CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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ADAM DROPPED HIS crossed leg, then placed the left over his right. He’d done that five times already. A low buzz from people zipping in and out for dessert told him he was smart to show up early. It also meant he’d had to wait on pins and needles for fifteen minutes.
Outside, the street lights were starting to flicker.
The café was never open this late except for the lead up to Halloween, when Anoka flooded with tourists aching for anything festive.
A handful of strangers sat at the wrought iron tables outside.
At first, Adam thought that’d be a good spot.
He could people watch, and—if Raj didn’t show—it’d be easy for him to slip away.
But if Raj did show, the last thing he wanted was any passersby getting into his business. So he chose the table as far from the action as he could. It butted up to a mysterious door with no way in. Too bad it was also by the busy coffee pots.
The door opened, and Adam sat up higher.
“Bertie!” a woman called out, greeting an older man hidden behind a newspaper.
Adam slipped lower in his chair.
Damn it. Wrinkles.
Correcting his posture, he tried to adjust the lines of his suit and realigned his orange pocket square folded to mimic a pumpkin.
Okay, he may have overdone it for a coffee date.
The twelve-step process to get his hair perfect was also not a healthy sign.
But he hadn’t done casual dating in years. Or any dating, really.
For the past five years, his top romantic moments included the time a guy shared his edible after eating his ass, and another one letting him take an energy drink home after they’d fucked all night. Just sitting at a table together blew his last half-decade out of the water.
Assuming he shows up.
“Hey Ad—”
Adam swung his head up.
“—rienne.” A man kissed the cheek of one of the women at a table of four.
When was the last time anyone kissed me somewhere other than my lips…or cock?
“I’m so sorry. Am I late?”
A strange pang, almost between a smile and tears, flushed through Adam’s chest. He turned as Raj fiddled with the back of his chair.
“Wow, you look…” Raj’s jaw tumbled to the floor. Shaking it off, he pulled out his chair and finally sat while speaking. “There was a customer who wanted a special kind of tea, and we didn’t have it. Should I have dressed up? I feel like I should have put on anything else.”
“No.” Adam caught his hand picking at the gorgeous Aran sweater cupping his body. “You look…wonderful.”
Raj smiled. “You too. Though, you always do. I didn’t even have time to comb my hair, and you’re here in cologne that smells like…” He breathed deeply, and Adam would swear his eyes darkened. “Sweaty bodies rolling around on a bearskin rug.”
Fuck. How could that man go from adorable bumbling dork to cock-jerking sex master in two seconds? “I, um…” Stunned, Adam tried to jumpstart his brain. “Thank you.”
Smiling, Raj turned and stared at the menu or the line trailing away from the counter. “Is there anything here other than truffles and tortes?”
“Oh, yes. Though, this time of year, I swear by their pecan bourbon torte.”
“Sold.”
By the time they got their tortes, Adam and Raj had discussed their favorite horror movies.
All the originals, of course. They were so deep into debating if Dead Man Lifting would have been better with the original plan of a haunted gym killing people or the zombie body builder, Adam didn’t realize he’d cut a slice of his torte until he bit down on the fork.
“Wow.” Raj gulped and shook his head. “You weren’t kidding. This is delicious.”
“I never kid about…tortes.” Adam cocked his head, trying to look cool while he twiddled his fork like a dagger.
“Gentlemen.” The cashier slash waitress stood before them. “We’ve got one chai latte.” She placed that in front of Raj. “And one black coffee.” That one she put in front of Adam. “Do you need anything else?”
Adam smiled warmly. “We’re good. Thanks, Trini.”
Once her back was turned, Adam and Raj switched drinks. After savoring the rush of spice, Adam placed his mug down, leaned to the side of his chair, and eyed up Raj. “So…”
“So,” Raj repeated.
“Shall we delve into the awkward getting-to-know-each-other exposition rush while pretending we didn’t Google it all before?”
Raj chuckled, the guilt delicious across his warming cheeks. “Raj Choudhary. Previously from Daly City, California. Which is my way of implying San Francisco without actually saying it.”
“Adam Stein, of…here. Well, not this café in particular. I was born in Minneapolis on a frostbitten night in February.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Stein.” Raj held out his hand as if this were a job interview.
Adam didn’t just take it, but cupped behind Raj’s hand while spelunking into his eyes. Licking his lips, Adam leaned closer to whisper, “I bet it is.”
Thankfully, Raj laughed at his foolishness—though his gaze did canvas up and down Adam for a flicker. His entire body zapped like he’d touched a downed wire. Adam drummed his fingers on the table to keep from reaching for Raj’s hair and pulling him into a kiss.
We’re in public with lots of nice and very gossipy locals. For god’s sake, man, keep it contained.
Steadying his breath, Adam leaned back in his chair so he could escape that intoxicating myrrh he wanted to lick off of Raj’s skin. “Which of my secrets have you ferreted out?”
“I saw you ran track.”
“Oh.” Adam groaned and collapsed his hands on the table. “Going right for the jugular five minutes in?”
“Being on a team is something to be proud of.”
“I’m sure it would be for anyone who’s talented at their sport.
People saw this spindly young man with the gait of a newborn fawn and, for some reason, thought, ‘Yes, he is a runner.’ Spoilers, I am not.
” Adam shook his head, trying to escape the embarrassing truths lurking in his past. “It was like my feet were in another timezone. I could no more control them than I could a flock of crows. I’m fairly certain I broke every record for worst time at the school. ”
This many years out, Adam could laugh at his gangly youth. Back then, he’d have run-stumbled off in a huff. But now that he’d finally figured out how to control his legs and arms with very few complaints, the wound didn’t sting.
Poor Raj looked slightly mortified at having brought it up, and Adam wanted to assure him he was fine. But as he reached over to take his hand, Raj asked, “Why’d you stay? If you hated track, why didn’t you quit?”
“An entire team of young men in short shorts and tank tops? Can’t imagine why I’d stick around for that.”
“Not to mention the locker rooms.”
“No,” Adam interrupted, his voice catching. “Even in the hormone muck, I knew better than to…”
Both men silently stared around the café. Absolutely no one was looking at them. It was doubtful anyone cared to listen in, but that little fear never vanished. It squatted in his heart like a fat tick, reminding him to stay vigilant.
Adam twisted in his seat so he mostly faced the wall. “I was still waiting for that moment when I’d wake up and care about breasts.”
Suddenly leaning closer, Raj sighed. “I had to listen to a three-hour discussion about cup sizes with my cousins when I was fourteen. If I weren’t already gay, that’d have made me.”
It was such an innocuous word. Just three little letters that meant happy. People liked being happy; they should like being gay. But Adam couldn’t stop hunting, waiting for the rage to take hold and come swinging at him.
Being in public was a bad choice.
“Movies. You’ve done a lot of movies,” Adam said, doing his best to focus.
“A few.”
“Like, ones from the late nineties. How?” At first, he thought someone had confused two Raj Choudhary’s on IMDB, but one of them was a Burt Soup film, so it had to be him.
Raj stirred his torte instead of eating it. “I lucked out into an internship. I’d spend a summer, or even a fall semester learning all about special effects with some of the great schlock horror maestros of the seventies and eighties.”
He did what? Adam’s jaw hit the table. Clinging to his chair, he hopped it closer to sit right up to the table. “I am positively seething with jealousy right now.”
“There was a lot of getting coffee, making copies. But on occasion, I’d get to fill a blood pool, or even be a corpse. Never looking at the camera, though. My father he…he worked for a smaller studio and got me an in. I tried to make the best of it.”
Why in the world was he acting sheepish about this?
If Adam had spent his teen years flinging blood at Jenny Kurt instead of getting gut-punched by hurdles, he’d have it on his business card.
No, he’d have his entire IMDB page printed on shirts that he’d hand out at his store.
“That’s amazing,” Adam gulped. Instead of bitter, his jealousy tasted like Pop Rocks in cotton candy.
With every taste, he had to have more. But Raj grew quiet and kept taking careful sips of his coffee.
Don’t get heavy on a first date. I need a change of topic.
“Tell me about your family,” Adam said. When Raj looked at him, he added, “You already met mine.”
“Fair, I suppose. I have two sisters and a brother. Two of them are doctors.”
“Really?” Adam choked on his torte in shock.
“And the last one’s an accountant, leaving me very much the black sheep of the family. ‘ Raj, why do you waste your time with that silly pretend? Asha’s residency is at Johns Hopkins. You’re wasting your talents.’ ”
“I…” Adam bit his lip. “I want to commiserate, but my mom would be fine with me selling hand-rolled cigarettes on the side of the road as long as I was happy.”
“She wants what’s best for us, all of us. And that best reflects back on her and my father.”
“But isn’t he in the movies?”
“He’s an accountant. That is a respectable career that doesn’t require frivolous months spent painting arms and hands to be fed to a mechanical dumpster with teeth.
For a time, they’d tell people I was studying programming at college.
Not a total lie given the CGI shift in the landscape, but it never looked as impressive as heart surgeon or C-suite business tax… guy.”
Raj had clenched his jaw so tightly, he looked about to bite through his tongue. Mad for kicking up this hornet’s nest, Adam brushed the back of Raj’s hand. “Well, now you’re out here, running a haunted hotel. That’s got to be Christmas letter worthy, right?”
He chuckled mirthlessly. “We don’t do Christmas. We’re Sikhs, sort of. As you can tell by my lack of a beard, I’m not practicing.”
“Well, I don’t technically do Christmas either.
Jewish.” Adam watched, waiting for anything other than the grateful smile at their shared otherness.
“I’m not much by way of practicing either.
We do Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at my mom’s request. She also makes latkes whenever we ask, but that’s it. ”
Raj leaned back in his chair, his smile widening. “Now I understand your need for incessant debate.”
Adam shrugged. Maybe he had more of the chosen people in him than he’d thought.
The idea seemed to please Raj, who sipped his coffee like a countess who had just destroyed her enemies with a single glance.
Watching Raj’s tempting fingers curl around his cup, the sharp cut of his eyes peeling Adam down to his soul tore down every wall Adam had bricked up.
This was supposed to be a first date. Something simple and cute in public, where they’d get to know each other.
Anything other than banging out a quick one, pretending they’ll get together again, then losing each other’s phone numbers. But he was staring at that sweater, wondering how the pattern would feel knotted in his hand as he pulled Raj across the table.
“This place will be closing soon,” Adam said.
“An hour is so—” Raj started to laugh when Adam brushed his fingertips from Raj’s wrists up the back of his hand. “-ooon?” he moaned.
“Do you want to get out of here? I could plug the drain and flood my bathroom?”
Raj’s eyes went darker than his coffee. The cup clattered in the saucer, then he turned, slipping his fingers around Adam’s. “Ye–”
“Adam. What are you doing here?”
He jerked, ripping his hand away from Raj’s. Setting his face to neutral, he turned to find Marianne standing there with her clipboard. That’s odd.
“It’s warm,” he said to give himself time. Why is she here? The clipboard means it’s official, but what the hell am I...?
“The King’s meet and greet.” Marianne jerked toward the center of Main Street, where a throne surrounded by flickering jack o’lanterns waited for him. “Remember?”
“Of…course I remember. I was just…uh, waiting for you. I’d rather not pace about in the cold with the plebs growing impatient.”
Shit. He forgot. How the hell did he forget? This was…okay, it was like the tenth most important duty of the King of Halloween. But he had to be there.
“Where’s my head?” Adam asked, rocketing to his feet.
“On the chair. Try not to break it this time.”
He rounded up his coat and scarf before remembering he was supposed to be in costume.
Well, at least he’d dressed up for this date.
A Halloween King would hardly seem regal in jeans and a flannel shirt.
So he picked the oaken green tie instead of his orange and black one, but it was a bit pumpkin-like. It’d work.
Raj. Adam froze. Shit. “There’s this tradition, a bit like Santa. The kids all gather round the throne and—”
“Tell you what they want for Halloween?”
Adam laughed. “More I hand out treat bags full of promo swag from local businesses while we pretend it’s for the kids. But I…I’m so sorry. I have to do this.”
“Okay,” he said. Adam started to bolt for the door when Raj pushed back his chair.
“What are you…?”
“Oh.” Raj buttoned up his jacket. “I’m not missing this for the world.”