Chapter 17 #2
Heat creeps up the back of my neck. Right. My brilliant commando plan. I shift slightly, clearing my throat. “Okay,” I say, aiming for casual and landing somewhere closer to squeaky. “I’m going to feed this little guy. How about you? Have you eaten?”
He shakes his head slowly, eyes dragging back up like it takes effort. “No. Haven’t really been hungry.”
“You need to eat,” I say. “Just lay down. I’ll grab you a fresh water and figure something out.”
He looks like he wants to argue but doesn’t have the energy. “Thanks,” he mutters, settling back against the couch.
I head into the kitchen and open the fridge to grab him a bottle of water and figure out what I’m going to make him. I blink at what I see—or rather, what I don’t. “Are you kidding me?” I lean over the kitchen island, raising my voice. “Dude. You have no food in here. What the hell?”
“I eat at the office or with clients,” he calls back weakly. “And I hate grocery shopping. Even online.”
I shake my head, laughing under my breath.
“We need to fix that, Spence.” I grab a can of cat food, find a bowl, and set F-Bomb up like the king is.
Then I start digging through cabinets and drawers.
I find five plates, a couple glasses, and coffee mugs.
One drawer reveals a zip-top bag full of takeout condiments.
Hmm.
I sift through it, grabbing soy sauce packets and red pepper flakes, and then double back to the fridge, snagging a bottle of hoisin sauce I spotted earlier.
I pop into his butler pantry and in the only cabinet that has actual contents, I find one lonely package of ramen noodles.
At least they’re the good kind. Not the one-thousand packages for a dollar kind.
Behind it is a jar of peanut butter that I’ll be putting to good use.
I hustle back into the kitchen and line everything up on the counter, hands on my hips as I assess the ingredients.
A slow smile spreads across my face. “Okay,” I murmur, clapping my hands together once. “Let’s work some magic.” Then I glance around the kitchen again.
Please tell me this man owns a pot.
It takes me a minute, but I finally find one pot and one frying pan shoved all the way in the back of a lower cabinet behind a box of unused plastic storage containers someone must have gifted him.
How the hell did I not notice how empty his kitchen was when I rifled through his drawers the first time I came here?
Then again, I hadn’t exactly been focused on cabinet inventory.
I was more focused on the man standing in the gourmet space and entirely different drawers that I’d like to rifle through.
Sounds about right.
I shake my head and get to work filling the pot with water and setting it to boil. The quiet hum of the kitchen settles something in me. Grounds me. Gives me something to do that isn’t obsessing over Spencer Stark and the vulgar things that come out of his beautiful mouth.
What was I doing? Oh, right. Food.
Mixing a small amount of peanut butter with hoisin, chili flakes, and soy sauce in the pan, I let it warm just enough to melt the peanut butter and blend with the other ingredients until it turns into a smooth and glossy sauce.
“Okay,” I mutter. “That’ll work.” The water boils.
Noodles go in. A few minutes later, I drain them, leaving just a little of the pasta water to help distribute the sauce.
I toss the sauce with the noodles, coating every strand.
Tasting a forkful, I decide it’s pretty damn good for what I had to work with.
I dish everything into two bowls, grab a couple sets of chopsticks from the takeout stash, and head back into the living room. Spence is exactly where I left him, curled into the couch looking miserable.
“Alright,” I say, setting the bowls down on the coffee table. Without overthinking it, I lift his feet gently, slide in underneath them, then rest them back down across my thigh as I lean into the arm of the couch. He swallows thickly and I pretend I don’t notice.
Grabbing one of the bowls, I hand it to him. He stares at it, looking confused. “Did I fall asleep?” he rasps. “Did you go out and get food?”
“No.” I chuckle, leaning forward to grab the chopsticks. “I made it.”
His head turns slowly, eyes scanning the kitchen behind him. “How?” he asks. “There’s no food in there. You said so yourself.”
“I made do with what you had,” I say, shrugging as I hand him a set of chopsticks.
He looks back down into the bowl, suspicious. “What even is it?”
“Spicy peanut noodles,” I tell him, proudly. “You need carbs and protein.” Then I reach out and give his ankle a light squeeze. “The spice’ll help your sinuses.”
He just blinks at me. “You—you didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, I did. Now eat. You need your energy.”
Spence narrows his eyes at me like he wants to argue. Instead, he just huffs. “Fine.” He takes a small bite. Careful. Testing. I watch him, and I catch the exact second it hits. His eyes change, but he doesn’t say anything.
Not yet.
He goes back in for more, not bothering to be neat about this bite. Just shovels a mouthful in like he can’t get it fast enough. His eyes grow wider. “This” he says around the bite, still chewing, “holy shit, this is incredible.”
I wink. “I know.”
He hums, clearly enjoying it, but still manages to roll his eyes at me. Then he shifts, settling the bowl in his lap, and looks at me. “You really didn’t have to do that,” he says again, quieter this time. “You shouldn’t even be here. Aren’t you afraid of getting sick?”
“Nah. I’ve got a great immune system.” I pause, then add, a little lighter, a little teasing, “Besides, if you keep your promise from the other night, I’ll have to get used to being exposed to your… DNA.” Then I waggle my brows for effect.
Spence exhales, long and tired, tipping his head back against the couch. His eyes squeeze shut. Only seconds pass, but it feels like hours. When he looks back at me, it’s different. Quieter. More serious.
Fuck. Here we go again.
“Ryan,” he says softly. “It’s not happening. It will never happen.”
Yep. The wind is effectively knocked out of my sails, but I don’t say anything. Because this is just a repeat from the limo. For six months we’ve been playing in that safe space where nothing has to be real unless we say it out loud.
I said it out loud.
In the limo.
Just now.
His responses—not what I want to hear.
“Look,” he continues, voice still rough but steady.
“Even if I believed you’re genuinely interested—and that’s a big if—we can’t ever go there.
” I swallow hard over the lump in my throat, not liking where this is going.
He dips his finger to the rim of his bowl, catching a bit of sauce, and drags it into his mouth.
My brain goes haywire for half a second.
Not helping, Spence.
“If we’d met under different circumstances,” he goes on, waving a hand loosely between us, “if we didn’t have mutual friends, if we weren’t…
this,” he gestures again. “Workout buddies. Friends. Whatever we are.” He exhales.
“If I’d met you at a bar? Didn’t know you?
” His gaze flicks over me, slow and deliberate.
“Yeah. I would’ve taken you home. No question.
I would have fucking wrecked that beautiful body all night long. ”
Heat floods my face and chest—not to mention other areas. “And that’s all it would’ve been,” he adds. “A night. I don’t do anything more than that.”
I’m hearing everything he’s saying, but my brain is stuck on what he would have done to my body. On the image of it.
“But” he continues, quieter now, “I don’t think you’re being serious. Which, by the way, you need to stop doing. Most guys aren’t like me. You could really hurt someone, Ryan.”
That does it. I don’t even fully process the decision. I just move. I lift his feet off my leg and set them aside. My bowl goes down on the table, and I stand. “I’m going to go.”
He shifts quickly. “Ryan—”
I grab my phone off the counter and cut him off before he can cut me with more words. “I hope you feel better.” My voice sounds flat. Distant.
I head for the door.
“Ryan,” he says again, softer this time.
There’s something there, in his voice, but he’s either unwilling or unable to say the words. I stop with my hand on the handle, head down, and wait. For something. Anything.
Nothing comes.
What would it even matter? I think. If I outed myself to him, he still wouldn’t give me a chance.
So, I square my shoulders.
And walk out.