Chapter 8
It was late afternoon, the weak early spring sunshine dotting the tables that were scattered through the middle of the food truck lot.
It was a quiet Monday, and Ren had agreed to look at some of Gabe’s data and figure out what they were going to do about the menu for the future.
“You go grab a table,” Gabe had said, “and keep an eye on the truck, if anyone actually shows up, and I’ll go to the good coffee place.”
Ren had raised an eyebrow. “You sucking up?”
“Apologizing for being an overbearing ass?”
“Fair,” Ren had acknowledged.
He’d been waiting out here for five minutes now, enjoying the rays of sun, fingers itching to pull out his phone.
To text Seth.
They’d agreed to keep it casual. That, Ren understood.
He just didn’t understand what casual even meant.
It was not his usual version of casual, that was for sure, but other than the utter lack of orgasms and only two kisses, both of which had kept him up, jittery and frustrated, it wasn’t anything else either.
Seth had kept his promise and texted him about an hour after he’d gotten back home. This, the text had read, is me texting you. Hi, Lorenzo.
Ren had wanted to be annoyed, but he’d laughed, instead. So loudly that Gabe had poked his head into his room and made sure that he was okay.
They’d texted back and forth a little bit, and Ren had saved his number to his phone.
When he’d woken up this morning, his first inclination had been to reach for his phone, and tell Jake good morning.
Except that Jake wasn’t Jake, he was Seth, and texting someone good morning wasn’t very casual, was it?
So he’d waited.
And he was still waiting.
Monday was their weekly prep morning at the truck, so at least he’d been busy. Then there’d been the lunch rush, and when Gabe had suggested they go over the data, Ren had agreed.
Partially because at least Gabriel had admitted he was an overbearing ass, and also because it would keep Ren’s mind occupied and off his phone.
But his fingers were itching now.
Seth was Jake. He knew what Jake knew.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and wrote the text before he could change his mind or overthink it.
Gabe has admitted he’s an overbearing ass, and we’re going to talk about the menu and possibly whittling it down. Might want to prepare some bail money.
Seth’s response came in so quickly that Ren felt stupid.
Why had he been avoiding doing this? He liked talking to him, so much.
It was stupid to avoid it because he didn’t know what it meant.
What it meant was that they wanted each other.
That wasn’t new for Ren, except for the fact that he wanted Seth as more than just a temporary lay.
But maybe Seth was right, and it was still wanting.
I’ve got you, he said, but I don’t think it’s going to come to that. Gabe loves you, and I know you’ll wrinkle your nose and disagree, but you love him too. This is just a little bump, you’ll get past it.
Ren smiled. Why is all your straightforward earnestness so sexy?
Seth: I don’t know, but I’ll take it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile like that.”
Ren glanced up and Gabe was there, carrying two cups of coffee, with the tablet tucked under one arm.
“It’s just . . .” But Ren couldn’t figure out how to explain it because it defied explanation.
“I take it you two made up,” Gabe said, sitting down next to him, setting Ren’s coffee in front of him.
“You know we did, I told you we did yesterday.”
“But there’s a difference between we made up and I’m not going to hate Seth for all eternity and we made up and now Seth is the sun and the moon and the stars.”
“Ew, can I vote for neither of those?” Ren said, taking an experimental sip of his coffee.
Rich espresso blossomed across his tongue.
Maybe he should regret that Gabe had realized he could be bribed with coffee from the really good coffee place, but if it kept getting him really good coffee, he couldn’t.
It worked out as long as Gabe kept fucking up, and Ren didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
“Okay, fine, you’ve made up and you’re figuring your shit out. That smile was a little bit more than we made up and we’re figuring our shit out but I’ll give that to you.”
“Thanks,” Ren said dryly.
Gabe set up the tablet, flicking through several screens until he found the one he was looking for. “This,” he said, “is our sales for the last six months.”
“Which is about when we changed the name and the menu,” Ren said, nodding, staring more closely at the screen than he’d thought he would.
The results weren’t exactly surprising. Their number one bestseller was the same thing that had sold well before the name change: their meatball sandwich.
It made sense. Nonna’s recipes had launched an entire chain of restaurants.
And when people thought meatballs, they usually thought red sauce and dripping cheese and garlic bread.
But the rest of the top ten was surprising.
“People really like the monthly specials,” Ren said, finger resting on the screen. He glanced over at his cousin. “Why didn’t you just say that instead of being secretive and mysterious?”
Gabe grinned. “I’m Italian, it’s baked into my genes.”
“You’re an idiot,” Ren scoffed. “An absolute fucking idiot, but at least you’re my idiot.”
“You’re not wrong. I was thinking the way you were afraid I was, that we should ditch the regular menu items and replace them. But then I thought about it, really thought about it, and you’re right. We started doing this food truck thing for flexibility.”
“Also,” Ren inserted, smiling because he couldn’t quite help it, “because you wanted to get away from Luca.”
“Yes, I wanted to get away from Luca. If I remember, you weren’t his biggest fan, either,” Gabe said wryly.
“Fan?” Ren raised an eyebrow. “Frankly, he and the massive stick up his ass both suck. What he needs is to get laid, and often.”
Gabe grinned. “Well, Luca is the rest of the family’s problem now.”
“Thank God,” Ren said, meaning it.
“So, back to me actually thinking, I realized that you were right.”
“Wait,” Ren interrupted again. “Did you just say I was right?”
Gabe laughed and nodded. “Yeah, and I’m sure you’ll never let me forget it.”
“I won’t,” Ren said smugly.
“Anyway, so you were right. We should keep our flexibility. So I thought, let’s move some of these to the regular menu, see if they perform as well as when they were the special.
If they don’t, then instead of doing a permanent menu, I was thinking, we could keep it fresh, keep customers coming back, by creating a rotating menu. Like, change it out quarterly.”
“So, like the monthly specials, but a little longer term,” Ren said thoughtfully, considering this angle. It would definitely prevent them from getting stuck in any ruts.
“I know you’ve got ideas. So do I. We should be indulging those, and we can even bring an old special back. Do some social media polls, figure out what people are excited about.”
“I love that idea,” Ren said. Normally, he might have held back, held how good he thought it was a bit closer to his chest, but today, he couldn’t lie; something in the vicinity of his heart was still smarting after their earlier arguments.
And to Gabe’s credit, it was a really good way of combining both the business smarts that Gabe had always possessed with the creativity that Ren valued.
“Oh, good,” Gabe said, leaning back and sipping his coffee. “So we’re agreed, then?”
“We’re agreed.” As soon as he said the words, ideas and random snatches of inspiration began filtering through his head. “When do we want to make the change?”
“We’ll need to figure out a new signage situation,” Gabe pointed out. “And new signage means . . .”
“Ugh, why does Tony get to approve or reject signage?”
Gabe laughed. “Has Tony ever rejected a sign?”
“That time that Ash tried to put one up with my phone number and for a good time, call . . .” Ren muttered.
“And you should be thankful for that,” Gabe said. “You’d have had to change your number.”
“Tony just enjoys being the king of his little kingdom way too much,” Ren said, because he wasn’t going to acknowledge that yes, Ash’s prank would have sent droves of creepers to his phone, and he should be at least a little thankful that Tony had put his foot down.
“You just don’t like anyone who divides our attention from you,” Gabe teased.
“That is not even remotely close to accurate,” Ren scoffed, even though his cousin was right.
Though, Ren could acknowledge that at least he was less right than usual.
It turned out that having the right person’s attention on you was more intoxicating than a whole crowd.
His fingers itched; he wanted to text Seth again. Tell him that it had actually gone pretty well, and that he and Gabriel were solid again. That he wouldn’t have to bail him out after all.
That he wanted to see him again.
And not when he stopped by to grab lunch with Lennox, but just the two of them.
He wanted more kisses.
He wanted a hell of a lot more than that.
“So, you going out with Seth again?” Gabe asked, like he knew exactly where Ren’s thoughts had gone.
“Again? We haven’t been out once,” Ren objected. “And we’re not really going out on a date. We’re . . . keeping things casual.”
“Oh, just fucking, then,” Gabe teased. “I see you won that particular battle.”
“Not just fucking either,” Ren grumbled.
Gabe laughed. “You should see how annoyed you look. Like a wet cat. It must be fun to meet the one guy on earth who can resist you.”
“Not as fun as you might think.”
“Well,” Gabe said, “I’m going to Sean’s tonight, so if you wanted to invite him over . . .”
“You wouldn’t complain about all the noise?” Ren said sweetly.