Chapter 2
YVES
With nobody to go home to anymore, I wasn’t in a particular hurry to get back to New York, so it was no trouble at all for me to step aside when a scowling passenger with a man purse over his shoulder stomped past me to speak to the gate agent I’d been intending to ask for a flight status update.
Even if a week in sunny Orlando had failed to relax me, the thought of flying home was quite honestly depressing me too, so it wasn’t so much that I wanted to hear when we’d finally be able to board, but that—since the agent looked harried—I figured a few moments of pleasant conversation with someone who wasn’t intent on biting her head off for circumstances beyond her control would make both of our days a little brighter.
Or maybe I was just… bored.
Without purpose.
Lonely.
I stifled a sigh, turning away as the scowling passenger’s voice started to rise.
No, not maybe. All three of those things were a given now.
My company practically ran without me these days, this ill-advised “getaway” had only proved that traveling by myself was as miserable as I’d always suspected it would be, and with my closest friends all happily paired off, spending any real time with them—now that Brent had left me so publicly and disastrously—only resulted in feeling like either the object of their pity or a third wheel.
I was not and never had been a man who was content alone, but if the Brent debacle had finally gotten one thing through my stubborn skull, it was that what I wanted in a partner, in a boy, couldn’t be faked and was even less likely to be found.
Not that there was ever any shortage of boys who were willing to call me Daddy, but there was a difference between someone willing to cater to my tastes and someone who actually craved the same things I did…
who’d thrive under my attention and care… who’d need me.
Which was why there was no way in hell that catching sight of the one person who never failed to make me feel like I was the best part of their day—which was preposterous and I knew it, no matter how it felt to have his eyes always light up when I walked in to get my morning hit of caffeine every day—should have made my heart stutter.
I blinked, second-guessing my sanity for a moment.
Any other time, I’d have said that my brain playing tricks on me and sending me a vision of the perfect boy just when I’d been feeling melancholy about never finding one wasn’t a good sign.
Was, in fact, a sure sign that I needed to get away for a while.
Except I’d been away, was still away, I’d been “relaxing” at a sunny resort for an entire goddamn week now and was still no closer to shaking off the apathy that had hit me after Brent had left than I’d been for the last six months. So where did that leave me?
Apparently, it left me crossing the concourse before my trickster of a brain had a say in it, my feet taking me straight toward Ollie, the sweet little bumbling barista who worked in the coffee shop on the ground floor of the building my financial services company operated out of back in New York, despite the fact that having him appear here in the Orlando airport just when I’d been pining for…
something, was too much to be believed. Surely, it was just someone who looked like Ollie.
Or at least, the way Ollie would look if he were sunburned to a crisp and staring longingly at a plushie that only a child or the boy of my dreams would covet.
He picked it up, a hesitant smile dancing over his lips—
“Ollie?” I asked, still convinced that I was seeing things.
—and then he promptly dropped it, jumping back like it was a hot potato.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry, it wasn’t, I mean, I was just—” His words cut off abruptly as his mouth dropped open in a perfect “O,” those big, Disney-worthy blue eyes of his staring up at me in shock.
Then he puffed out a little huff of air to move his floppy bangs back from his eyes and asked hesitantly, “Mr. Toussaint? What are you doing here?”
He mangled my name adorably, the way all Americans did, but it was somehow far less annoying when it came with freckles and a blush I could detect even under his sun-ravaged skin.
My fingers twitched, wanting to find some lotion and address that, but I stilled them, because of course it wasn’t my place. Instead, I answered him.
“Currently, attempting to get back home.” I indicated the board showing my flight delay with a slight nod, leaving my answer at that since Ollie certainly didn’t need to be burdened with my ennui over the trip… and honestly, just the sight of him did wonders for making the world seem bright again.
“That’s my flight, too!” he said, his eyes lighting up in a way that outdid the Florida sunshine.
I bent and scooped up the soft toy he’d dropped, then held it out to him, a smile I hadn’t felt in ages—a true one—spreading across my face. “And what brought you down to Orlando, mon soleil?”
He started to reach for the brightly colored plushie, but then glanced toward the unpleasant passenger with the man purse, still busy berating the gate agent from the looks of things, and tucked his hands behind his back, shaking his head.
“That’s not mine. I just, uh, noticed that we have the same shirt. ”
“So you do,” I said, placing it back on the shelf even though it would look far better in his arms. A good reminder, though, that the things I longed for were unlikely to be found, even with one as sweet as petit Ollie.
Even so, I wasn’t ready to end our conversation, so I asked, “And did you enjoy your trip to Disney World?”
He hadn’t told me his reason for being in Orlando, but it was easy to picture him spreading his particular brand of sunshine throughout the theme park the city was famous for. That, and of course the shirt he was wearing was a dead giveaway that he’d enjoyed some time there.
Except, apparently, I was wrong.
Ollie looked down at the cartoons on his chest, his shoulders slumping. “Disney World? We, um, we didn’t go. Grant really isn’t into that sort of thing.”
“And Grant is…?” I asked, surely a glutton for punishment because I had no interest in hearing Ollie talk about another man, but also couldn’t bear not to know. Not now that he’d brought it up.
“He’s my… um….” Ollie started, shifting uncomfortably. “We came down here together.”
So, his boyfriend, and apparently he didn’t realize that we… what was the American phrase? Batted for the same team. Or at least he didn’t realize I’d be more than accepting of such a thing.
In theory.
When it came to Ollie, though? He wore a plethora of rainbow Pride-decorated pins on his coffee shop apron each time I stopped in, so I’d already known we had that in common, but I hadn’t known—not for sure—that he had someone.
I was more disappointed to hear it than I had any right to feel, even though it stood to reason, of course. Ollie was cute in the most delectable way, and his sunny personality was utterly irresistible. I’d noticed even when I’d still been with Brent, and since then…
Well, since then, I’d accepted that cute, delectable, and sunny just weren’t enough. I needed a certain dynamic to truly be fulfilled, and Brent had disillusioned me completely when it came to finding a boy who actually ticked all my boxes. A boy who wanted to be a boy.
My boy.
My little boy.
“He’s coming,” Ollie whispered, glancing over my shoulder with a fearful expression that instantly put my hackles up. He took a step away from me, then turned abruptly and picked up… a phone charger?
Utilitarian. Mundane. Boring. Everything Ollie was not.
The obnoxious man-purse-toting man from earlier shouldered between us, then plucked the charger out of Ollie’s hand, a look of disdain on his face. “That’s for an iPhone, Oliver. You have an Android.”
“I thought you might need one?” Ollie said, making it sound like a question.
Man-Purse scoffed. “No.” He tossed it back on the counter, disrupting the carefully laid out display. “Do you have the salted cashews we bought?”
“Oh! Yeah. Sure,” Ollie said, crouching down to fight with the outer zipper pocket on his small suitcase. He popped back up, holding the bag of nuts out to… Grant. A man I detested already. “Here you go.”
Grant grunted, taking them without a word of thanks and glancing down at his Apple Watch. “I’ve got eight minutes to get to the next concourse. They managed to get me on a flight with Delta that will actually be leaving on time. Good luck, Oliver.”
“Good… luck?” Ollie asked, his face falling as Grant turned away. “Wait! You’re leaving me here?”
Grant turned back, an impatient scowl on his face. “There was only one available seat,” he said in a dismissive tone, setting my teeth on edge.
Ollie hugged his arms around himself. “But… how will I get home?”
Grant rolled his eyes. “Catch the plane. Grab an Uber. You’re a big boy, I’m sure you can figure it out.”
“You’re not going to wait for me in New York?” Ollie asked in a small voice that made me want to do bodily harm to the asshole who was about to desert him.
“No,” Grant answered in a clipped voice, glancing down at his watch again. “It’s pretty clear we’re not suited.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” Ollie asked, a thread of desperation in his voice as he grabbed onto Grant’s arm.
Grant shook him off. “Oliver, stop making a scene,” he hissed, his eyes darting to me.
And yes, I was staring. Glaring. He didn’t deserve Ollie.
“There’s no ‘breaking up.’ You know we weren’t doing anything more than having a little fun,” Grant continued in a low tone, “but since it isn’t fun anymore, yes. We’re done. I’m done.”
“But—” Ollie started.
“Done,” Grant said, cutting him off with a scathing look. Then, as Ollie’s eyes welled up with tears, he shook his head and turned away, muttering under his breath, “Done being embarrassed by you. Jesus. You’re a child.”
I wanted to end him. But… priorities, and comforting a distraught boy was and always would be one of my highest ones.
“Ollie,” I said softly, disciplining myself not to reach for him. He wasn’t mine. “How can I help?”
He scrubbed at his eyes, looking down and shaking his head.
“Tell me,” I pushed, my heart aching to see him upset. “Anything.”
He finally peeked up at me with a tremulous smile. “You don’t need to do anything, Mr. Toussaint. I’m… well, I guess I’m really not surprised that he left me.”
“You should be,” I bit out. “He’s a fool.”
Ollie’s smile broke out like a beautiful—if brief—flash of sun through clouds. “It’s okay,” he said, patting my hand like he was the one comforting me, even though he was still sniffling. “Really. I don’t like to be alone, but he… he wasn’t very nice anyway.”
Ollie was right about that, even if it did seem to be quite the understatement, but he was wrong about the other part.
I did need to help. I felt compelled to.
And while I couldn’t fix his broken heart—if, in fact, he even had one, which Grant in no way deserved in my unrepentantly biased opinion—I could at least, possibly, do something to alleviate his tears.