Page 16

Because of Ian’s work schedule, Spencer only saw him a few times a week, which was— Okay, it was reasonable. But there was an itch in the back of Spencer’s brain pretty much always, causing him to think about Ian, to want to be around him. It made Spencer want, in the pit of his stomach, a feeling he hadn’t had in a really long time.

He remembered that he had been afraid of this feeling, that he was supposed to be afraid.

But as he caught Ian sitting in his passenger seat out of the corner of his eye, golden hair illuminated by oncoming headlights, he couldn’t summon up that emotion anymore.

All he felt was calm, and warmth, and okay, a decent amount of arousal.

Because they’d spent the evening looking at modern art, and Ian had really had no idea what was going on, but he had paused when Spencer did and looked very seriously at everything, a small crease forming between his eyebrows when he particularly disliked something.

And Spencer had wanted to shove him into a corner and kiss him because now he knew what all that singular intensity felt like when it was focused on him, and he was probably never going to get enough of it.

But equally, he didn’t want to get kicked out of the museum, so he’d kept his hands to himself and asked Ian about a piece of sculpture and thought about how good it would be when he got Ian back to his apartment so Ian could give him his hands and his tongue and maybe even one of the toys that lived in the nightstand drawer.

“What are you smiling about?”

Spencer looked at Ian in the rearview mirror as he turned into the parking lot behind his apartment. “I had a nice time today.”

“So did I.”

Ian squeezed his hand once over the center console, and Spencer reveled in it—the warm skin he now knew intimately as Ian’s, slightly dry because he washed his hands all the time at work, and no matter what he did, he could never overcome it.

“Good. It sort of seemed like maybe you didn’t like it.”

“It’s not that I didn’t like it.”

Ian paused as they both got out of Spencer’s car. “It’s just, what I like about your art is that I know what I’m looking at.”

So the date Spencer had planned to MASS MoCA hadn’t been a resounding success, but he was hoping to turn it around.

“Where are you going?”

They’d walked around to the front of the building, but rather than stopping at the door to his apartment, Spencer kept walking to the shop below it. Through the glass door, he could see Margot setting up a circle of chairs in the center of the room. She was wearing a purple apron that matched the store’s branding and had her hair up in a curly bun, and when she noticed him, she jogged up to the door and unlocked it.

“Sorry, I forgot it was Wednesday.”

Spencer hugged her as she let them in. He’d gotten so caught up in all the logistics of date planning that he’d forgotten Margot closed early that night.

“No worries, babe. Always open for you.”

She motioned them inside, then closed the door behind them and relocked it.

“We’ll be in and out,”

he promised. “Margot, this is Ian.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Ian shook Margot’s hand and looked around the shop, which always made Spencer feel like he was on vacation, even though he lived upstairs. The whole store was stuffed full of chocolate confections, the vintage-looking displays overflowing to give the effect of wholesome excess. Spencer didn’t actually know if Ian liked chocolate, but who didn’t like chocolate? Modern art was maybe an acquired taste, but surely candy wasn’t.

“Margot has rented the shop since I finished renovating it, and her chocolate is to die for.”

“Just my chocolate?”

Margot asked with a wink.

Spencer could feel himself blush. Raj might be his most embarrassing friend, but Margot certainly wasn’t above teasing him. “Margot also runs a thriving online sex-toy business. She’s, uh, responsible for the contents of the drawer.”

“Oh.”

Ian looked like he was trying very hard to keep up. “You have a high-quality product,”

he said with much less self-consciousness than Spencer had expected.

“Thank you.”

Margot pulled a business card out of the pocket of her apron, one that didn’t match the branding of the candy shop, and handed it to Ian. “In case you ever need something. I keep some stock in the back if you ever want to see anything in person.”

Ian slipped it into the pocket of his shorts like this sort of thing was a regular occurrence for him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Margot also runs a trans support group on Wednesday nights, so we need to get out of here soon. We just stopped in for some fudge.”

That had been Spencer’s date plan—the museum and dessert—and he’d been pretty proud of himself for coming up with something so romantic.

“Sure thing, babe.”

Margot walked around the counter to the display cases. “Everything we have is made locally in Berkshire County.”

She jumped into her sales pitch, mostly for Ian’s sake, Spencer assumed, because he’d already heard it several times. “Our fudge comes from a lovely woman in Lenox who fills orders out of her home kitchen.”

“Which flavor do you want?”

When Spencer looked over at Ian for his answer, he saw he had his brow furrowed like he was looking at the sculptures from earlier. Fuck, maybe Ian didn’t like fudge or modern art? “Unless you’d prefer something else. There are truffles and chocolate bars and—”

“No,”

Ian said too quickly, looking up at Margot with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Turtle, please.”

“A classic choice.”

If Margot noticed Ian’s hesitancy, she didn’t let on. She reached into the case and grabbed one of the large loaves, then set it on the counter to cut into bite-size pieces.

“Can we get some of the maple walnut, too?”

Spencer asked. He loved chocolate, but sometimes he craved that hit of pure sugar. If Ian had once liked Blue Goo, he’d probably like this.

“Of course.”

Margot cut up another loaf, then packaged everything and tied a purple ribbon around the box and handed it over the counter. “Don’t you dare,”

she threatened when Spencer pulled out his wallet. “I’d just give it back to you at the end of the month, anyway.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

Spencer shook his head but slid his wallet back into his pocket and took the box. He actually hated that Margot never let him pay. He wanted her business to do well, but she had never once taken his money, and he knew better than to think he’d ever win that fight. “Have a good group.”

Margot, oblivious to his crisis of conscience or maybe just disinterested in it, smiled back at him. “Thanks, babe. Nice to meet you, Ian.”

They waved as they walked out of the shop, then headed up into Spencer’s apartment. As soon as they got in the door, Norman jumped Spencer, then Ian in turn and did a few circles around the floor before going over to the cookie jar as though he expected to be rewarded for existing. “Hey, bud.”

Spencer did give him a treat because of course he did. Then Spencer joined Ian on the couch and untied the ribbon on the fudge box but left it unopened on the coffee table. “Hey, were you okay back there? I can’t help but think I might have fucked this whole date up.”

Ian’s eyes went wide, and his mouth dropped open. “God, no, Spencer, this date was lovely.”

He reached instinctively for Spencer’s thigh. “It’s just . . . Fudge reminds me of my mom.”

Spencer’s heart might have stopped beating. “Ian, I—”

“All good things, though,”

Ian assured, squeezing slightly harder to emphasize his point. “For as long as I can remember, every vacation we took, she’d always find somewhere for us to buy fudge. So we could sample all the different kinds the world had to offer.”

His eyes were shiny like he was maybe going to cry, but he was smiling at the memory.

“Where’s the best one from?”

Spencer asked quietly, taking the hand Ian had on his thigh in his own. His instinct would have been to change the subject and throw the fudge away, but Ian seemed to want to talk.

“Well, I would say the Cape, but I haven’t had this one yet.”

He pulled the box toward him with his free hand.

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to. I can take it to Cat tomorrow.”

Spencer had the sudden urge to throw himself across the table and knock the box onto the ground.

As though he could read Spencer’s mind, Ian brought the box into his lap protectively. “You should probably save some for Cat, anyway. But I’d like to make some new fudge memories.”

Spencer didn’t know why it suddenly felt too hot in the apartment. They were just talking about eating candy, for god’s sake.

Ian took a piece of turtle fudge out of the box and stared at it for a moment before holding it up to Spencer’s face. “For you.”

Spencer bit gently, his lips grazing the pads of Ian’s fingers as half the fudge fell into his mouth. Ian slid the other half past his own lips, closed his eyes momentarily, then looked back at Spencer. “Wow.”

He licked the corner of his mouth in a way that Spencer was never going to be able to unsee. “Is that how you decided to rent the shop to Margot? Did you just want delicious fudge right downstairs?”

It took Spencer a moment to pull his thoughts away from Ian’s tongue. “She was actually the first person to answer the ad once Cat and I were done renovating. Obviously commercial space in Pittsfield isn’t the easiest sell, but since I own the building outright, I only charge her enough to cover property tax and utilities.”

Ian cocked his head, looking contemplative. “Could I do that?”

“Hmm?”

Spencer leaned over to pick up a piece of the maple-walnut fudge from the box in Ian’s lap.

“Charge below-market rent for the other half of the house.”

“Oh. Sure, if that’s what you wanted to do,”

Spencer said around a mouthful of fudge.

Ian looked down at the open box, then back at Spencer. “I think my mom would have liked that.”

He let go of Spencer’s hand and dug his phone out of his pocket, seemingly to make a note, and Margot’s card fell to the floor. They both looked down at it. “So Margot is your friend who also sells you sex toys?”

Ian asked as he picked it up and set it safely on the coffee table.

“Yeah.”

Spencer knew he was turning red, which was ridiculous. He’d had sex with Ian. Ian had touched said sex toys. “She, um, was telling me about her side hustle one day while I was helping her install some shelving, and I mentioned that I was . . . having a hard time thinking about sex at all after, uh, leaving New York, and she gave me a lot of recommendations. I tried . . . a lot of stuff.”

He chuckled self-consciously.

He’d expected Ian to laugh, too, to acknowledge how ridiculous it was to sample sex toys your friend had given you. But Ian was looking at him very intensely. “Spencer, that’s really brave.”

Spencer stuffed more fudge in his mouth as a diversion tactic. “Hardly,”

he mumbled at the floor.

“No.”

Ian twined their fingers together again, squeezing Spencer’s hard. “Really. Taking agency over your pleasure back like that—it’s amazing.”

Spencer didn’t really know what to say. This date hadn’t gone how he’d planned it at all. But then he didn’t need to say anything because Ian had leaned in and taken his face between his hands and was kissing the taste of fudge out of his mouth.