3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Adam
Adam had… no idea what was happening right now.
The extremely hot, extremely graceful, extremely smooth man who’d watched Adam fall headfirst into a cake was…
flirting with him? He wasn’t the best at reading those sorts of cues, but really, was there any other way to take this?
He’d thought for a long, stomach-churning moment that the man liked Simon—and who could blame him, Simon was awesome!
—but he’d quickly corrected Adam’s assumption, almost like he wanted to… reassure him?
Swallowing, Adam blurted out, “Why don’t you try some cake?”
The man’s lips tipped up, and he picked up his fork and used it to section off a bite of the peanut butter chocolate cake and bring it up to his mouth.
Adam found himself practically leaning over the table, eyes locked on the motion of the cake to the man’s mouth, lips closing over the fork, and, finally, the moment where the man began to chew and a look of bliss settled over his features.
Adam sagged in relief.
“By all that’s magical, that’s delicious,” the man groaned as he finished swallowing.
Adam could feel his treacherous cheeks going pink again, but he swelled with pride, too.
“Thank you,” he said awkwardly, since he wasn’t great at taking compliments in person. “I’m Adam, by the way.”
The man swallowed another bite and set down his fork. “I apologize for not introducing myself earlier. I’m Calder.”
He held out his hand, and Adam shook it, relishing the strong, warm grip and telling himself that he absolutely did not feel tingles running up his arm, because that would be ridiculous.
Calder was far bulkier than Adam, but he didn’t seem to feel the need to crush Adam’s hand to prove his strength.
This close, the buzz of magic was impossible to ignore, and Adam was so glad that Simon had been right and Calder was magical.
Adam was terrible at lying to people, and pretending to be normal didn’t work out well for him.
The handshake went on for too long, but neither of them made a move to stop it. It was the sort of thing that usually made Adam feel awkward, like he’d missed yet another life lesson that everyone else had received, but Calder was staring into his eyes, and it was impossible to look away.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Adam. And you make fantastic cake.”
Adam couldn’t help but laugh, the handshake falling away naturally, like Calder had made everything effortless.
“Thank you.”
“And to make a clean breast of it,” Calder continued, “I think I might have startled you yesterday, and if so, I apologize.”
Adam sighed and admitted, “If it wasn’t you, it would probably have been something else. I’m, uh, kind of clumsy.”
“Still, I feel bad,” Calder said, not seeming at all perturbed by this confession.
But then, people often weren’t in the beginning, when Adam just told them he was clumsy.
Maybe not even the first few times he was clumsy.
But the tenth time? The hundredth? The thousandth?
Adam’s father could attest to just how clumsy he was—and how, far from growing out of it, Adam seemed to have settled quite firmly into clumsiness as a way of life.
“I’d like to take you out to dinner as an apology,” Calder said, shocking Adam out of his thoughts.
“You really don’t have to do that.”
“But I’d like to,” Calder said, simple and earnest, and Adam didn’t really know what to do with that.
Maybe you could have a date, Simon had said.
Adam hadn’t believed that for a second, but a nice man wanting to apologize wasn’t terrible, was it?
Adam had sort of given up on trying to make friends.
It was only stubborn people who wouldn’t give up, like Simon, who managed it.
Adam did very well on his own, mostly. But sometimes he… wanted.
Calder was still looking at him expectantly, so Adam carefully said, “If you’re sure?”
“I’m entirely certain,” Calder said, smiling in such a way that Adam’s breath caught, just a little.
He shoved cake in his mouth to cover it and narrowly managed not to choke.
They spent a few minutes eating their cake and sipping their drinks. Simon really was gifted with the coffee machine, and he made the very best mochas for Adam.
Nothing was going disastrously wrong, and Adam reminded himself to slow down and concentrate, as that would reduce the chance of him choking on his food, needing to be resuscitated, and then needing to change his name and flee the country in embarrassment.
But despite the fact that Adam managed to inadvertently clash forks with Calder on three separate occasions, Calder just kept smiling at him and making appreciative noises about the cake—okay, and about the coffee, too, so it wasn’t like it was just Adam’s baking skills that he admired.
It was… it was really nice. Sure, it wasn’t going to last, but he couldn’t name the last time he’d spent this much time with a handsome man who was polite and intent and made Adam feel seen in a way that was a little bit uncomfortable but was mostly just… wonderful.
Calder didn’t seem at all fazed when they tried to plan their dinner and Adam requested that it be at five or so because he had to get up early to bake. Nor was he bothered when Adam confessed that he had Sundays and Mondays off rather than a regular weekend.
Truly, nothing seemed to faze Calder, and while Adam had only known him for a short time, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was always like this, somehow imperturbable and ready to go with the flow unless he needed to take a stand.
It felt a bit like a fraction of his calm was spilling over onto Adam, making him less nervous about this whole encounter.
(He was always at his most clumsy when he was nervous, which was why he rarely dated anymore.
First dates were the worst. Not that this was a date, of course. Maybe that was the difference.)
Once they finished their cake and coffee, Calder suggested he get Adam’s number so he could send him the details about dinner, and he immediately texted Adam back, making it hugely less likely that he was going to ghost Adam as soon as he left the bakery.
(Yes, that had happened. More than once.
It had made Adam a lot less confident about his perception of things going okay.)
Calder smiled at Adam with the same smile he’d used at the beginning of their impromptu cake-eating session. He still seemed genuinely happy to have spent this time with Adam, and when he said he was looking forward to the dinner they’d set up for Sunday evening, Adam… believed him.
Adam didn’t even realize he was staring after the man long after he’d disappeared out the front door of the shop until Simon gently hip-checked him and said gleefully, “You’ve got a date.”
“It’s not a date!” Adam exclaimed instinctively. “He just wants to apologize.”
Simon sighed. “You keep telling yourself that, boo.”
Earlier, Simon had insisted that the cake and drinks were on the house—and Calder had left a tip in the tip jar big enough to cover the cost and tip Simon.
Adam sighed. Someone that awesome couldn’t possibly be real. Or if they were, they definitely wouldn’t want to date Adam.
It wasn’t a date, right? Adam had kept telling himself that even as he prepared…
kind of like it was a date. Thankfully, Calder had assured him that he should dress comfortably and casually.
The man had also checked in to make sure that Adam had no food allergies or serious dislikes, and he’d casually given Adam the option of either meeting him or of being picked up.
Since this wasn’t a date, he’d gratefully seized on the offer to meet Calder.
Calder had a sense of honor, Adam reminded himself.
He felt responsible for Adam’s tripping, even though Adam would definitely have done that on his own.
Calder was going to take Adam out, and then he was going to go back to whatever awesome things he did when he wasn’t thanking an awkward baker, and then Adam would be really relieved that he hadn’t read too much into this.
This was an apology, and while they weren’t even friends, it was… friend-adjacent.
Adam wouldn’t tell anyone how many times he’d changed clothes or how anxious he’d been about this particular not-date. (And he would never mention to Simon that he wished he’d been there to help Adam figure out what to wear. Because this wasn’t a date!)
Honestly, Simon seemed even more excited than Adam—and way less anxious. He’d certainly had an opinion about Adam and Calder and their cake-eating, though Adam didn’t think it could be nearly as suggestive as Simon said.
“They stared at one another the whole time!” Simon had told Maggie and Joseph and Evie.
Adam had huffed out a breath. “Yes, because we were sitting at the table together, and that’s totally what you do when you’re sitting and chatting with someone. You look at them!”
The others had exchanged glances, and Adam had given it up as a lost cause. They already knew something was up because he’d dropped about twenty-five percent more utensils and bakeware in the kitchen, and one batch of cookies might have caught fire—but that wasn’t a totally unusual week for him.
Maggie had just sighed, not even scolding him, and Adam had tried really hard to concentrate.
He’d made her a prinsesstarta in apology, since that was her favorite, and she’d smiled at him and squeezed his shoulder before digging into the white sponge cake, jam, and pastry cream, which was covered in marzipan.
“You’re doing fine,” she’d told him a little thickly around a mouthful of cake. “You don’t need to worry about anything.”
At least Adam was good at baking, because he’d been doing a bad job of not worrying. He’d been worrying… well, his whole life, really, wondering what he would mess up next. This not-date seemed like a prime candidate.
After an inordinate amount of hemming and hawing, he finally settled on light-weight trousers and a teal button-down that Simon had bought for him and told him he looked amazing in.
And yes, okay, his sassy best friend might have said at the time that it would be perfect for a date, but this wasn’t a date; this was just Adam wanting to look nice since someone was taking him out for a meal.
When he’d texted to set everything up, Calder had suggested a late lunch instead of dinner so that Adam wouldn’t be up too late.
So many men he’d tried to date hadn’t wanted to accommodate him, like the fact that he got up at three thirty in the morning was his problem and not a requirement of his job.
He and Calder were meeting on Sunday, so he had Monday to recover, but the fact that Calder had taken his schedule into account anyway made a warm glow settle in Adam’s belly.
He grabbed a bus to get to the beach, and when he got off, Calder was waiting.
At least half of Adam’s anxiety melted away.
Calder was here, just like he’d said. His smile was amazing, lighting up his dark eyes and changing his somewhat stern expression into something completely relaxed and open.
His gaze never wavered from Adam’s. He was dressed in khaki cargo pants and a pale green shirt that made Adam think of sea glass. It set off his skin beautifully.
“Adam! Hello.”
“Hi,” Adam said, stumbling slightly, then tearing his gaze away so that he could watch where he was walking and actually arrive next to the man in one piece.
Sure, it sounded romantic to trip and fall into someone’s arms, but as someone who’d done that on more than one occasion, he could attest to the fact that it wasn’t romantic.
It worked in movies because it was scripted.
Accidentally tripping into someone’s arms could easily result in knocking them over or otherwise injuring them.
But it was totally fine, because Adam had watched his approach instead, and he made it all the way over to Calder without tripping.
“How are you?” Calder asked.
“Good.” Adam resisted the urge to tug on his shirt and fidget. “I’m good. How are you?”
Because “awkward” should really have been his middle name.
“I’m wonderful,” Calder said, smiling at him. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week.”
“Me, too,” Adam confessed before it occurred to him that maybe he shouldn’t.
Did you say that sort of thing on a not-date?
But you know what? Why shouldn’t you admit to wanting to spend time with someone?
Adam squared his shoulders. There was every chance that Calder would decide what everyone else did after a while, that Adam was too much to put up with, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy all the time they had together until then.
“Where are we going?” Adam asked.
It wasn’t precisely that he didn’t like surprises, but generally, the unknown wasn’t his friend.
Calder told him, “I thought we could grab fish and chips and eat them on the beach, if that’s okay.”
Adam blew out a breath in relief and beamed. “I’d really like that.”
Calder’s answering smile rivaled the sun, bright and contagious. “Wonderful.”
No formal place sittings, no chance of Adam knocking food, cutlery, or glassware off the table, and if any food fell, well, they were outdoors, and an animal would probably eat it.
So they strolled along to a fish and chip truck, which Calder confided to him was one of the best in the city. He’d sampled a lot of them, apparently.
“I bow to your expertise,” Adam said, laughing. “I appreciate just getting to slip in at the end and enjoy the spoils of your effort.”
Calder’s teeth flashed white against his tanned skin. “You can enjoy my spoils anytime you like.”
Adam swallowed thickly. He was seeing innuendo in everything because Calder was the hottest man he’d ever met and Simon had been putting ideas in his head. Yes, it was surely that.
Thankfully, their order was called out, and Adam could stop thinking about it—only then he managed to squirt ketchup onto Calder as well as onto his chips.
Adam tried to mop up the stain and succeeded in making it worse, smearing it over more of the man’s shirt, which felt like it was silk or another expensive material.
“Oh, I’ve ruined it! I’ll pay for it to be cleaned,” Adam said miserably.
Calder’s hand clasped Adam’s, making him suddenly preternaturally aware that his fingers were pressed to the hard planes of Calder’s stomach. He’d been so focused on the stain that he somehow hadn’t noticed that he was practically groping the man’s torso through a thin layer of fabric.
Adam could feel his face heating even more.
“It’s fine,” Calder assured him with an easy smile. “My clothes will wash. I’d much rather eat this meal with you while it’s hot.”
He looked… genuinely not upset. Adam had gotten pretty good over the years at seeing when someone said one thing but was just being polite. It tended to come out in a strain in their voice or extra lines around their eyes or mouth. But Calder looked… fond?
That couldn’t possibly be right, could it?