Page 9

When Spencer woke up, Ian and Norman were still passed out, snuggled up together. Before he could overthink it and panic about what an emotional disaster this whole situation was, he eased out of bed and took a shower, slipping into a new T-shirt and joggers. He left a note on the coffee table for Ian next to where he’d left his wallet and keys after changing the night before and waited until the last possible second to grab Norman’s leash, which caused Norman to rocket off the bed, jostling Ian violently in the process. Ian sat up slowly and rubbed his face with his hands.

“Sorry, I’m just taking Norman for a walk. You can keep sleeping. I’ll be back in a bit.”

“What time is it?”

he asked, his voice rough with sleep in a way Spencer wished he wasn’t going to think about forever.

“A little before eight.”

He shook his head, and it was like something had shifted. In the light of day, away from that old disaster of a house, he had a clear confidence to him that Spencer had only seen snippets of before. “I have to head home soon to get ready to work tonight, but I wanted to buy you breakfast as a thank-you for letting me stay. There’s that place down the street with the tables on the patio, right? So Norman could come?”

That sounded an awful lot like a date but maybe just enough not like one to be okay. Spencer wished he’d given himself enough time to process his conversation with Cat before he jumped headfirst into this mess. But if Norman was there, they wouldn’t really be alone, right? “Yeah, Norman can come.”

“Give me two minutes.”

Ian slid out of bed and went to the bathroom.

Spencer sat on the ground, petting Norman to distract him from the fact that he thought he was going to get a walk but hadn’t yet.

Ian did come out in a shockingly short amount of time wearing his clothes from the dryer with Spencer’s pajamas folded neatly in his hands. “Where do you want these?”

“Just drop them in the hamper.”

Spencer pointed, then hoisted himself off the floor. “All set?”

Ian grabbed his wallet and keys off the coffee table and pocketed them. “Let’s go.”

It took all of a minute to walk down to Raj’s café. They picked a table out front, and Norman immediately lay down in front of it like he had trekked miles to get there. “You have to order up at the counter. I don’t know if you—”

“What do you want? Like I said, my treat.”

Ian was smiling in earnest now, and it was intoxicating.

“The breakfast special with scrambled eggs and an Americano, please.”

Spencer sat down in one of the chairs and looped Norman’s leash around it, though it was unthinkable he’d get up, much less run away. He knew coming to Raj’s meant food, and Norman never passed up an opportunity for food.

“No problem.”

Ian headed inside, and Norman lifted his head enough to confirm Ian was gone before going back to his nap.

Spencer pulled out his phone and quickly texted Cat. I’ll be at the Tyler project at 10 for the counters. Brown Street doors in the living room. Look out, then slipped it back in his pocket as Ian came back out with an order number on a stand and two coffees.

“Thanks for breakfast.”

“It’s the least I could do.”

Ian took the seat across from him, and his blond hair looked haloed in the early-morning sunlight. “This place is nice.”

“Have you never been?”

As far as Spencer knew, basically everyone in Pittsfield came to Raj’s at least once a week.

“I don’t spend a lot of time in Pittsfield anymore. I stopped coming in the summer when my grandpa died when I was twelve. But I guess I’ll probably be here a lot more now.”

“Do you plan on living in the house?”

Spencer sipped his coffee to avoid asking more very awkward questions. Clearly the man wasn’t in the place yet to be contemplating moving his whole life.

“Well, I don’t need both units to myself, so I’ll be renting out at least one part of it. But it might be nice. It looks like it’s going to be beautiful when it’s done.”

He smiled and took a sip of his coffee.

Spencer thought he was probably blushing, but luckily Raj pushed out the door with two plates in his hands. “Well, look at this.”

His grin turned slightly devilish as he put the plates down in front of them. “I didn’t know my good friend Norman was out here.”

Norman stood up as if on cue so Raj could pet his head.

“Nice shirt.”

Raj nodded in Spencer’s direction.

Spencer looked down and realized he was wearing the Yellow Ranger shirt Raj had gotten him from his birthday a few years back. Spencer had known even as a kid that nothing about the situation was Chinese, but the nineties hadn’t been rife with Asian role models in media. “Raj, this is Ian. He owns the house on Brown Street that Cat and I are working on. Ian, Raj. This is his café.”

“Hi.”

Ian shook Raj’s hand.

“If Spence is working on your place, you’re in the best hands, Ian.”

Raj turned over his shoulder and winked at Spencer. “Do you want me to bring out some water for Norman?”

“That would be nice. Thanks, Raj.”

“Anything for you, hot stuff.”

Raj disappeared back inside.

Ian picked up his spoon and looked down at his organic oatmeal and berries. “Are you and Raj—”

“Oh god, no.”

Spencer hoped he sounded amused rather than horrified. “Raj and I have been friends for years. He’s just like that.”

“Like what?”

Raj came back outside and put a bowl of water in front of Norman, who ignored it to angle for more attention. Raj pulled a dog treat from the pocket of his apron, and Norman grabbed it out of his hand immediately.

Spencer cocked an eyebrow at him. “A giant flirt.”

Raj laughed, deep and infectious, then turned toward Ian. “Don’t mind me. I just like to rile him up. Can I get you anything else?”

“No, this is great, thank you,”

Ian said, looking decidedly pinker than he had a moment before. It seemed Raj had that effect on everyone, then.

“I should have warned you when you suggested this place,”

Spencer said apologetically. Everything had happened far too quickly for him to contemplate the social minefield that was bringing the man he maybe sort of liked to the café owned by a man who flirted with him shamelessly.

“No, no,”

Ian insisted. “It’s just . . .”

He blew out a breath that puffed out his cheeks. “God, I should have done this before I had a panic attack last night.”

“Done what?”

Ian shifted in his chair, then looked Spencer in the eye. “I wanted to ask you out.”

“Oh.”

He might have stopped breathing.

“But if you were exclusively dating Raj I wouldn’t do that. And I don’t know if it’s a problem for you to date a client, or if you’re even interested, especially after what happened in the basement.”

Ian looked down at his oatmeal and then back up at Spencer. There was that contradiction again—a hint of timidness overcome by a wave of confidence. Spencer wondered what it would be like to be brave like that. Had he ever actually just asked for something he wanted?

“No. I mean, it’s not a problem to date a client. You’re contractually obligated to pay us for services rendered regardless.”

Cool, Spencer, very sexy. “And I do want to. Last night didn’t change that, couldn’t change that. You being human doesn’t make you less attractive.”

Ian’s fingers tightened against the handle of his spoon. “But . . . ?”

Spencer’s heart fluttered in his chest. On one hand he was scared shitless. On the other, he’d never stop thinking about the way Ian looked in the early-morning sun with Norman sniffing his boat shoes to see if there was more food to be had. “It’s not a but. I just haven’t dated since I moved here, so I’m being weird.”

Ian’s mouth flattened into a line, and then he bit his lip and tilted his head slightly. Spencer didn’t know him well enough to know exactly what was going through his mind, but he knew he was thinking. “I don’t want to pressure you. I wanted to buy you breakfast regardless. You were incredibly kind to me last night, and I really appreciate that. I haven’t had a lot of kindness in my life recently. But I’m also attracted to you, so I’d like to take you out. If you want to.”

“I do want to,”

Spencer almost whispered. At least, he wanted to try.

Ian’s smile rivaled the brightness of the sun behind him. “I have to run to the house after this to grab that last box, and then I have a pretty busy work week coming up. But maybe next weekend?”

That was enough time for Spencer to get himself used to this idea. Or to panic entirely. “Yeah, I’m free. Text me. My number is on all the paperwork for the house.”

“Okay, I will.”

Ian finally started eating his oatmeal, and Spencer speared his eggs with his fork. “What are you doing today?”

“I have to go to a house to get the countertops templated.”

Spencer reached down and fed a slice of bacon to Norman.

Ian’s brows pinched up in a way that made Spencer want to laugh. “I can’t say I know what that means, but I hope it goes well?”

Spencer shook his head and chuckled. “Putting a house back together is a series of mundane steps that all add up to something impressive at the end. Hopefully.”

At that, Ian’s face softened. “I look forward to watching it happen.”

———

Spencer dropped Norman at home, grabbed his bike, and made it to Tyler Street just as Rae was pulling up in front. “Hey hey!”

Rae called from their truck. They’d rolled up their T-shirt sleeves because it was starting to get hot as the sun got higher in the sky, and their full sleeve of Japanese tattoos was on display. They’d tied their hair up into a topknot, exposing their undercut. “Great shirt.”

Apparently Spencer had been distracted enough that he’d changed into a pair of jeans, but the Yellow Ranger was still emblazoned across his chest. Fucking Raj. “How’s it going?”

He would have dug into his pocket for the keys, but he noticed Cat’s truck in the driveway, which meant she was already inside.

“Ready for the goddamn weekend.”

Rae pulled a roll of kraft paper out of the bed of their truck and slung it over their shoulder as Spencer led the way up to the house.

“Trouble in stone-yard paradise?”

Their voices echoed off the fresh drywall through the empty living room.

“Where the fuck— Oh, hey!”

Cat noticed Rae behind him and did a complete one-eighty from chewing him out.

“How’s it hanging, Cat?”

Spencer watched Cat choke on her own tongue and blush before looking down at her work boots. Cat knew perfectly well that Spencer didn’t need her there to watch the countertops be templated. But Spencer knew that she had it bad for Rae, so he’d never point that out.

It seemed impossible that Rae hadn’t picked up on this at some point over the last few years since Spencer had started using them as his stone vendor of choice, but their perpetually chill demeanor never let it show if they did. Rae had been married the entire time Spencer had known them, but Cat’s crush was essentially harmless—to everyone but her it seemed.

Rae just went about their business of cutting and taping kraft paper on top of the lower cabinets Cat and her crew had installed earlier in the week. Spencer stood silently as Cat vacillated between watching Rae longingly and trying to murder Spencer with her eyes. Eventually he pulled out his phone and started scrolling the internet in order to keep himself occupied since Cat apparently wasn’t going to be speaking to him.

“I think this should all just fit on the slab you picked, but now that I’m looking at this island, it’s gonna cut it close, so I’ll text you if you need to come pick a new one. Unless you’re interested in something contrasting for the island?”

Spencer sighed. “This client could never.”

He had all sorts of ideas for this project that would never get to see the light of day.

“God, please tell me it’s not white quartz.”

Cat seemed to have found her words.

“It’s white quartz,”

Spencer and Rae said in unison.

“I need this one to be done so badly,”

Cat whined, burying her face in her hands.

“You’re welcome to finish it up at any time.”

Cat’s glare told Spencer that he would be paying for that one later.

“This is all . . . very white,”

Rae offered, looking around at the cabinets and floors and walls as they finished up. “But if anyone had to do it, at least it was you two so they got the best their money could buy.”

Rae’s smile really was dazzling. Cat did have good taste. “I’ll email you a diagram before I make the cut in case you have any changes.”

“Thanks, Rae.”

Spencer walked them out, then waited in the driveway for Cat to lock up behind him.

“I thought Rae was going to get here before you and I was going to have to make conversation with them alone, and I was freaking the fuck out,”

Cat whisper-yelled on the lawn.

“You realize Rae is, like, the easiest person on the planet to talk to, right?”

Spencer picked up his bike.

Cat gave him a death glare. “I’ve got to head to Brown Street because the whole crew is over there finishing demo. You coming?”

Cat got in her truck. She technically beat him to the house because she was driving but not by much because it was literally around the corner. “Spencer, why is your car here?”

Before he could answer, Annabeth and Jorge came out the basement door with the washing machine on a dolly. “Oh, hey, Spencer? Is this yours? It was on the Habitat pile, but that felt weird.”

Annabeth ducked back inside and brought out the flannel he’d taken off the night before.

“Thanks.”

He took it from her hand without looking at Cat, who he knew was shooting daggers out of her eyes at him at this point.

“What happened here last night?”

He could tell Cat was trying to keep her voice low so as not to broadcast his business to the whole crew. He knew her patience wouldn’t last long, though.

“Let’s do the walk-through and then I’ll catch you up.”

Spencer went into the basement, which had already been divested of the massive furnace, and made his way to the kitchen with Cat on his heels. Everything was basically as he’d left it the night before, though almost all the debris had been cleared out.

“Luckily there was no water damage to the subfloor, but if there ever was hardwood in here, it’s not here anymore.”

Cat pointed to the floor where Spencer was concerned a kitchen-sink leak might have caused water damage.

“I budgeted for tile in here, anyway.”

Spencer looked around and was glad that the framing they’d exposed was generally in good shape like they’d hoped.

“So the biggest question we had that’s now been answered is that the banister isn’t here.”

Cat pointed to the wall in the dining room that they had hoped was covering original woodwork. Instead, it was two-by-four framing.

“Okay. I’ll call Mark next week to see when he can come out and copy the banister upstairs. I already put it in the budget, too, just in case.”

“The last thing we’re doing today is popping out all the windows and boarding things up. Caesar is coming to pick them up on Tuesday, and he said it’ll be about three weeks until they’re reglazed and back here.”

Spencer stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around the room at said windows. “That’s longer than I’d like.”

Cat shrugged. “We’re pretty much at a standstill until the roofers are done, anyway. So it’s not slowing down the timeline.”

“The roofers are coming on Wednesday. They’ll be done by next week,”

Spencer countered.

“You can call Caesar if you want. But he’s going to tell you to shove your hundred-year-old windows up your ass.”

Spencer ran his hands over his face. “I know. I’m not going to harass him.”

“I’m calling Hector in once the roof is finished to take a look at the attic since you want a bathroom up there. He’s going to hate it.”

Cat leaned against one of the exposed two-by-fours that was holding up the ceiling.

“Hector only hates it because he can’t imagine fitting his giant body into an attic shower.”

Hector was six five and built like a tank, but at five seven, Spencer found the idea to be perfectly reasonable. “Those of us who are normal sized do perfectly fine.”

“Says the man who lives in a loft,”

Cat scoffed.

“You’ll just have to convince him this is the best idea I’ve ever had.”

“Yeah because big brothers often listen to everything their little sisters have to say.”

Spencer knew Cat was mostly joking. Hector would do literally anything for her. And she hired him as the plumber on all her projects because she secretly loved being around him, even if she’d never admit it.

“I need to stay until all the plywood is up but let’s go have lunch in my truck.”

“What did you bring for lunch?”

Spencer followed Cat back through the basement out to the driveway.

“Nothing for you.”

She turned the key in the ignition so the air conditioner would run, then pulled a sandwich out of an actual brown paper bag.

“Do you want me to get you a lunch box with some insulation?”

“I want you to tell me why you were late—”

“You mean exactly on time?”

“And why your car is here. And also your shirt?”

Spencer signed. What had happened the night before felt encapsulated in its own little bubble, and he told Cat everything, but he didn’t know what would happen to those perfectly contained feelings if he told her this. But he also knew that if he was actually going to go on this date, he was going to need her support. And that she probably wasn’t going to let it go, anyway. “We cleared out the basement.”

“Uh-huh,”

Cat said around a mouthful of sandwich.

“And at one point it got hot, so I took my shirt off.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Hot how?”

Spencer should have seen that one coming. “Physically warm. And then . . . Ian needed to leave, so we left sort of unexpectedly.”

Cat blinked. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he is now, I think. It’s not really my story to tell.”

“Okay.”

Cat was very good at calling Spencer out, but she was also good at leaving things be when the situation called for it.

“So we walked back to my place. And drank tea. And slept next to each other. Platonically. Clothed.”

“Because that’s something people definitely do.”

Spencer tried to glare, but he knew there was no way that would actually work. “And then this morning, he bought me breakfast at Raj’s and asked me out. On a date.”

He could tell Cat was trying to school her expression to one of calm nonchalance, as though she were trying not to startle an injured animal. He knew he was the injured animal, and honestly, he felt a bit like one. “How do you feel about that?”

“What are you, my therapist?”

“Obviously not or I would be way nicer.”

Cat took a swig from her water bottle.

“Something about him feels . . . safe.”

He paused. “That sounded stupid, and I regret saying it.”

Cat’s face softened. “That’s not stupid. Some people have that vibe. Not me, obviously.”

Spencer barked out a laugh. “No, not you. People have to get to know you to see the soft stuff.”

“But some people are openly soft, and it’s okay if you want that.”

“I have no idea what the fuck I want.”

Spencer banged his head back against the headrest hard enough that he hoped it conveyed his frustration.

“Stop that. If you break my truck, I fucking swear . . .”

“Jesus.”

He shoved her playfully across the bench seat.

“I’m proud of you, Spence.”

She reached over and covered his hand in hers. “However this turns out, it was brave to try.”

He wasn’t feeling particularly brave. “I don’t know that that’s true.”

“I’m telling you it’s true.”

Spencer smiled. Cat was always confident for him when he couldn’t be confident for himself. “Thank you.”

“Look, I have to get back in there, but are you coming to Hector’s this weekend?”

Hector lived in Great Barrington and loved having barbecues in the summer, especially since Cat had built him a new deck the year prior. He had a Memorial Day barbecue every year with their friends and all the people in his and Cat’s family.

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

Spencer put his bike in the back of his car and drove home to make himself some lunch, then sat down at his desk to pull tile samples for the Tyler project. But he could only look at so much white tile before he started to lose his mind, so he picked three that were just as good as any of the others and within budget and emailed the options to the client.

When he looked down at his phone, he realized he’d missed a text from Ian. Do you mind if I take you to one of my favorite places in Pittsfield next week?

Part of Spencer wanted to think that was ominous and run screaming. But part of him remembered Ian curled up between him and Norman the night before and texted back, Not at all. What’s the dress code?

He didn’t immediately get a text back, but he figured that Ian might be working, so Spencer went about his day and took Norman to the dog park. It wasn’t until he was getting ready for bed that night that he got a response.

Very casual. How’s 6 next Saturday?

That sounds great.

Pick you up at your place?

Spencer hadn’t been picked up for a date in a really long time. He’d had dates come back to his place after perfunctory drinks to make sure they weren’t axe murderers, but none of them ever came over beforehand. Maybe it would be too much. But Ian had already been there, so maybe it would just be nice. See you then.

Before he could fully panic about it, he called Norman up into bed and passed out.