Page 18

The next morning, Spencer and Ian took Norman to the dog park and then headed to Raj’s for coffee. It was a health-code violation for Norman to actually go into the café, so Ian stood outside with him while Spencer ran in.

“Hey there, hot stuff.”

Raj pushed a stray lock of hair behind his ear.

“Hey, can I get two Americanos?”

“Oh?”

Raj looked out the window to find Ian texting. “Cute. I’m glad Ian came out yesterday. I liked talking to him.”

“It wasn’t weird for you?”

Spencer and Raj weren’t a thing, and they were never going to be a thing, but they’d been doing a very specific dance for years, and Spencer didn’t want being with Ian to change the way he and Raj were around each other.

Raj looked confused for a second. Then he threw his head back and laughed. “Spence.”

He took Spencer’s hand. “Look, you’re hot as hell, and I’d tap that, but I am hopelessly in unrequited love, and it’s not with you.”

Spencer’s mouth dropped open. “Why am I just hearing about this?”

“About my obsession with a chef I only see at the coffee distributor twice a month who doesn’t know I exist?”

Raj turned to his espresso machine. “Because it’s humiliating.”

Spencer felt like the hamster wheel in his brain was turning a million miles a minute. How could Raj have had this crush and he’d never known? “How do you know that you love him if you’ve never spoken?”

“That might have been a bit dramatic, but I’ve heard him talking to the owner a few times, and his voice is . . .”

Raj made a sound that was hard to characterize but that Spencer understood implicitly.

“That’s not . . . a ton to go on,”

Spencer hedged. But hell, it was about as much as his attraction to Ian had been at the beginning.

Raj just shook his head. He slid Spencer’s coffees across the counter, and Spencer tapped his phone to pay. “I’ll get over myself. You go get your man. He’s adorable.”

“Thanks, Raj.”

Raj took Spencer’s hand across the counter again and squeezed once. He and Spencer weren’t particularly touchy-feely beyond hugs hello and goodbye, but Raj had been there for him through some shit, and his support now meant more than Spencer had even realized. He grabbed his coffees and headed for the door.

He felt like a weight had lifted off his shoulders. He hadn’t even been consciously aware of how worried he’d been about hurting Raj’s feelings.

Then he stepped outside, the bells on the café door jingling behind him, and he saw Ian. The whole world suddenly narrowed to a point: Ian looking up from his phone and at Spencer’s face. Fuck, how much of that interaction had Ian seen? And then something else flashed through Spencer’s mind, something he hadn’t thought about in a long time: his ex’s voice, his ex’s face, the weight of his ex’s hand on the small of his back, claiming Spencer, his. Spencer was pretty sure he’d stopped breathing.

“Spencer, what’s wrong?”

Ian rushed over to him and took him by the elbows, seemingly to keep him upright.

“That was not what it looked like. Raj was just telling me about . . . and I was just . . . and . . .”

Spencer could hear the blood rushing in his ears. He gulped in a breath, his lungs suddenly begging for air.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.”

Ian took the coffees from Spencer’s hands and put them on a nearby table before pulling Spencer to his chest. Norman, overstimulated by all the commotion, was jumping around them and tangling them in his leash. “Whatever you think I’m thinking, I’m not.”

Ian started running his fingers through Spencer’s hair.

“Fuck.”

Spencer pressed his forehead to Ian’s shoulder, grounding himself in the touch.

“Okay, hold on.”

Ian untangled Norman’s leash, slid it around his wrist, and grabbed the two coffees in one hand, using the other to gently guide Spencer toward his own front door. Spencer winced at the touch, and Ian pulled his hand back. “I’d like to come up and talk about this, but I feel like I might be upsetting you, and I don’t want to do that.”

Spencer sucked in air, counted, let it out. “Yeah, uh, no, yeah, come up.”

He managed to get the door unlocked and walk upstairs. He collapsed on the couch as Ian put the coffees down and got Norman settled.

“May I sit?”

“Yeah,”

Spencer whispered.

Ian sat on the opposite end of the couch, giving Spencer space. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“Raj and I were talking, and he touched my hand, and I know Raj is always flirty, but now we’re . . . whatever we are, and I know you’re not my ex, but he never let anyone touch me, and I panicked.”

Breathe in, count, out.

“Spencer.”

Ian looked him directly in the eyes but kept his hands to himself. “I don’t get to tell you who can touch you. No one does. And I would never try to.”

“I know,”

he whispered.

“You and Raj have always flirted, as far as I can tell. And you like it, right? When people flirt with you?”

Spencer had actually never considered it before. But now that he thought about it, he did like the quick zing of pleasure he got during a little innocent flirting. He nodded at Ian.

“Then I’m happy your friendship with Raj includes that.”

He smiled gently, leaning one arm across the back of the couch, facing Spencer, posture open and unthreatening. “Anyone who doesn’t want to flirt with you clearly doesn’t have any taste.”

Spencer huffed out a watery laugh. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

“Don’t.”

Ian put his hand gingerly on Spencer’s knee and watched to gauge his reaction before leaving it there. “You feel however you want to feel, and we’ll talk about it, okay?”

Spencer nodded again.

“Is it making you uncomfortable that what we’re doing doesn’t really have a definition yet?”

Spencer bit his lip, considering. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to think about what someone else expects of me in terms of these things, you know?”

Ian stroked Spencer’s knee gently with his thumb. “I think you know I like you, and I like spending time with you, and I’d be happy to call you my boyfriend if that’s a term you like. But that doesn’t mean I have any expectations of your behavior. Where you go, who you spend time with—none of that is my business, or anyone else’s. I’ve been in monogamous and nonmonogamous relationships, and I think we should set whatever boundaries work for us.”

“Oh.”

Spencer had never even considered that possibility. He turned the idea over in his mind, feeling increasingly steadier as his breathing evened out to match the pace of Ian’s fingers moving against his knee. “Did you prefer one over the other?”

Ian shrugged. “Not really. I think it’s about what worked best between me and that other person. None of those relationships ended because of monogamy status. They just weren’t the people for me.”

Spencer shifted a little in his seat, causing Ian to lift up his hand. Spencer took it in his and gripped it probably a little harder than necessary, needing the connection to ground him. “What does being boyfriends mean for you, then?”

Ian adjusted his fingers slightly in Spencer’s so they weren’t being entirely crushed. “I want to spend time with you. I want to spend time with your friends and have you meet mine. I want to cuddle on the couch and drink tea and pet Norman. And I want to have sex with you, yes, but if you’re ever flirting with someone and decide you want to have sex with them, that doesn’t really bother me. No matter what we decide, you should flirt with whoever you want.”

Spencer’s brain was swimming. He’d never thought of this as an option before. He knew what he’d had in the past wasn’t healthy, but he’d never tried to define healthy for himself beyond whatever the opposite of that was. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course. Take all the time you need.”

Ian stroked his thumb over Spencer’s knuckles tenderly.

Suddenly, Spencer realized he hadn’t answered the initial question. “I do want to be your boyfriend. I just don’t know about anything else.”

Ian leaned forward and kissed him. “We’ll figure it out.”

Spencer repositioned himself on the couch so he was sitting between Ian’s thighs, leaning back against his chest. He was suffused with the sense of comfort and calm he always got around Ian. He was absolutely going to need to talk to his therapist about this, but maybe it was all going to be okay.

Ian’s fingers brushed his hair back from his forehead. “If this is too much for right now, please tell me. But are you interested in getting tested? Whatever else we decide to do, that could be a level of commitment just between us.”

Spencer shut his eyes at the flush of arousal that ran through his body. At least that was an easy decision. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Ian kissed him behind the ear. “Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? Anything I can do to make you feel better?”

Spencer shook his head. “Can we just sit here for a bit?”

“Of course.”

Ian picked his coffee up off the table and handed Spencer the other one. “Anything you want.”