Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
With Noah behind the wheel, Elton should have guessed their destination would be food related. What he couldn’t have known was that “Ruby’s other farm” was a chilly butchery run by Ruby’s daughter—also named Ruby—on an outparcel of the main farm.
“A small operation,” she had told him, with all their product going to local purveyors and restaurants. And none of it made from their sheep or goats.
Noah was like a kid in a candy store, picking out proteins for the restaurant’s reopening that weekend. Archer hovered by his side, discussing how they could use this shank, that side, or those scraps, the two of them planning dishes to pair with the winery’s age-ready list.
Two things became abundantly clear: Archer didn’t just manage the vineyard and make the wines; he was also intimately involved in the food side of the operation.
And when it came to Hanover’s menu, food and wine both played starring roles.
Neither fact was surprising; Hanover was a restaurant at a winery.
But witnessing the menu planning in action intrigued Elton.
Made him reconsider the meal he and Archer had shared last month.
Made him realize that Archer had skillfully ordered items that would work with any wine Jake had pulled from the cellar.
Had Archer worked in restaurants before?
At the winery where he previously worked?
Had hiring him away been Ezra’s plan all along?
Ezra’s husband and Archer laughed over something, their easy camaraderie raising another question: How did the three of them—Noah, Archer, and Ezra—make this work?
Was there really no awkwardness? Because Archer and Ezra scening together was in the past or because they still scened together?
Did Noah too? And what was it about them that smoothed out Archer’s prickly edges?
Elton continued to try to fit the pieces together in his head as he wandered back outside.
He trudged across the muddy gravel drive to a pen of fluffy sheep and started counting them out of habit.
He laughed at himself. Less about the sheep and more about whatever urge had led him here, ignoring every opportunity that morning to return home and instead driving ninety minutes farther north, making his drive that much longer back to the airport tomorrow.
He hadn’t been this impulsive in . . . fifteen years.
Every step, every decision, every risk had been measured and evaluated.
Until now.
And for what?
He laughed again at how many different ways he could take his own question.
“Sheep tell you something funny?” came a voice from behind him.
Rotating, he rested his elbows on the fence rail and eyed the smirking impetus of his sudden recklessness. “That I shouldn’t assign them numbers.”
Archer waggled his brows. “Number 4, right? She’s the grumpy one.”
“Takes after you, then.”
“She’s my favorite.”
Elton chuckled, but it trailed off as he caught sight of Ruby herding cows into the slaughterhouse. “Jamie’s going to kill me.”
“Aidan’s husband?” At Elton’s nod, he asked, “Why?”
“I might become a vegetarian after this.”
“I’m not sure if Noah’s caught on yet that I usually go pescatarian for at least a month after our visits here.”
Elton laughed even as his mind revisited the earlier puzzle he’d been working.
Archer leaned against the rail beside him. “Go ahead and ask.”
He opened his mouth to do just that—How does it work?
on the tip of his tongue—then closed it.
He’d seen it work before, with Jamie, Aidan, and Nic.
Not exactly the same dynamics—Aidan and Nic had only ever dated before Aidan and Jamie became exclusive—and after those lines had been drawn, the three of them grew close.
Four of them, if you also counted Cam, Nic’s husband and Jamie’s best friend.
Elton didn’t think there was anything or anyone that could tear either couple or the four best friends apart.
He’d seen enough to reckon it was the same for Archer, Ezra, and Noah.
Heard enough to reckon Ezra’s ex and her wife were included in that circle too.
He had a pretty good idea how it worked between them.
But where did he fit in? That was the real question his mind kept going back to.
He’d thrown rationality to the wind and driven up here this morning. To Archer. But was there room for him?
“Do you still scene with any of them?”
Archer whipped his gaze back to him, eyes narrowed instead of wide with surprise, and Elton realized his slip.
Archer hadn’t recognized him last fall; Elton hadn’t corrected him.
And if Archer didn’t remember him, he would have no reason to think Elton was kinky, that he would use the terminology.
Elton could fake an excuse—he’d learned it as part of his job, from a book or movie, or from friends.
He held Archer’s gaze instead, letting the implication lie and giving more of himself than he had to anyone in years.
The divot between Archer’s brows eased. “Not since they each remarried.”
“When was the last party you went to?” Archer’s eyes did widen then, and Elton tried to claw back the question, but not for self-preservation’s sake. “Sorry, that was rude,” he rushed to add. “I overstepped.”
Archer waved him off as he shifted and rested his forearms on the rail. “No, it’s not that. It’s just . . .”
“Archer—”
“There was someone. Year before last.” He lifted his chin and angled his face, eyeing him, seeming to assess whether he could handle the truth.
Elton rotated toward him and gave him a nod.
A deep breath later, he continued. “I don’t want to be a Daddy, and I don’t want a Daddy, and that—one or the other—seems to be all anyone wants from me at this age on the Scene here. ”
The frustration and resignation lacing Archer’s words landed like a blow to Elton’s chest, nearly knocking the wind out of him. While his job was ninety-five percent of the reason why he no longer scened, the other five percent was a similar fear to the one Archer voiced.
Assumptions.
He didn’t want to make any where Archer was concerned. “What do you want?”
The winemaker’s gaze softened and his cheeks pinked above his beard.
Elton fought the urge to palm his cheek, desperately wanting to feel that heat.
He would’ve lost the battle if not for Archer turning his face back to the sheep.
“I want a partner, a relationship like Ezra has with Noah, like Al with CC, like—”
He cut himself off with a shake of his head, and Elton did reach out then, smoothing a hand over his hunched shoulders. “I get it,” he said, commiserating. “Especially when everyone around you is getting perfectly paired up.”
A comfortable silence settled over them, and Elton let it linger, in no hurry for this moment, this connection to end. After a couple of minutes, Archer righted himself and rested against the rail beside Elton, shoulder to shoulder. “Have you dated since your divorce?”
Fair question, especially given the ones he’d asked and what Archer had told him he was looking for. “I have a bad habit of always putting work first,” he said, giving him the truth. Fair warning. “Cost me my first marriage. Used it as an excuse since.”
“But now?”
“Now, the world is on fire, and I’m staring down the barrel of fifty. I guess you could say I’m reassessing my priorities.”
Archer held his stare a long moment, then hitched up one corner of his mouth in a smirk. “Young’un.”
Elton laughed out loud, which must’ve startled Noah, who stutter-stepped on his way out of the butchery, nearly losing one of the many bags in his arms. “No,” Elton said, smiling. “That’s a young’un.”
“Better him than us,” Archer returned with an answering grin before laying a warm, rough hand over his on the rail. “If you ever want—”
“A little help here!” Noah shouted.
Elton chuckled, mostly at Noah but also at the moments that kept escaping him and Archer. “We should go help him.”
Archer mumbled a curse, then pushed off the rail. “Tell Number 4 she was right.”
“About what?”
The grin Archer tossed over his shoulder was as devastating as his earlier blush, nearly taking out Elton’s knees. “That you’d be back.”
Thank fuck for the railing holding him up. “You told her about me?”
“No, the goats did, of course,” he deadpanned, before hustling across the lot to Noah, shouting something at the chef, but the Maybe now ringing in Elton’s head drowned out everything else.
Including his fears.