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I stood and made my way toward the kitchen. Neko planned to continue until he raised all the funds and I needed to take care of him. Which meant the man would eat regular meals, even if it was my cooking.

While still not a great cook, I’d learned a lot in the weeks we’ve been together. Neko’s a patient and wonderful teacher, which makes me less intimidated to cook something for him.

I’d started the rice cooker at breakfast after remembering to soak the sushi rice the night before. So with that taken care of, I took out the marinated meat and started the burner. I grabbed one of the bento boxes and filled one of the two largest sections with rice until it overflowed. The meat was sliced so thin; it sautéed within a minute. I filled the smaller sections with kimchi, pickled radish, fish cake, marinated tofu, and nori. Neko made the side dishes and kept them on hand in case either of us were hungry and neither wanted to cook.

With the lid in place, I filled another steel bottle, this one around sixty-four ounces, with ice water and headed upstairs. My plan was to drop off the food, not disturbing Neko more than necessary.

I listened at the door, and it was quiet. From the many videos we’d watched, I knew Neko didn’t handle scares well. So, with great care, I opened the door and tilted my head, peeking inside. The monitor showed him in a dark corridor, head sweeping left and right at a fast pace as he searched for something. I knew he couldn’t hear me because of his headphones, so I contemplated the best way to get his attention.

Neko paused the game before his eyes darted toward his chat window and he sat up straight. “Are you sure? Does he look scary, like he wants to stab me to death?”

Words flashed on the monitor to his right and whatever they said made him turn around. He smiled when he spotted me in the doorway.

“Hey, sorry to bother you. I wanted to bring you some food, but didn’t want to disrupt your stream.” I leaned my head back and stuck the food and water bottle through the slot of the opened door.

Again, Neko surprised me when he grasped my wrist in his long fingers and pulled me inside his studio. Instead of releasing me when I stumbled inside, he directed me to a chair next to his and pushed me into it.

“Perfect timing. I was about to wet myself and now, I can eat and ignore the little demon child trying to kill me for no good reason other than I exist.”

If I thought his chat was nuts when they noticed me, the velocity increased tenfold, all because Neko pulled me into the room. When Neko cleared his throat, I gazed over at him and noticed the smirk as he opened the lid to the box.

“Oh, this smells so good and it feels like forever since you cooked me breakfast. Thank you.”

Without waiting for an explanation to his audience, he picked up the chopsticks I’d included with a dexterity which amazed me and piled on kimchi, radish, a thin strip of meat on the rice, before he lifted the food and took a huge bite. The moan escaping from his throat made my back ramrod straight and my cock twitched in my sweats.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered.

“What?”

“I’m a little underdressed for being on your stream.”

Without answering me, his eyes perused me from head to toe, which caused a current of heat to lick up my spine where it settled near my groin.

Neko blinked at me, another adorable mannerism that had my heart melting each time I saw it. He shoved another bite into his mouth, set the box down, and leaned forward to read the text on the screen.

“They want to know if you’re a male model?” he shook his head before he answered, “No, he’s a mundane. He works in business. You know the type, white buttoned down shirt, two-toned unimaginative ties. But I agree with you, he would be great as a model.”

Instead of taking offense to being called normal, I lifted his food and nudged the box into his hands. “You need to eat, sweetheart.”

Not meaning to let my pet name for him slip, my eyes widened as I glanced up at a calm Neko, who took bite after bite, sipping water every so often, with a smile on his face. He turned back and read the next comments, before he looked at me, his face a mask of seriousness.

“They want to know who you are. Curious buggers, they want to know more about your connection to me.”

“Um, I know we didn’t have time this morning to talk about it, but I want us to be together. I want you to be my—”

“Boyfriend?”

I nodded and then stopped, and his eyes widened. Before Neko’s face fell, I said, “I was thinking more along the line of a partner. But if you want to say boyfriend, I’m fine with that.”

“Partner it is then,” he said before he kissed my nose.

Both of us looked away from each other to stare at the chat scrolling so fast, I didn’t catch a word. “How can you read any of that?”

The grin, quirking the side of his mouth, did crazy things to my heart, and I noticed his voice dropped an octave when he winked and said, “Lots of practice.”

He turned back to the camera and said, “One question at a time. This man, Mr. Hot Stuff as Echo named him, is Graham. And yes, that is the only name you will be getting. Our story is he moved next door about three months ago, deposited by pod people, or you might know them from the national colloquialism, aliens. Because in the realm of what’s possible, this hotness on a platter served up for little ole me is highly improbable. Anyway, he heard me scream after I might have gotten scared playing a horror game and knocked on my door to check on me. He fell in love with me at first sight and that’s his entire story, you inquisitive people.”

Everything he mentioned was the truth. Although I didn’t have a clue until I kissed him that he’d become my world. My feelings for him swelled the moment he opened the door with his cheeks flushed and a glare aimed my way.