Page 23

Spencer knocked on a door that matched all the other doors in the hallway and waited patiently for Ian to open it.

“Hey, thanks for coming. I know it’s out of your way to drive down here.”

Ian held the door aside so Spencer could come in.

Spencer kicked off his Vans. “That’s okay. You’ve seen my place. I wanted to see yours.”

Ian wrapped an arm around his waist and kissed him lingeringly. “Well, it’s not as homey as your place.”

He bit his lip sheepishly.

“Ian, I’m not judging.”

He ran his thumbs over Ian’s cheekbones soothingly. “Just because I design curated spaces for a living doesn’t mean I judge people who don’t live like that. Hell, I don’t live like that. Everything at my place is secondhand and completely thrown together. It’s nothing fancy.”

“No, I know. It just feels so nice to be at your place. It suits you. This is mostly just where I sleep.”

He took a step back and led Spencer farther into the apartment.

The building was fairly new, so Spencer had anticipated the cookie-cutter nature of the fixtures. The unit was a big, narrow rectangle. The front door opened into a U-shaped kitchen where everything was white and gray. To the left was a living room, where the color palette continued. Through a door on the far wall was a bedroom, which led to a bathroom. Spencer was pretty sure every piece of furniture in the apartment had come from IKEA, which was impressive in a way because there wasn’t one within a hundred miles of Berkshire County. It was possible that Ian had had all of this since med school.

“So that’s the tour.”

Ian brought him back into the living room. He had his hands in his pockets like he was waiting for Spencer to pass some ultimate judgment.

Spencer flopped down onto the couch that he was pretty sure was a futon and pulled Ian down on top of him. Ian’s hands came out of his pockets instinctively to brace himself against the back of the couch. “Let’s see if it’s suitable for our purposes.”

Spencer leaned up and kissed Ian chastely, just a firm press of his lips to focus Ian’s attention somewhere other than his decor. He felt Ian relax into him, his hands coming up into Spencer’s hair and his mouth opening to push the kiss in a much sexier direction. Spencer was willing to go wherever Ian was going to take it, as long as he wasn’t overthinking everything like he had been when he’d opened the door.

But in that moment nothing seemed to exist for Ian except for Spencer, which Spencer certainly wasn’t complaining about. He brushed his tongue against Spencer’s and gasped as though he hadn’t expected it to feel as good as it did. He ground his hips down, probably more out of instinct than anything, and Spencer grabbed his ass, pulling him close.

Ian pulled his lips back, and Spencer momentarily chased him before realizing what he was doing. Damn, he hadn’t meant for it to go that far. “As much as I would love to keep doing that for the rest of the night, if we don’t head out soon, we’ll miss the beginning.”

Spencer took a deep breath, trying to return his heart rate to normal. “Yeah.”

Ian leaned back and looked at him seriously. “Unless you don’t want to do this. We can absolutely stay here and keep doing what we were doing.”

“No.”

Spencer quickly pecked Ian on the cheek. “I’d like to watch the Boston Symphony from the fancy lawn.”

It was a classically Berkshires experience, and Ian had seemed actually pretty excited about it.

Ian unfolded himself from Spencer’s lap and headed back into the kitchen, where he washed some fruit and started putting it in Tupperware. “Want to grab a bottle of wine to bring?”

He motioned to the fridge.

Spencer didn’t expect to find much—neither he nor Ian was particularly interested in cooking—but he was surprised that, now that Ian had removed the fruit, the four bottles of wine were the only things in the fridge besides a few take-out containers. “I honestly didn’t take you for much of a drinker.”

He grabbed a bottle of rosé because it was summer, after all.

“Oh, I’m not.”

Ian turned over his shoulder. “I like to keep some on hand for friends’ nights. But I haven’t been in a few months.”

Spencer put the wine bottle on the counter and rested his hand on the small of Ian’s back, rubbing gently in circles over his obnoxiously soft shirt. “Why not?”

He would hate it if hanging out in Pittsfield all the time had somehow kept Ian from his friends.

“I’ve . . . kind of been keeping to myself lately. It’s been hard to be around people who ask all the hard questions, you know?”

Spencer huffed out a laugh. He knew a thing or two about friends who saw you too clearly sometimes. “I imagine they care about you a lot.”

He put a steadying hand on Ian’s hip. Ian leaned into his touch. “Did you tell them about the house?”

Ian’s eyes fell closed, and Spencer didn’t know if it was because he was enjoying the sensation of Spencer’s hands on him or if he was avoiding the question. “I did. As soon as I left that morning. I knew you were right.”

“How did they take it?”

Ian opened his eyes, and Spencer resisted the urge to kiss that wounded look off his face. The corners of his mouth tipped up a little. “Everyone is excited to see it when you’re done with it. They’re glad I have you to help me with it. And to make me reach out to them about how I’m doing.”

Spencer scrunched up his face. “I don’t want to make you do anything, baby.”

“No.”

Ian gripped Spencer’s hips like Spencer’s body was the only thing anchoring him to the ground. “You didn’t force me to do anything. You just reminded me that the people in my life were going to be there for me when I needed them.”

“I’m glad they were.”

Spencer wrapped his arms around Ian’s neck and pulled him into his chest, kissing his forehead. It still killed him that Ian felt so alone, like it had after their first client meeting and when he’d offered to help him clean out the basement. He wanted to offer to take care of Ian, like Ian had taken care of him by being patient and gentle with him.

Ian stood up out of Spencer’s embrace and stacked the Tupperware and the wine in a tote bag. “Come on.”

They put on their shoes, and Ian locked the front door behind them, leading Spencer out to his car.

They were quiet as Ian drove through downtown Stockbridge and turned north onto Interlaken. Spencer reached over the center console and took Ian’s free hand. “Are you okay?”

Ian smiled wistfully but didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I just feel like I’ve let my friends down in a lot of ways recently.”

Spencer brushed his thumb over Ian’s knuckles. “I can’t imagine they feel that way. They know you have a lot on your plate right now.”

Ian raised their conjoined hands to his lips and kissed the back of Spencer’s. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Ian parked, and they showed their tickets at the front gate before walking over an expansive lawn that was strewn with groups of people who had laid out blankets and lawn chairs to form individual little islands over the grass. They found an open spot and laid out their blanket, not unlike the way they had in Clapp Park a few months earlier.

Ian held up a raspberry, and Spencer ate it out of his hand, careful not to bite down too hard on his fingers. Ian made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a giggle, and Spencer blushed a bit, happy to have turned around Ian’s mood just a little.

“Ian?”

Spencer looked up to see a bald Black man walking over from the concession stand, two plastic cups in his hands. His natural instinct was to tease Ian about being the kind of person who could accidentally run into someone they knew at Tanglewood, but the look on Ian’s face kept him from saying anything.

“Hey, Justin,”

Ian said, his voice a little wary.

Justin set his cups in the grass and plopped down on the edge of their blanket. “Man, it’s good to see you. It’s been forever.”

He turned toward Spencer and held out his hand. “I’m Justin. Ian and I work together at the hospital.”

“Spencer.”

He shook Justin’s hand. Ian looked spooked, not unlike the first time Spencer had opened the door to the basement, and he was trying to take his social cues from him, but he also didn’t want to be rude to someone who honestly looked incredibly nice.

Justin’s smile got even wider. “Damn, everyone in the group chat is going to be so jealous I got to meet you. Ian has been talking about you nonstop.”

Spencer bit his lip to hide his smile. He liked knowing that Ian was talking about him, but he was quickly piecing together that Justin was one of the friends Ian had been ghosting recently, and it was much more important to him to support Ian however he needed than to fuel his own ego with this interaction.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been checking in much,”

Ian said mostly to the blanket.

“It’s okay, man. Everyone processes in their own way.”

Ian looked up then and gave Justin a small smile.

Justin unfolded himself and picked up his cups from the grass. “Sasha is waiting on me somewhere around here. I hope you guys have a good night. It was good to meet you, Spencer.”

“You, too,”

Spencer agreed.

“It would be great to see you out sometime when you’re feeling up to it, Ian,”

he said before heading off into the sea of blankets. Spencer appreciated that he hadn’t pressured Ian for a response.

They sat quietly for a moment. Spencer could see the gears in Ian’s head turning, his facial expressions changing as he experienced his emotions. “I could maybe go,”

he finally said.

“You could, if you want to,”

Spencer agreed.

Ian nodded. “Maybe I’ll go.”

Suddenly, the orchestra started tuning, and an announcement came over the loudspeakers about phones and cameras. A hush fell over the crowd, and Spencer felt Ian snake an arm around his waist. Spencer rested his head on his shoulder in answer.

Spencer knew absolutely nothing about classical music, and quite honestly, he wasn’t really paying attention. But he was happy to sit here, nestled into Ian’s side, dancing his fingertips lightly over Ian’s knee and drawing little smiles out of him.