Dine With Me

by Layla Reyne

  * * *

  Miller snagged the last ring of fried calamari off the plate in the center of the table and popped it into his mouth, humming contently. Clancy agreed. If more people’s first experience with calamari were like this—juicy, tender, and lightly seasoned—versus an overdone brick or a soggy fried rubber band, then maybe more people would love the delicacy as much as he did.

  Miller washed his bite down with champagne and relaxed back in his chair, making room for the servers to clear away their appetizer plates. “Why here?” he asked, turning the familiar question around on Clancy.

  Clancy was surprised he’d waited this long. Through the amuse-bouche of yuzu chawanmushi, through the seafood appetizers of swordfish dip, fresh oysters, tuna ceviche, calamari, and the Maryland blue crab Clancy had requested special, and through cocktails and half a bottle of champagne. The light conversation over the small plates had been easy; what Clancy needed to say would not be. While he’d hoped to get a bit farther into the meal before going there, he hadn’t expected to make it this far.

  He chickened out and stalled some more. “The view isn’t enough?” He gestured with his glass out at the ocean. The dark water rippled under the night sky, reflecting the moon and stars and the lights of the hotel and nearby residences. A thousand little points of brightness.

  “I don’t think you hijacked our trip for A-plus calamari and a view.” His gaze swung from the ocean to Clancy, eyes darkening, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and rumbly. “No matter how spectacular.”

  A tingle raced up Clancy’s spine, heat hit his cheeks, and the fluttering kicked up in his belly. He sipped more champagne, pretending the alcohol was the reason for his blush. Any excuse to hold on to this feeling longer. The one where Miller flirted with him and still enjoyed sharing his company.

  “Spill it, Doc.”

  He set his glass on the table and stared out at the ocean again. “Worst day I ever had, this is where I ended up.”

  “Clancy.” Miller’s voice was gentle, as was the hand he laid atop his. “Given that look on your face, I hate to think you drove down here from LA after a day like that.”

  Clancy couldn’t help but laugh, recalling his flailing that afternoon. “I didn’t drive. I called Mom, who was in town.” She’d been a complete Miranda when he’d needed it most. “I told her I needed to escape and that I didn’t care where the plane took me. LAX to John Wayne was the first flight plan she could get cleared.”

  “That can’t be more than ten minutes in the air.”

  “About right. Thirty, gate to gate. By the time I got to one airport and left the other, I could have driven the distance faster, but I was in no shape to get behind a wheel.”

  “What happened?”

  Clancy flipped his hand, palm to palm, and wound their fingers together. For the comfort. And to keep hold of Miller.

  “Fourth year of med school, I lost a patient on my oncology rotation.”

  As expected, Miller tried to yank free his hand, but Clancy held tight.

  “What’s this about?” Miller’s eyes were no longer dark with desire or warm with concern. They burned bright with betrayal. He’d figured out this was a setup.

  Withstanding the icy glare, Clancy would be damned if he let Miller go without saying his piece. He’d been nervous before about starting this conversation, but now that he had, Clancy was determined, and desperate, to see it through to the finish.

  And was stalled by a pair of waiters who approached with the next course. Fucking karma. Clancy kept his cool, holding Miller’s hand and making polite conversation with the waiters as they described his achiote salmon and Miller’s chipotle miso black cod. The very California fusion of Asian and Mexican flavors was another reason he’d brought Miller here. The mix of cultures on their plates reflected one of the things Clancy loved most about his hometown.

  As soon as the waiters retreated, Miller forcibly freed his hand. “Did Sloan tell you?”

  “No, I figured out.” He jutted a thumb at himself. “Doctor, remember?”

  “Oh, I remember.” Miller tossed his linen napkin on the table, pushed back his chair, and stood.

  Clancy grasped his wrist. “Please, just let me finish my story, and then if you want to leave, I won’t stop you.” He inched his hand higher, thumb tracing the edge of the recipe tattooed on his arm.

  Something in Miller seemed to give. Not all the way—an ocean of wariness swirled in his blue eyes—but he gave a jerky nod and sat back down.

  Thank the fucking Lord.

  He picked up his fork and knife and began cutting his food into small bites. That’d been one of the first clues. “Go on,” he ordered gruffly.

  “There was a car waiting for me at the airport, and it brought me here. I sat in this gazebo, nursing a bottle of Veuve—” Clancy gestured at the bottle with the same yellow label in the ice bucket “—and cursing God, Allah, Buddha, and every other deity I could remember, for taking my patient’s life. Julie was a forty-year-old mother of three, an elementary school teacher who had half her life still in front of her. But every mention of her future came with an asterisk. She’d tested positive for BRCA, the breast cancer gene, in her twenties and had already survived one round in her thirties. Her body couldn’t withstand it a second time.”

  Miller’s jutting Adam’s apple worked overtime. “Clancy, you don’t have to—”

  Clancy held up a hand, took a few bites of his food, and downed a long swallow of liquid courage. “Eventually Manny, the hotel manager who was out here earlier, got me back to my room and in front of the fire pit with a pack of s’mores. That night, I called my dad and said I’d go into practice with him, and the next day I withdrew my oncology residency applications.”

  “Who could blame you?” Miller said. “Who’d want to go through that every day?”

  Clancy shrugged, helpless in the face of the truth. “Me.” His conscience, and his heart, couldn’t fight it any longer. “It was the wrong decision.”

  Sterling silverware clattered as Miller laid his down on the gold-rimmed plate. “I don’t understand.”

  “I sat by Julie’s bedside every day that last week, once she was admitted to hospice. I did what I could to make her comfortable. I hope that I made the end of her life a bit better for her and her family. And at the moment she died, I was in the OR, helping to remove a tumor from another patient.”

  “But you still lost your patient.”

  “I did. I still do, volunteering on the oncology ward. And I will lose more, when I make it official.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You were right. I don’t want to join my dad’s practice. Face-lifts aren’t enough, and while reconstructive surgery may keep me close, it’s not close enough for me. I want to practice oncology. I want to see Julie’s family at the benefit in a few months and tell them what a difference in my life she made, for the better. I want to help people live, and for those who can’t, make the end more peaceful for them.”

  Miller cast his eyes down at his plate, but not before fear, pain, and sadness streaked through them. And resignation. God, the resignation was enough to bring down a mountain.

  Unless Clancy could stop the landslide. “I don’t want you to be one of the latter, Miller. I want to help you live, if you’ll let me.”

  * * *

  Miller poked at his food. Anything to avoid Clancy’s eyes and words. But with his first bite, they couldn’t be avoided, the cod like a machete on its way down his throat, the knot of fear that’d lodged there making it even more painful than the usual tumor-caused razor blades. He forced the fish down with a gulp of water.

  “Can you promise me, if I get treatment, that a year from now I’ll be able to taste this?” He waved a hand at his plate of lovely food, the flavors on his tongue bright, despite the pain that came with swallowing.

 
“No, I can’t even promise you you’ll live.”

  Simple, honest, no bullshit. Miller should appreciate that, but all he could do was regard the ocean with a cold, bitter laugh.

  Metal scraped against stone tiles, Clancy pushing back his chair, and a moment later, he crouched in front of Miller, hand on his right arm. “What I can promise is that I will be there for you every step of the way. So will Sloan, Greg, your family, and the rest of the people who love you. And we won’t love you any less if you can’t taste this food a year from now.”

  Miller’s heart galloped, running from fear, from fate, and from one two letter word in Clancy’s promise. “We?” The breathy single syllable was barely audible over the waves, but it was loud enough to bring a soft smile to Clancy’s face.

  He moved closer, between Miller’s spread knees, and lifted a hand to his cheek. Heat radiated from his gentle touch, far too tempting, just like his words. “You’re amazing, Miller Sykes. And not just because you’re a fantastic chef. Your loyalty, your heart, your smile.” His thumb teased the lines at the corners of his eyes, then drifted down to the corner of his mouth, before skating his bottom lip. “Those are the things I’m falling for. Not your taste buds.”

  Miller knew he should keep running, right off the gazebo’s cliff, but that enticing warmth, those softly curving lips, those green eyes so full of emotion drew him into Clancy’s arms and into the kiss that had tempted him from the very first night he’d laid eyes on Clancy Rhodes.

  It wasn’t a gentle brush like last night’s kiss. Miller wanted to taste, all of it, at least one time. Hands lifting to frame Clancy’s cheeks, he tilted his head, angling for better access, tongue sweeping inside Clancy’s inviting mouth. Miller groaned as flavor hit him like a crashing wave, pulling him under and tossing him about. The nuttiness of the champagne, the heat of the achiote peppers, the salt and butter dichotomy of the salmon and squid, the lingering acid of the ceviche and chawanmushi. And underlying all those flavors, Clancy. A taste like no other. Bright and full of hope.

  The promise of a flavorful life he couldn’t have.

  Miller ripped his mouth away. That was why he’d held himself back. Why he had to walk away right this second. That taste, this man, didn’t—couldn’t—belong to him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t taste that ever again.” He dropped his hands and stood. “I’m glad I got to know you, Clancy Rhodes, but this is the end of our tour.”

  Clancy rocketed to his feet and grabbed his wrist. “Miller, don’t.”

  Using his wrist in Clancy’s hand, Miller tugged him closer and used his other hand to push the black-rimmed glasses up Clancy’s tear-slicked nose. “You’ll be an amazing oncologist. You made the end of my life more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Thank you for that.” He pressed a kiss to Clancy’s cheek, tasting his brightness one last time, before he turned and stepped into the dark.

  * * *

  Hands full, Clancy clicked on the balcony fire pit with his toe and sank into one of the patio chairs. He tucked the s’mores kit in his lap while he peeled the foil off the champagne bottle that’d been waiting for them in the room. A celebratory dessert Clancy had hoped to share with Miller. Instead, he’d lost another patient today. No, not a patient. The man he was falling in love with.

  No use bullshitting about that either. Like his mother said, he had no talent for it. He’d suspected it was love when he’d woken up in the wee hours of the morning, wrapped in Miller’s arms. Had known it when he’d gone to his knees in front of Miller in the gazebo and pleaded for him to live. Had felt the crushing weight of it when Miller, after giving him the best kiss of his life, gave him an equally heartbreaking one goodbye.

  But he hadn’t been able to bullshit himself or Miller any longer. About what he wanted, out of a career or out of life, including Miller. At least he’d made a decision on the former, and that decision wouldn’t change, regardless of losing Miller. If Clancy could save someone else the pain he felt right now by giving their loved one hope, or by giving them peace, then his own pain, this trip, falling in love with Miller Sykes, would be worth it.

  Clancy wrenched the cork free, brought the bottle to his lips, and tipped it up, guzzling, despite the bubbles burning his nostrils.

  Ten days.

  Ten days for his world to be turned upside down, to be sucked into the vortex that was Miller Sykes, and to be spun out of the tornado here, of all places, on the new worst day of his life.

  Fitting.

  He took another slug from the bottle, then turned his attention to the box in his lap. He untied the brown ribbon and slid out the courtesy card from the resort. His vision blurred and he swiped his fingertips under the edge of his glasses, wiping away the wetness. As much as he appreciated the mix of flavors in their dinner dishes, this was what he’d most wanted to share with Miller. A simple dessert yet one of the most satisfying, one you couldn’t help but smile over. How could anyone be sad when eating s’mores? He laughed at his own illogical question, the evidence to the contrary streaking down his face. Or were his emotions the illogical thing here?

  Logic was hard, s’mores were easy.

  He unpacked the kit onto the fire pit’s granite ledge—skewers, graham crackers, vanilla marshmallows, and chocolate from one of the factories up in San Francisco. He toasted a marshmallow and smushed it with a piece of chocolate between two crackers. He felt slightly better after eating it. He took his time with the second, longer still for the third. By the time he reached the last one an hour later, the realization that Miller wasn’t coming back had set in.

  Clancy thought to get up and check his phone, but he didn’t want to read the text from Miller saying he’d have the valet come get his bags. He’d said the tour was over. Delaying the inevitable wouldn’t change the outcome. Clancy took another swallow from the bottle, skewered the last marshmallow, and extended it over the gas flames.

  The electronic door lock clicked behind him.

  He bobbled the skewer, almost dropping it onto the fire. Getting hold of it, and himself, he laid the skewer and sandwich pieces on the granite ledge and rotated in his chair. “Miller?”

  “Yeah, Doc.” Miller stepped into the room, through the shadows cast by the single lamp, half in and half out of life. He dropped his shoes on the floor, emptied his pockets onto the glass dining table, and walked around the end of the Murphy bed that housekeeping had pulled down and made. He raked a hand through his windswept hair and a visible shiver ran through him. It was warmer here than on the East Coast, but it’d cooled after sundown. If Miller had walked on the beach, it would have been especially chilly down there, away from the heaters and fire.

  Fire.

  “Shit.” Clancy whipped back around and found his last marshmallow a gooey blackened mess. “Fuck.”

  He was about to toss it into the fire when Miller’s hand closed around his wrist.

  “Wait.” He slid into the other chair. “It’s not a total lost cause.”

  Hope propelled Clancy’s heart into his throat, choking off his words. Miller took the skewer, blew on the marshmallow a few times, then carefully peeled away the blackened char, flicking the carbon off his fingers and into the flames. The soft middle of the marshmallow spread over the remaining chocolate and cracker in Miller’s other hand. He used his finger to spread the marshmallow around a bit more, added the other cracker on top, then held the extra gooey sandwich out to Clancy for a bite.

  Leaning forward, Clancy closed his eyes and tried not to think about his lips and tongue skating over Miller’s fingers. About the taste of Miller that wasn’t there for the first three sandwiches. About lingering longer with his lips on Miller’s skin.

  Fail on all counts.

  He opened his eyes, feeling ten degrees warmer and hard as a rock in his jeans. He heated and hardened more as Miller, eyes locked on him, ate the ot
her half of the s’mores and licked his fingers clean.

  “What is this?” Clancy managed, voice cracking like a teenager’s. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”

  “I made myself a promise.”

  Hope swelled. “About getting treatment? Did you change your mind?” Miller shook his head, and Clancy’s hope nose-dived, along with his stomach. “But—”

  “I promised myself one more night. That I’d live in this moment, with you. I can’t promise you tomorrow, Clancy. Just tonight. Is that enough?”

  “No.”

  Miller’s face and voice fell. “I understand.” He stood and turned to leave.

  Clancy shot to his feet, blocking his retreat. “No, you don’t understand. I’ve spent the last ten days with you and it’s not enough. One more night with you will never be enough.” He stepped closer and laid his hands on Miller’s broad chest, sliding them up and around either side of Miller’s neck. When Miller flinched, Clancy held on tighter, ignoring the lump under his palm. “But I’ll take it. I’ll take one more night with you, and hope you change your mind about tomorrow and beyond.”

  “Clancy—”

  He swallowed whatever Miller was going to say in a crushing kiss, sealing their mouths together. No more promises, no more protests, no more caveats. Whether this turned out to be their first or last time together, Clancy was going to make love to the man who’d opened his eyes and stolen his heart.

  * * *

  Logic and self-preservation had urged Miller to go by the front desk and ask for another room, preferably on the other side of the moon from the man who was making him question everything. But every step had led him back to Clancy, to the stunning man he’d spent the past ten days with. The man who was laid out on crisp white sheets beneath him, bared and flushed, back arched and writhing, as Miller licked and kissed all over his lean, trim body.