Chapter 11 #3
Sean opened the door as he answered the phone. “Tony,” he said, a clear note of exasperation in his tone. “We said we’re getting it . . . okay, fine, we’ll get it faster, then.”
He hung up as he unlocked the door, Gabriel close behind him.
“He is so goddamn impatient,” Sean complained as he pushed the door open.
He stormed into the kitchen, clearly really annoyed by whatever Tony had said on the phone.
“He actually had the nerve to tell me that he didn’t have time to wait for us to get our hands out of our pants. ”
“Oh, well.” Gabe laughed nervously. “It’s like he’s got a freaking camera on us, or something.”
“Right?” Sean flopped onto the couch. “I guess we better come up with something now, before he decides to show up on my doorstep.”
“I think we could go with something simple like, Thai meatball crunch wrap,” Gabriel suggested, sitting down next to Sean and starting to type on his phone. “We’ll need a description, too.”
“I’ll text you over a list of the ingredients,” Sean said. “And we’ll need a price.”
“Oh, shit, right.” Gabriel scrubbed a hand over his face. “I guess we’ll have to fudge that. I don’t have my laptop with the pricing spreadsheet here.”
Sean looked up at him, surprised. “You have a pricing spreadsheet?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t you?” Gabriel asked.
But Sean just shrugged. “Not really,” he said. “I mean, I know the idea behind it. Cost of your raw materials, cost of your time, times the multiplier you’ve picked.” He looked contemplative. “I just wouldn’t have expected it out of you, I guess.”
“We wouldn’t have a string of successful restaurants without a pricing structure,” Gabriel admitted. “And it’s not really mine, it’s something I borrowed from Luca and fussed around with, honestly. But yeah, I do think it helps.”
“I should do that too,” Sean said with a resigned sigh. “I know I should. Just . . . there’s only so many hours in the day, you know?”
“I could help you with it,” Gabriel offered, before he could stop himself.
He shouldn’t be insinuating himself into Sean’s life before he told him the truth.
What he really needed to do was take Sean’s hand in his and confess everything.
That he’d liked him from the very beginning, but now, those feelings had morphed into something so much deeper and stronger.
Like had become love, so easily that Gabriel wasn’t even sure where one ended and the other began.
But the sudden anxiety blooming in his stomach stopped him.
“Thank you,” Sean said, and paused. “You’re just really great, you know?”
“I thought we agreed I was a stubborn asshole still.”
“Yeah, that ship has definitely sailed,” Sean said wryly.
“Well, what should we do about the price? Tony will need it today, and I don’t have the spreadsheet. We could use something on my menu as a jumping-off point?”
“Yeah,” Sean said. “I like that idea.”
They compared the price of Sean’s wraps to Gabriel’s rolls, and made some adjustments for the vegetables, subtracting out the cheese cost, and Gabriel was really pleased with the number they came up with.
It lined up with some of his other menu items and fell right in the middle of Sean’s offerings, too.
Ten minutes later, they had sent the text to Tony containing everything he needed for the signs.
“Well, that’s done,” Sean said, his eyes glimmering with mischief. He leaned in, brushing his nose against Gabe’s playfully. “What should we do now?”
There was nothing more that Gabe could possibly want than to take Sean up on his clear offer.
His dick was half-hard in his jeans, and his blood was still pumping from the kiss in the car.
But it was getting late in the afternoon, and if they wanted to finalize everything for the new wrap, they needed to focus.
He didn’t usually like to leave anything to the last minute, but the enticing promise of getting his hands all over Sean had distracted him the last few days.
“We should really get everything set up for tomorrow,” Gabriel said reluctantly, standing up.
Sean gave an exaggerated sigh, and joined him. “I guess you’re right, though my idea sounds like a lot more fun.”
“It definitely would be,” Gabe agreed.
“I’ll go get the ingredients together for the first batch of nuts,” Sean said, turning towards the kitchen. But then, he turned back. “Hey, you know what would be great?” he said. “If you grabbed some stuff from our trucks, and we made a few more test runs here, before tomorrow.”
What Gabriel wanted was to stay, but he had to admit that it was a good idea. “Sure,” he said. Sean was already grabbing a pen and a pad from the kitchen, and scribbling down a long list of things. “Plus,” he said, glancing up, “anything you might need from yours.”
“Right,” Gabriel said, leaning in close to Sean so he could see what he was writing. The pen, which had been moving at light speed only a moment before, hesitated on the page and Sean glanced up at him, eyes wide.
“Oh,” Sean said, and for a split second, Gabriel didn’t know what he was saying.
But then Sean reached up and pressed his mouth to Gabe’s.
The kiss was just as hot as it had been in the car, maybe hotter, because then Sean was pushing him against the wall between the kitchen and the living room, devouring him like he couldn’t ever get enough.
Gabriel was just about to say fuck it to the entire plan and reach for Sean’s dick, because it was hard and rubbing against his thigh and he could only take so much temptation without succumbing to it—but then Sean pulled back, and just stared at him, breath coming in choppy, uneven pants.
“Sorry,” he said after a long moment. “Sorry, you were just there and well . . .” He shrugged, like it was hopeless. And it was, because Gabe was hopelessly charmed.
“The way I’m thinking,” Gabriel said, “the sooner we get done with this work stuff, the sooner we can revisit that.”
“Right, right,” Sean said, flushing all the way up his neck to his cheeks. “I just . . . you were right there and well, it’s hard to get enough, isn’t it?”
Gabriel had been with plenty of guys where it hadn’t been so hard to get enough. But with Sean? It felt like that would never happen. And maybe, Gabe thought with a quickening of his heart, Sean was on the exact same page.
“I’ll go, then,” Gabe said, plucking the list out of Sean’s hand. “Before we decide we really can’t get enough.” He leaned in and brushed a kiss across Sean’s scruffy cheek. It felt unbelievably soft, like down, and he turned to go before he could be tempted into staying.
“I’ll get the nuts started,” Sean said with determination in his voice. “My keys are hanging on the hook in the entry. Pink jelly ring, for the truck lock.”
“I’ll be back soon,” Gabriel promised.
He was, actually, back pretty soon. It wasn’t a long walk to the lot from Sean’s townhouse, and he gathered everything they needed quickly, throwing it in one of the Food Truck Warriors canvas bags he had floating around.
He was back on Sean’s doorstep thirty minutes later, giving a quick knock on the door before opening it and walking in.
“In the kitchen!” Sean called out, as Gabe walked through the downstairs towards the back of the house and the kitchen.
“That was quick,” Sean said as Gabe set the bag on the counter and began to unload it.
“Found everything I needed fast,” Gabriel explained. Didn’t want to add that he’d hurried on purpose. Figured that was probably self-explanatory, because it felt like they could barely keep their hands off each other.
“Good,” Sean said. He had a huge metal mixing bowl out, and was stirring some nuts in a sticky spicy-smelling substance. “I’ve just got this ready to put into the oven.”
“How long does it bake for?” Gabe asked, already looking forward to convincing Sean that using the time to make out would be the best use of it, but he was already turning towards the sink, flipping on hot water, and washing out the metal bowl.
“Ten minutes, give or take,” Sean said, “but I’ve got to flip them around occasionally so they don’t burn.”
“Well, that’s disappointing,” Gabriel said, coming up behind him at the sink, putting his arms around Sean while he washed the bowl out. “I was kinda looking forward to taking a break.”
Sean turned and flashed him a smile. “I thought you just took a break.”
“A break with you,” Gabriel said. “That’s the only kind that matters.”
He watched as Sean’s fingers hesitated on the sponge, and unexpectedly he turned, soapy fingers trailing up Gabe’s arms. The look in Sean’s eyes was full of trust and an undeniable affection.
Gabe felt his breath catch in his throat.
This was going to be the moment. He could feel it, deep down, in his bones.
Sean was going to take a deep breath and he was going to confess everything.
How this had started only as sex, but had become so much more. He was going to tell Gabriel . . .
And then the alarm on Sean’s watch went off, blaring practically in his ear. Sean flinched and then slipped out of Gabriel’s arms, and went over to the oven, peeking in and using a towel to grab the edge of the cookie sheet to shake the nuts around.
“How do they look?” Gabe asked, after he’d recovered from his disappointment.
“Good,” Sean said. “Coming along, anyway. We should know if there’s any adjustments that need to be made in the next couple of minutes.”
“Alright,” Gabe said. He turned towards the plastic container of meatballs he’d set on the counter earlier. It made sense to work on the wrap now, and get everything prepped for tomorrow’s sales, so they could enjoy themselves later.
Gabriel wasn’t very good at delayed gratification, but for Sean, he could get better. For Sean, he could do anything.