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Jay bit back a laugh. Danny thought he had tried to cook; his worried face made sense now.

Jay didn’t have such a great history with that.

“I bought these premade,” Jay reassured him.

“I only followed the directions on the box to heat them in the oven.” And Jay had followed the directions perfectly.

The relieved smile Danny bestowed on him made Jay feel all warm and fuzzy inside. “Thanks for bringing them, honey. That was really sweet of you. Let’s put them in the kitchen with the rest. I think Roman’s been puttering around in there.”

Jay couldn’t imagine Roman “puttering around” anywhere, but he followed Danny obediently into the house, a cozy, two-story yellow abode Jay never tired of spending time in.

“ Oh. ” Jay’s eyes widened in delight once they got to the kitchen.

Roman was there, looking imposing as always, even with his white button-down pushed up on his forearms and his black hair hanging loose and casual. He was surrounded by little plates, and everything smelled like garlic and butter and other delicious food scents Jay couldn’t begin to identify.

It was always a treat when Roman cooked. He may have been a vampire like Jay, but he somehow still managed to make everything taste so good . He’d told Jay it was because he’d been French as a human.

“Roman . ” Danny had a lot of different ways of saying Roman’s name, Jay had noticed.

Sometimes he snapped it, like when Roman was rude to someone who wasn’t Danny (he was never rude to Danny himself, of course); sometimes he laughed it, like when Roman said something unintentionally funny in his old-fashioned speech; and sometimes he said it like now, so full of love that even Jay, who had so little experience with the emotion, could hear it in his voice.

Danny was looking at his mate with his big eyes all soft and tender. “You made so much.”

Roman cleared his throat, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel and tossing it carelessly into the sink.

“It is cold out, mon amour. I thought your human friends would appreciate some warm food while they discuss their book.” He tore his eyes off Danny with obvious reluctance to give Jay a nod of greeting.

“Yours was not a bad choice. I quite like Jane Eyre .”

Jay rocked onto his toes, his plate of offerings still in hand, pleased beyond measure with such rare approval from the broody vamp. “It’s so romantic, isn’t it?”

“Mm,” Roman agreed. “I have a special fondness for stories of kind, lovely humans accepting cold, damaged lovers.”

“ Roman ,” Danny scolded. “ You aren’t cold or damaged.”

“Did I say I was? My, my, someone is projecting.” There was a rare twinkle in Roman’s bright-blue eyes as he swooped down to give Danny a kiss.

Jay did his best not to watch, but it was kind of too fascinating to resist….Danny just melted in Roman’s arms the moment their lips touched. Would Jay’s muscles all go soft like that, if he was kissed by a handsome man?

Jay’s mind turned back to where it had been drifting quite often these days, to a very specific handsome man, and he squirmed, feeling himself flushing for some reason. He was speaking out loud before he knew it, interrupting Danny and Roman’s kiss. “I have a new regular at the coffee shop.”

Danny stepped back from Roman, his cheeks apparently permanently pink now. “Oh. That’s good, right?”

“Mm-hmm. Yep.” Jay held his plate up high so Ferdy, who was nosing around Jay’s waist, couldn’t reach it and sneak a nibble.

“I always like my regulars. And this one especially. I like the way he smiles at me. Well, he doesn’t smile at me exactly, but sometimes a corner of his mouth sort of lifts up just a little bit and it’s almost like a smile?

And I think if he did smile, it would look pretty nice.

Also, he smells really good. Like vanilla and sugar.

He swears he hasn’t been making cupcakes, but for someone who hasn’t been making cupcakes, he smells a lot like one. ”

Danny’s face did a strange twitch as he stared first at Jay, then at Roman, then back to Jay. Apparently he didn’t find what he was looking for in either of them, because in the next moment, he was calling out, “Soren!”

Jay beamed as the vampire himself appeared in the kitchen doorway in the next moment. “Soren!” he greeted happily, feeling lucky to see his friend twice in one day. “Are you joining us tonight?”

Soren leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, looking very elegant, even in his chunky knit sweater.

“Just this once. Only because Gabe is working and all my going out clothes are in the wash. And I suppose I don’t mind Jane Eyre .

” He lifted a hand and studied his nails. “ Wuthering Heights is better though.”

“But it’s so sad ,” Jay protested, unbelieving that his friend could prefer such a wretched story to the simple love—imprisoned wife and untimely fire notwithstanding—between Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester.

Soren shrugged. “But everyone is so delightfully mean and unhinged. It’s absolutely divine.”

“Jay, sweetie,” Danny interrupted gently. “Tell Soren what you just told me.”

“I didn’t make the bagel bites,” Jay told Soren, raising his plate in demonstration. “I just heated them up from a box.”

“What? No, that’s—” Danny shook his head. “No, sweetheart. Tell him about the café.”

“Oh! I have a new regular, and he smells really, really good.”

“What do you think about that, Soren?” Danny was looking at Soren like Jay was saying something significant, his eyes all intense and his eyebrows doing some intricate things Jay couldn’t comprehend.

Soren hummed, his gaze lifting from his nails to study Jay like he was some kind of puzzle. “Are you talking about the mobster, Jaybird?”

Jay’s brows furrowed. “He’s not a mobster. You’re being prejudiced against Russians.”

“He’s Russian?” Danny asked, shooing Ferdy out of the kitchen when he started trying to jump up to reach Jay’s plate. “Like, full Bond-villain accent?”

Soren shrugged. “No accent, but he called Jay ‘kotyonok.’” He grinned at Danny and Roman, arching a brow. “It means ‘kitten.’”

And now Jay was blushing even more fiercely, his face all hot for some reason. “I like when he calls me that,” he defended.

Soren laughed sharply. “Yeah, I bet you do. Does your new friend know you can understand him?”

Jay sniffed. “He hasn’t asked.”

Danny was frowning at Soren. “You think he wouldn’t like that? Like Jay’s in danger?”

Soren waved a careless hand in the air. “What could a mobster possibly do to a vampire?”

This was getting frustrating. Jay resisted the urge to stomp his foot. He didn’t want to be rude, but he wasn’t liking at all the direction this conversation was taking. “He’s not a mobster. He’s my regular, and he lets me call him Alexei, and he smells like cupcakes, and I like him.”

Danny was staring at Soren once more like Jay was saying something significant.

Soren sighed, looking Jay over again. “You think?” he asked, clearly talking to Danny even with his eyes on Jay. “The odds of it all. So unlikely…”

Jay cocked his head. “What are you two—”

“Johann.” Roman cut him off, his voice softer than usual. “Why not help me set these plates up in the living room?”

Again, Jay wasn’t stupid, despite what some people might think. He knew he’d said something that had set the other two off. But Roman was already ushering him out of the kitchen with one hand on his back. “Tell me more about this regular.”

“Oh! Um, he’s very handsome. And you already know about the cupcake smell. I guess I don’t know a lot about him otherwise. But he never laughs at me. I do like that.”

Roman frowned thoughtfully as he arranged his plates. Jay was about to ask why everyone was so obsessed with the regular—it wasn’t like they’d seen for themselves how handsome he was, other than Soren—when the doorbell rang, signifying the other guests had arrived.

The rest of the night ended up being just as lovely as Jay had thought it would be. All six of the human book club members seemed to like the book, even the two young men from Danny’s work who’d never once had a nice thing to say about romance.

Jay found himself studying those two especially while they all ate and chatted and laughed (Jay didn’t always know what they were laughing about, but he liked joining in anyway).

He found himself wondering about kisses, of all things.

If either of these human men kissed him, would he go all soft and melty like Danny did with Roman?

Jay couldn’t imagine it for some reason.

But then his mind turned to tan, muscled forearms and multicolored eyes. A wide, stern mouth and the prettiest hair in Hyde Park.

And then it turned out it was quite easy to imagine after all.