Page 62 of Necessary Time

And I knew he meant the shower, but… damn.

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

Colin

Wesley orderedchocolate milk with his breakfast.

Chocolate milk, coffee, and avocado toast.

“Have you had this before?” he asked, mouth pulled into that same grin he had when he was happiest.

“Avocado toast?”

Wesley nodded, shoveling a massive spear of avocado into his mouth and chewing.

“I have,” I said.

“They don’t have stuff like this back home. Just little diner breakfasts. And we had a Waffle House, of course.”

“We don’t have those here.”

His eyes went wide. “How do you gauge natural disaster severity?”

“What?” I set down my fork so I could take a drink of my coffee.

“Have you not heard of the Waffle House index?”

“No.” I shook my head, still confused. “I haven’t.”

“Well, as Grayson says to mesomuch, I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Wesley looked proud of himself, and I doubted the Waffle House index, whatever it was, would be of huge importance in California since we didn’t even have Waffle House.

“How’s your milk?” I asked.

He made a pleased sound. “The good kind where they mix chocolate syrup with milk.”

“Glad you find it to your liking.”

“I findyouto my liking.” Wesley shifted, leaning forward over the table and looking around, no doubt to assess the proximity of other diners. “And I really liked what we did this morning.”

I swallowed thickly, the taste of him still a fresh memory, barely obscured by the bitterness of my coffee.

“I liked that too.” My cheeks burned, and I tried to chase my nerves away with some orange juice, but it felt like there were rocks in my throat.

“I know it’s a secret that you’re my boyfriend,” he started, mouth twisting into a frown. “But do you think we can maybe go on a date sometime?”

“Isn’t this a date?” I asked.

“This is breakfast after sex.”

“Aren’t dates just dinnerbeforesex?” I countered.

“Hmn.” He straightened up, frown still embedded deep into his face. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“And since we’re doing a lot of this backward, we might as well do that backward too.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to take Wesley on a date, but I also didn’t want to get caught. Though the city was large, and it wasn’t like either of us had a big friend circle. We really only had three people to avoid, and two more than the other. I was confident enough that Grayson would keep the secret unless he was questioned directly about it, but I didn’t want to flaunt things around him.