haunting his past.
“So security.” Zack nudged his empty cup around on the table with the spoon. “Were you the kind with an earpiece and a terrifying stare, or the kind who says sir a lot and watches cameras?”
“Mostly private contracts.” That seemed like a lifetime ago. Five years ago Colton had decided to join Grayson’s team, taking down as many dog-fighting rings as possible. His bank account was well funded and it was for a good cause.
“That sounds secretive.” Zack glanced at him from the corner of his blue eyes.
“It was mostly standing around being large.” It was only part of the truth, but Colton wasn’t sharing the grittier, more dangerous side of preternatural security.
Zack slowly rotated his spoon between his fingers. “Ah. Weaponized looming.”
“Useful skill.”
“I can see that.” He glanced at Colton. “You do have a very effective silent thing. Sort of calm, sort of dangerous, very unfair to my pulse.”
Colton bit into the cone to hide a smile. “Unfair?”
“I’m trying to insult you, but the slip came out as a Freudian confession instead.”
A burst of laughter escaped Colton. His mate had a way of putting things. “Hate when that happens.”
“You have no idea.”
They stayed long after the ice cream was gone.
No rush was needed. Zack drew idle patterns in a ring of melted condensation with the tip of his spoon.
Colton leaned back against the bench and let himself enjoy the moment.
Shade overhead. Warm day. Sweet cream still on his tongue.
But most importantly, his mate beside him, talking about nothing and everything.
For a man who’d spent a lot of his life keeping one eye on the exit, this felt almost indecently good. His black panther was blissfully content for the first time in years, relaxing on its side.
Eventually they stood up and wandered without much purpose, heading farther down Main where the shops thinned into older storefronts and hanging baskets overflowed with trailing vines and brightly-colored flowers.
A bookstore with crooked display stacks.
A hardware store that smelled faintly of dust and fertilizer.
Zack paused in front of a bakery window and stared at a lemon tart like it had personally offended him by existing after he’d just eaten ice cream.
“We should come back.” Zack glanced away, only for his eyes to stray back to the pastry.
“For tart?” Colton was down for another treat. His appetite was ferocious at times, especially after running in his panther form. Two afternoon treats was nothing to him.
Zack bit his lower lip, then drew in a deep breath. “For emotional closure.”
“You worried about your weight?” Frowning, Colton glanced over his mate’s body. As far as he was concerned, Zack was at a healthy weight, thick in all the right places.
“No.” Zack’s gaze flicked away. “Ready to keep walking?”
They strolled past a boutique with handcrafted candles and artisanal soaps displayed in the window.
“Who comes up with these pretentious names?” he scoffed. “Like some trust fund poet got high and started free-associating.”
Colton leaned closer to read one of the elegant handwritten tags. “'Moonlit Orchard,'” he read aloud.
“So overused.” Zack nudged Colton’s arm playfully and began inventing his own ridiculous alternatives. “Haunting Vineyard with too much fog,” he said in a singsong tone. “Angle Tears From Above.”
“You’re…terrible at this.”
He kept spouting off ridiculous names until Colton laughed again, and each time that happened Zack got a small, pleased look like he’d won something.
They walked slower as the afternoon stretched. Heat settled into the sidewalks. Cicadas buzzed from the trees lining the street.
Talking was easy. That was the thing that got Colton. It wasn’t strained or forced, or one of those exchanges where Colton had to keep lifting the weight of it to stop it from dropping. Zack talked, yes, but he also listened. Asked questions and stayed for the answers.
He learned Zack rented a tiny apartment over a laundromat that smelled faintly floral all the time because somebody downstairs clearly loved the scent.
Learned he’d moved here a month earlier and still sometimes got turned around downtown because every brick building looked like another brick building when you were running late.
Learned he liked old movies, hated cilantro with moral fervor, and claimed not to be a cat person in the tone of someone who had once been judged by a cat and never recovered.
“Cats know when you’re needy,” Zack said like he was a cat whisperer. “I don’t trust any creature that can look at you like you’re their next meal.”
Will he freak out when he learns I’m a black panther?
Colton hoped his mate was only kidding. “Maybe they just value discernment.”
Zack’s jaw dropped. “Are you a secret cat lobbyist?”
“I neither deny nor confirm such accusations.”
“Knew it.” Zack chuckled, revealing deep dimples Colton wanted to kiss. “I figured you out, buddy,” his mate declared triumphantly.
“Did you now?” They continued their leisurely stroll, eventually circling back to Second Scoop.
“It’s time for me to take off,” Zack said. “Got some errands I need to run.”
Colton wasn’t ready to part ways. He couldn’t remember a more amazing afternoon than this one. “What’re you doing tomorrow?”
Zack’s brows lifted a fraction, as if he hadn’t expected Colton to want more time with him. “Nothing. It’s my day off.”
“Spend it with me.” He laced their fingers. “Please.”
“I…” Zack bit his lower lip, his gaze lowering to their joined hands. “I’d like that very much.”
After making plans to meetup tomorrow morning, Zack walked toward the diner. As Colton watched his mate, he felt eyes on him.
Walking to his truck, Colton covertly looked around, but didn’t see anyone paying close attention. Still, the feeling stayed with him, even as he reached his truck then pulled away.