Chapter 13
Will woke up with a mouthful of hair.
He was tucked around a slim, firm body and didn’t ever want to open his eyes.
Mostly, because there was only one man who could be in his bed, and it was too good of a dream to shake off.
Then a moment later, before he could really sink into the warm lassitude of this feeling, his phone alarm blared, ruining everything.
Enzo wiggled out of his arms, and Will rolled over. Not sure what he should say. Should he apologize for spooning the hell out of him?
Well, it had probably been inevitable.
If they ended up in the same bed together, they were going to end up touching.
Will finally leaned over and turned off his alarm.
“Good morning,” Enzo said in what sounded like a deliberately cheery voice. “Sleep well?”
“Really good, actually,” Will said. “You?”
“Great,” Enzo said, but Will wasn’t quite sure he believed him.
“I was thinking, I’ve got to get home. Shower. Change for painting work. So I thought I’d do a big walk of shame,” Enzo said.
Will risked a glance at him. His hair was mussed. From sleep. Maybe from Will’s hands. Nobody would ever be able to say for sure.
“Okay,” Will said.
“But I’ll see you later?” Enzo said, and there was a hopeful light in his eyes as he looked at Will that looked completely genuine.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Will said.
He was always a little slow to wake up in the mornings, and waking up with his arms wrapped around Enzo meant he was even slower today.
“Alright,” Enzo said cheerily, and a minute later he was gone.
Leaving Will staring at the door.
Thinking that there was no way Enzo hadn’t just made his walk of shame but his escape.
You can’t blame him for that. Not after what kind of torture you put both of you through.
Still, despite that, despite all the frustration coursing through him, he had things he had to do.
It helped, to go through his regular routine.
Stretch. Ab work. Shower. He considered grabbing breakfast from Joy, but instead he skirted past the dining room and headed out, thinking he’d grab coffee and a pastry at Oliver’s.
He couldn’t face the innkeeper, not yet, not after last night was still so fresh in his mind.
God, he’d gone to the door in just a sheet, because he and Enzo had been having fake sex way too loudly.
But when he opened the door to Sweetie Pie’s, he was both surprised and not surprised to see Enzo there, in a paint-splattered tank that had once been white, and a pair of navy athletic shorts that hugged his ass and thighs in the best possible way.
“Oh, it’s you,” Enzo said, turning when Rocco gestured behind him.
“Hey,” Will said awkwardly.
And then, making it worse, there was Giana too, beaming at the pair of them like they’d just invented sex.
“Good morning,” he mumbled.
“Must be a very good morning,” Rocco teased.
Will flushed, unable to keep it from rising up his cheeks.
“It was,” Enzo said, wrapping his arm around Will’s waist, beaming up at him. Because of course they couldn’t stop playing now. And really how was this any worse than him going to the door with only a sheet wrapped around his waist?
Will inwardly groaned but leaned into Enzo’s touch anyway.
He wanted to.
“Did you two have a nice date last night?” Giana asked.
“Very,” Will said, as Enzo nodded, adding, “Oliver and Luca set an excellent table.”
“Well,” Giana said brightly, “you can tell them yourself.”
And sure enough there was Oliver coming out of the back, Luca trailing behind him, chatting in low voices about a supplier.
“Oh, hey, you two are here. I didn’t realize,” Luca said, giving the pair of them one of his nicer smiles.
“If you’d believe it, they didn’t even come in together,” Rocco said dryly.
“I’d believe it,” Giana said loyally.
“Well, I gotta take off actually,” Luca said. “I’m at the deli this morning.”
Oliver gave his husband a soft smile as he leaned in, brushing a quick kiss across his mouth. “See you later, honey,” he said.
Next to Will, Giana made a sweet cooing noise.
After Luca had left, the door shutting behind him, Rocco turned to Will. “What can I get for you?”
Will ordered his coffee and a muffin as Enzo stood next to him, talking to his mom and sipping his own coffee.
When Rocco handed him his own, there was no reason to stick around. And in fact, he couldn’t, not really.
“Hey, I got to take off, too. I’ve got a long list of prep to do today,” he told Enzo.
“Oh, okay,” Enzo said. “I’m gonna stick around a bit longer. Talk to Oliver about something. But I’m sure I’ll see you later.”
Will nodded and turned to leave, but before he could, Giana made an affronted squawk.
“That’s all?” she said. “Luca kissed his partner.”
“Maybe Will’s not into PDA,” Enzo said, frowning.
“That sure didn’t seem to be the case last night,” Giana said knowingly.
Great. Will went bright red again. Naturally, Joy had told Giana about all that.
“I . . .uh . . .” Will stammered, and then he chanced a look at Enzo.
He might be dressed in his oldest work clothes, hair frizzing in the humidity already, a speck of milk foam on his upper lip, but he’d never looked more kissable than he did right now.
So Will just did it. Leaned in. Brushed a kiss across Enzo’s mouth, and before he could overthink or freak out or even worse, see Enzo’s expression, turned and walked out.
He could hear Giana behind him, sounding excited and probably counting down the days before one of them was going to get down on one knee, but he didn’t have to be there for it.
Five minutes later, he unlocked the front door of Cherry’s, but didn’t bother to re-lock it behind him. Kate would be along soon, and they’d be open in a few hours anyway. Besides, if anyone came by wanting ice cream at nine in the morning, Will wasn’t going to turn them away.
But even as he got out ingredients for brownies and cookies, he was thinking about the kiss.
Wishing he’d stuck around. Not only to see Enzo’s face, but to kiss him a lot more. Because he’d probably never get the chance again, and that particular fact sucked.
Even a single brush of his lips against Enzo’s had lit him up inside in a way he couldn’t remember a kiss ever doing before.
We could have something special. If he lived here. If he didn’t feel the opposite way I do about this town.
He was midway through mixing up his brownie batter when he heard footsteps. Assuming it was Kate, he called out, “Back here, in the prep kitchen!”
“You kissed me.”
Will looked up in surprise.
It was definitely not Kate standing there, breathing hard, like Enzo had actually jogged over from Sweetie Pie’s in the morning heat.
“I did.” There was nothing else Will could do but own it.
“You said you didn’t want to. Not for . . .not for something fake.” Enzo gestured around. “Not for my mother’s benefit.”
“I didn’t. I just . . .” Why had he done it? It had been easier, probably, but they could have brushed Giana off.
He’d done it because he was tired of not doing it.
Last night, and then this morning, had pushed him past the edge.
“I didn’t want it to be like that,” Enzo said, prowling closer, expression dead serious, his eyes intent on Will’s face.
His hand, gripping its spatula, deep in the brownie batter, froze.
“You didn’t?”
“I wanted it to be real. Like this.”
That was all the warning Will got before Enzo was cupping his cheeks with his palms and he was kissing him.
Really kissing him. Lips strong and fierce on his own, tongue sneaking in his mouth, a pleasurable assault that Will had never welcomed so much in his whole goddamned life.
He groaned in the back of his throat and let the spatula fall right into the batter. He could clean it off later. He couldn’t kiss Enzo later. Not like this anyway. He wrapped one arm around Enzo’s waist and dragged him closer, until every inch of that delicious body was pressed against his own.
“God,” Enzo gasped as he came up for air, “you smell like chocolate.”
“Surprised it’s not you, with those eyes,” Will murmured, and that was all it took for them to be kissing again, over and over, mouths sliding wetly, perfectly against each other.
He lost himself in the fog of Enzo’s passion, eating every bit of it up, one kiss sliding into another and another until he didn’t care about anything else.
This was how he’d always imagined it would be between them.
From the first moment, when he’d walked around the side of his building and seen this way-too-hot guy painting on it. When Enzo had turned around and given him that searing, approving look.
And a hundred times after that.
A thousand.
A throat cleared behind them.
But Will didn’t want to let Enzo go. He only lifted his mouth off his for a second. Keeping it a breath away.
“Hi, boss,” Kate said, sounding amused. “And hi, boss’s hot hookup.”
“Maybe we should’ve been doing that all along, if we wanted to prove it was real,” Enzo murmured.
“Come on,” Will said and took him by the hand and tugged him towards his office. It was just big enough for him to shut the door behind them. Enzo hopped up on the desk and dragged Will in between his legs, covering his mouth with his own again.
It would be so easy to get lost in his mouth. Lost in the heat between them.
Will wanted to. But actually, he hadn’t brought them in here to do this.
They needed to talk about this. As much as he didn’t want to.
As much as he was afraid this wouldn’t change anything—and everything at the same time.
“We should talk about this.” Enzo was surprisingly the one to say this, after he pulled back a fraction.
His lips were red and wet from Will’s mouth and he was mesmerized by watching them move . . .but that was not the point of taking Enzo in here. It was to actually talk.
“I get it,” Enzo continued, a self-deprecating chuckle escaping him. “I’ve got about a hundred moments where I wanted to kiss you and I didn’t to make up for.”
“Really?” Will had known it wasn’t just him yearning, but he hadn’t realized Enzo was perhaps in just as deep as Will himself.