Chapter Fourteen
Malik
Spencer’s condo was…cozy.
Somehow, I pictured him in something more upscale.
Not a fifty-year-old building. He assured me that the roof had recently been replaced and his unit’s soundproofing had been increased when it had been renovated just before he bought it.
And that the place cost him more than comparable units, but with the upgrades done during the reno, the investment was worth it.
In fact, he rambled like a nervous teenager as he gave me a tour of the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and the micro room he called the bedroom. The open Murphy bed was literally the only thing in the room except a nightstand.
Moses lay in the middle of Spencer’s navy-blue comforter, shedding his orange hair. The tabby gave me a long look, blinked, then jumped off the bed with a decidedly impatient meow as he headed to the kitchen.
Obediently, Spencer followed. “I know it’s dinnertime. I’m sorry I’m late.”
Slowly, I followed. “You’re usually home before dinnertime?”
He glanced at me as he opened a tin of wet cat food that, admittedly, smelled pretty gross.
“What? Oh no. This is about the time I always get home.”
“So why are you apologizing to him? He doesn’t appear horribly hard done by. A little scrawny, but I’m going to assume that’s not because—”
“Oh no.” Spencer dished out the food onto a nice plate and put it on the floor.
Moses attacked it as if he hadn’t eaten in a million years.
I arched an eyebrow.
Spencer met my gaze. “He just, like, almost died as a kitten. He’s always been…
scrappy.” He scratched his cheek. The light stubble under his nails made my fingers itch—I wanted to be the one scratching him.
“I give him plenty of food, but he never seems to gain weight. His vet says not to worry, so I try not to.” Even as he said the words, his hand fluttered against his chest.
Slowly, I advanced toward him.
He didn’t retreat.
I grasped his hand and used it to lever him toward me. “I’m not judging you by the size of your cat.” I gripped his hip.
Then replayed my words in my mind.
“That came out wrong.”
He laughed. Perhaps a little more forced than natural, but I’d take it for a win.
“Sweetheart, why are you so nervous?”
His gaze shot to mine—those luminous-green eyes sparkling in the bright lights of the kitchen. “Sweetheart?”
I shrugged. “You don’t like it? I’m certain I can come up with something else.”
Slowly, he shook his head. “I like it.” This time, the laugh was genuine. “I shouldn’t…but I do.”
“Because it shows a level of intimacy you wouldn’t ascribe to us?”
“Frankly?”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
“Spencer, not two hours ago, my cock was up your ass. I don’t know how more intimate two people can be.”
His eyes widened. Whether at some realization or just because of my crudeness, I couldn’t be certain.
“I’m not good at this, Malik. In retrospect, things in my last relationship were…sterile.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Gross.”
Another laugh. “I’ve been in other relationships over the years. I’m not a forty-year-old virgin.”
“May I say I’m relieved at that? If you had been, I would’ve done things very differently.”
“You been with many virgins?” His tone took on a teasing quality.
“Uh…” I gaze up at the ceiling as if in contemplation.
In truth, I knew the answer. “Nope. Not my jam. I want a guy who’s as experienced as I am.
I don’t want to be worrying about—” I winced.
“That sounds wrong. I mean, I always care about my partner’s pleasure.
I want him to come first. Well, whenever possible. ”
“I think I get the picture.”
“With you—” I scratched my eyebrow.
“You didn’t have to go easy on me.”
“Right. I mean, I totally would have. But you made it clear you were okay with—” I winced.
He chuckled. “Drilling me into the couch. Totally appreciated. Which reminds me that I have to launder that blanket and take it back in the morning.” He’d tucked it into a garbage bag and brought it home.
“It’ll be a challenge to cycle to work tomorrow with that.”
“I can cram it into a large duffel bag and haul it over my shoulder.” He peered to his sliding glass door that exited to a small balcony. “Or I might just drive. I’ll see what the forecast for tomorrow is.”
“If you decide to cycle, I can drop you and your bike off.”
He frowned.
I waited.
His mouth opened. Then shut. Then opened again. “Did you just invite yourself to spend the evening?”
“Do you have lube and condoms?” I nuzzled behind his ear. “Are you up to more?” He hadn’t taken any more pills. Should I worry? Should I bring it up? Does he take care of himself or does he need a keeper?
Are you offering yourself?
That question—from the inner recesses of my mind—caught me off guard. Yeah, I’d called him sweetheart. I’d driven him home. I was worried about him.
But those things didn’t constitute being in a relationship.
Did they?
I didn’t have a good answer for that.
“Dinner first. If you’re still here after I’ve fed you, then I’m open to offers.” He rubbed his cheek against mine.
I pulled back, eyeing him. “Should I be worried?”
“I’m a vegetarian. So unless you’re planning to order in—”
“I can buy dinner.”
“You bought lunch. I’m happy to cook.”
“Sounds great.” I perched on a bar stool on one end of the galley kitchen as he fried up a couple of veggie burgers on an indoor grill.
As we sat and ate them—along with baby carrots in butter, cauliflower with cheese sauce, and French bread—I grinned. “I think these would be even better on the grill.”
His returning grin was just as quick. “They are. I have one that I use a few times a year. I’m not thrilled about using gas, but there’s nothing quite like charbroiled.”
“You’ll have to prove that to me.” I pointed to the burger. “That’s better than I expected.”
“Of all the veggie burgers out there, these are my favorites.” He offered one of his shyer smiles.
“I’ll bet you’ve tried them all.”
“Yep. When new ones come out, I try them as well. And always come home.”
“Were you always a vegetarian?”
He scrunched his nose. “That’s complicated.”
“One’s relationship with food often is.” I dipped some cauliflower into the delicious cheese sauce. “You don’t have to share.”
“It’s my parents.”
I stilled. Is he going to ask for reciprocity? Is he going to want me to talk about my relationship with my parents? With my father? Talk about complicated—
“I was born in the mid-1980s.”
“Okay.” I grinned. “That makes you way older than me.” I made certain to emphasize the way. In truth, there were about a dozen years between us, and I couldn’t have cared less.
He arched an eyebrow.
I popped the cauliflower into my mouth.
He sighed. “My parents were on the leading end of the environmentalism movement. For them, it started with no nukes and ended with fossil fuels are evil.”
I swallowed. “No nukes?”
“Yeah. They protested again nuclear proliferation. They were convinced the world was going to end in a mushroom cloud. They even attended the Refuse the Cruise protest in Vancouver back in ’83.
Before I was born, but they’ve regaled me with stories since I was a toddler.
I mean, Vancouver declared itself a nuclear-weapon-free zone.
Like with Americans in Alaska to our north and Washingtonians to our south didn’t somehow factor into things.
No one was going to bomb Vancouver. As far as they’re concerned, their protests brought an end to nuclear proliferation. ”
I squinted. “Did they?”
“Don’t say nuclear in their presence. With all the shit going on in the world today, they’re convinced it’s only a matter of time. They’re prepared to get out their outfits from the eighties and go out and protest again.”
“Okay.” I scratched my jaw. “So the no nukes was also environmentalism?”
He blinked at me. “Nuclear is horrific for the environment.”
“Right. I knew that.” Say something intelligent. “I thought British Columbia is primarily hydro-powered.”
“We are.”
“Do we have nuclear power plants?”
“We do not.”
The way he said that made me think I should’ve known this. “Just pipelines.”
His expression darkened as he furrowed his brow. “Yes. The oil’s not ours. But the oil people have to get it to market in Asia, so they build pipelines across our pristine wilderness.”
Back on solid footing. “Often without consulting with Indigenous tribes.”
“And offering them paltry amounts as compensation. It’s…” He flapped his hand.
“Frustrating?”
“Yes.” He speared a baby carrot. It slid in the butter, skipped off his plate, and landed on the table.
I grabbed it and popped it into my mouth.
As I hoped, that made him smile. “My parents raised me to be respectful of Indigenous peoples, Mother Nature, and the creator of all things.”
“God?”
He shook his head. “No. Virulently anti-religion.” He squinted.
“The creator of all things is sort of like Mother Nature, only more powerful. Anyway, humans are supposed to be caretakers of the earth, but we’re destroying it.
If my parents could, they’d live in a shack off the grid and survive on berries. ”
“And yet something tells me they don’t.”
“Nope.” He again attempted to spear a carrot and this time, succeeded. “My mother’s parents were loaded.”
“Your grandparents.”
“Yep.”
That confused me—why not just refer to them as his grandparents?
“I never met them.”
“Oh.” An answer to my unasked question.
“Huge estrangement. My grandfather was big into oil, and my mother was a radical environmentalist—the two didn’t go together. Like, oil and water.” He snickered. “Anyway, I lived with my parents in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, and they worked for nonprofits. Making a difference.”
“Like you.” I was still struggling to hold on to the narrative because clearly I was missing something—I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
He gazed around his condo. “I live in the lap of luxury compared to the way I lived as a kid. Then one day, everything changed.”
“In what way?”
“My grandfather died. Naturally, he left his estate to his widow.”
“Your grandmother.”
“Yep. And she passed the next year.”
“I’m sorry.” Wholly inadequate, but something needed to be said.
“I’m not. I mean, it’s sad they died, but everyone dies.” His laugh sounded hollow. “My grandmother had never updated her will. She left most of her estate to my mother with a small amount set aside for any potential grandchildren.”
“You.”
“Me.”
“What did that mean?”
“I thought it might mean we could move into a bigger apartment. Heck, I thought maybe we could move into my grandparents’ house. I’d never been in anywhere so grand.”
“No?”
“Nope. We only went once—to settle my grandparents’ estate. The house was put on the market, and my parents donated all the money.”
“That doesn’t sound…” His look had me stopping.
He waved me off. “It sounded good, but I was tired of sleeping on a pull-out couch. Most of my friends had bedrooms of their own. I understood my parents eschewing wealth…but a bed of my own? I was a teenager by then and fed up with all of it. When I turned eighteen, I took my education fund and headed to the University of British Columbia. I entered the business school and bided my time until I could go to law school.”
I broke off a small piece of bread. “So basically everything your parents didn’t believe in.”
He offered a wicked grin. “Exactly. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I believed in many of their causes. I just didn’t believe one had to live in penury to make a difference.”
The starkness of our circumstances struck me. He lived in a fifty-year-old one-bedroom condo in Mount Pleasant while I lived in a mansion in Arbutus Ridge. Shame hit hard and fast.
Something must’ve shown on my expression, because he quickly shook his head. “I’m not saying that. Hell, I lived in a nice downtown condo—all steel and glass and expensive. I still contributed to charities, but I focused on a job that I thought would make a difference. Don’t you see?”
Slowly, I shook my head.
He nodded, as if understanding my confusion.
“I worked with a leading-edge biomedical research company. Their innovations were making a difference in people’s lives, and they did plenty of charity work.
Well, maybe charity’s not the right word.
But they’d extend treatment beyond what was required for the trials.
They seemed to care about their patients. ”
Something in his tone caught my attention. “But something changed?”
“Yeah. We had this really big project. I can’t talk about it because my severance came with an NDA.
I think nondisclosure agreements are bullshit—and I didn’t care about the money—but they threatened to report me to the bar association of British Columbia for breach of trust. Which—” His face made this weird expression that I read as I sort of did.
“The money didn’t mean anything. I donated it all.
But then I couldn’t make the mortgage payments on my condo in the sky.
I had enough equity that, when I sold the place, I was able to buy this one.
No floor-to-ceiling windows. No view except the trees behind the building.
Hell, I face north, so I never get direct sunlight. ”
Whereas I live in a mansion with massive windows on all sides.
The floor-to-ceiling is two stories in the kitchen and family room.
I could fit thirty people in that space without anyone feeling cramped.
The dining room sat twenty. Occasionally I talked my bandmates and their families into joining me.
Inevitably, we ignored the dining room and opted for the family room, kitchen table, and bar stools at the island counter.
Casual. Comfortable. “This is still a really nice place. You might not get sunlight, but your recessed lighting is bright. I mean, it’s dark and dreary outside, but you’ve got a cozy place here. ”
He chuckled. “Cozy, it is. I just realized—I’ve never asked you where you live. Or, perhaps more succinctly…you’ve never told me.”
I panicked.