Jeremy laughed quietly as he turned and headed back toward the kitchen. He could just imagine the look he’d get from Paul if the man could hear his thoughts, and it wasn’t pretty. All fantasies aside, they weren’t having a first date. They were having a friendly dinner, and at the moment, Jeremy was pretty grateful for even that much.
He puttered around the kitchen some more, pulling out the pots, pans, and utensils he’d need to finish dinner, but it was really too soon to start anything else. As he looked around the kitchen for something else to do, he considered bringing some of the Christmas decorations up from the basement—maybe the green-and-red tablecloth his mom had used for the past decade or so—to make things a little more festive for Paul.
He stared at the door to the basement for a long time before he decided he just couldn’t do it. Digging through all those boxes would probably only make him sad, and he’d already dumped on Paul once in the few hours they’d known each other. Paul didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d care what tablecloth he was eating off of, anyway, and it suddenly occurred to Jeremy just how much he was fussing over a simple little meal with a guy he’d just met and who was probably going to disappear the moment the snow cleared. He needed to get a grip.
Jeremy walked away from the kitchen and plopped down on the couch, forcing himself to sit still. He only had an hour or so before he needed to start cooking the rest of the meal. He could distract himself for an hour, couldn’t he? Ordinarily, he would pick up his tools and start working on one of the dozen or so unfinished projects in the house or pull out his laptop and do some more research on home repair, but Paul was sleeping, so power tools were out, and Jeremy was just too fidgety to sit and read DIY articles.
In desperation, he finally just turned on the television and watched the weather and traffic reports in between flipping through random channels. The projected snow totals hadn’t changed and neither had the traffic, so at least he could feel good about convincing Paul to stay the night. He continued to surf channels until he finally gave up on finding anything interesting to watch on a Friday afternoon and shut the TV off. He checked on the ham and lit a fire before grabbing his Kindle and plopping back down on the couch to read. He was just dozing off when he heard footsteps on the stairs and looked up to find Paul walking into the living room. The man was a little rumpled with sleep, his short brown hair sticking out in a couple of places and pillow wrinkles on his cheek.
“Sleep well?” Jeremy asked as he tried not to imagine all the ways he could make Paul look all rumpled like that.
“Yeah. Thanks. I guess I didn’t realize just how beat I was.” Paul stretched his arms above his head, revealing a stretch of flat stomach and a hint of dark treasure trail before dropping his hands to his sides. “Something smells really good.”
Distracted as he was, it took Jeremy a few seconds to process what Paul said. He just blinked slowly a few times before he could drag his eyes away from Paul’s stomach and look him in the eye. “Uh. That’s the ham. Which, uh, reminds me, I should probably get started on the rest now that you’re awake.”
Jeremy lurched to his feet and tried not to scurry into the kitchen. He had no idea why he couldn’t keep it together after only a tiny little peek at Paul’s middle. The guy was a guest in his house and had just had a monumentally shitty day. Jeremy didn’t have to add to it by drooling all over him. It hadn’t been that long since he’d gotten laid… er—well, maybe it had, but he wasn’t a sex-starved maniac or anything. A little lonely and horny, perhaps, but not starved. The fact that the guy was wearing his clothes and filled them out so much better than Jeremy did didn’t mean his brain and his manners had to completely desert him.
Jeremy went to his neatly arranged supplies and quickly set to work. Paul had followed him in and was now propped against the counter, out of Jeremy’s way, but still a little close for Jeremy’s peace of mind.
“Anything I can help with?” Paul asked.
“No thanks. It’s all pretty simple, so there’s really not much to do. The coffee’s still hot if you want another cup, though,” Jeremy said, relaxing into cooking mode and trying to focus on what he was doing.
Paul took him up on his suggestion and poured himself another cup before he wandered out to the dining room, and Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief.
“Still coming down like crazy,” Paul called from the other room.
“Yeah. The weather reports haven’t changed much, and traffic still sounds hellacious. You may have to wait ’til tomorrow afternoon to try to make it home. The plows are usually pretty good about keeping up, but we haven’t had one like this since I was a kid, so who knows when they’ll get to us.”
Jeremy put the cornbread in the oven with the ham and turned on the vegetable steamer before joining Paul in the dining room. When he got there, he found Paul admiring one of his mom’s framed needlework pieces on the wall.
“Also my mom’s,” he said when Paul looked up.
“Sounds like she was pretty talented.”
Jeremy smiled and chuckled. “You don’t know the half of it. She picked up hobbies like other people pick up books, and I have the boxes and boxes of craft supplies in the basement to prove it.”
Paul smiled back at him and took another sip of his coffee. “You seem pretty creative yourself, with the webpages and logos and stuff. Are any of these yours?” he asked as his gaze roamed the various oil paintings and needlework pieces on the walls.
“No. I’ve never been much for crafting. I tried some things, but nothing stuck so far. I’ve always thought I might take up knitting someday since I’ve got about twenty cases of yarn in the basement too. I figure if a guy like Russell Crowe can knit and still keep his man-cred then I might be able to get away with it.”
They both laughed. “Huh. I didn’t know he was a knitter. Maybe I’ll take it up. Might make me seem more butch,” Paul said with another laugh.
“I wouldn’t think you’d have much of a problem with that,” Jeremy said. “Now I on the other hand, geek that I am, need all the help I can get.”
Paul’s face sobered a little, and he looked at Jeremy strangely. “You’re not a geek.”
He seemed so serious that Jeremy didn’t have the heart to argue with him. He searched Paul’s earnest face for a moment and had just started to wonder things he probably shouldn’t be wondering when his cell started ringing.
Saved by the bell.
“Excuse me,” he said before walking to the foyer and digging in his coat for his phone. “Auntie” showed on the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Hey, sweetie. I just wanted to check that you were home okay and you hadn’t gotten trapped somewhere with the storm.” His Aunt Kathy’s worried voice made him smile.
“I’m home, no worries. You guys doing okay?”
“Yes, your cousins flew out yesterday, so they missed having to fight the storm, and we haven’t had any snow here in a couple of weeks.”
She went on to tell him the various travel stories of his cousins, and then moved on to family gossip that Jeremy barely listened to. He tried to listen, but the sight of Paul wandering through his living room, looking at the photos he had on the mantel and knickknacks on the bookshelves, was a little distracting. When a timer started buzzing in the kitchen, it gave Jeremy the perfect excuse to cut the call short. He loved his aunt, but he knew if he let her go on, she’d start pressuring him to come visit as soon as the snow was cleared, and he didn’t want to rehash that discussion. He’d gone to her house for Thanksgiving, and even though it had been great to see everyone, he’d still been morose and uncomfortable the whole time he was there. He hadn’t wanted to ruin their holiday as well as his own by going there for Christmas.
After he hung up with her, he went back to the kitchen and pulled the ham out to let it rest for a few minutes. The cornbread wasn’t quite done, so he wandered back into the living room to find Paul looking at a picture of him, his mom, and Byron from their last Thanksgiving together. He grima
ced. The only reason he’d kept it was because it was the last picture he had of his mom and there was no way to cut Byron out of it without ruining it.
“Sorry about that. That was my aunt checking up on me.”
“No problem. Is that your mom?” Paul asked, pointing to the picture.
“Yes. Last year, not long before she died.”
“She was pretty.”
“She was.”
“Is that your brother?” Paul asked, pointing to Byron.
“Uh, no. I’m an only child.” Jeremy paused for a second and then gave a purely internal shrug. Might as well find out if Paul was going to freak before he fed him. “That’s my ex-boyfriend, Byron.”
Jeremy waited nervously for Paul’s reaction, dreading a cringe or sudden distance since they’d been getting along so well up until that point.
“Oh” was all Paul said, giving Jeremy no clue as to his feelings on the subject. It was a little frustrating, but “oh” was better than fingers in the sign of the cross and backing away in terror, so Jeremy would count it as a win… he guessed.
When the oven timer went off again to tell him the cornbread was done, he said, “Sounds like dinner’s ready,” and beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen.
Paul followed him and stopped near the table. “Can I set the table or grab drinks or anything while you finish up?”
“Sure. Thanks,” Jeremy said. “The plates and glasses are in the cabinet by the refrigerator, silverware’s in the drawer beneath. I have a bottle of wine in the fridge, or you can have a beer or something else if you don’t want wine.”
“Wine’s fine,” Paul said.
Jeremy watched the man out of the corner of his eye while he finished the food. Paul puttered about, pulling down plates and grabbing silverware. He seemed relaxed and unperturbed by Jeremy’s revelation, but now Jeremy was beginning to wonder if that was a good thing. Obviously it should be a good thing because the fact that he was gay shouldn’t be a big deal, but deep down, Jeremy was kind of hoping for Paul to say something more like: “Oh really. So does that mean you’re single?” and he had to admit to being a little disappointed with the reaction, or lack thereof, that he’d gotten.
Oh well, guess his dreams of romance would have to go unrealized.
Chapter Four
Paul set the table and filled the wine glasses, all the while trying to play it cool. Having confirmation that he and Jeremy batted for the same team had affected him more than he’d expected, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. The whole flirting and dating scene wasn’t exactly his forte. He’d married right out of high school because he thought he should, and since the divorce he’d been working too much to even try to have any kind of relationship. Hookups were pretty much the extent of his dating experience since he’d come out, and he’d never really been the instigator of those. He’d just gone to a bar and waited to get picked up. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, so that had worked out pretty well for him so far.
Being alone in a house with a guy he not only found sexy but also pretty damned nice and adorable put him in uncharted territory. Add to that the fact they lived in different towns and Jeremy was still in mourning for his mother and looking forward to a pretty shitty Christmas, and Paul was fairly certain he shouldn’t even be thinking of hitting on him. Paul would have appreciated it if someone had told that to his libido, however.
He shook his head and chuckled to himself as he finished setting the table. Even if he did know how to flirt, the next twelve hours would be pretty awkward if Jeremy wasn’t interested. When he looked up, Jeremy was watching him, confusion and a little hurt written all over his face.
“Something funny?” Jeremy asked.
Shit. “Uh.” Paul scrambled to think of something to say that wouldn’t embarrass either of them. “I, uh, was just thinking about what a strange day I’d had and that I was glad it was ending on a high note.”
Jeremy’s tentative smile let him know that he’d chosen wisely, and he breathed a sigh of relief. After the awkward moment had passed, they took turns carrying dishes and platters to the table and spent the next several minutes eating in silence. Paul had skipped lunch, hoping to beat the storm, and he hadn’t realized he was starving until the first few forkfuls of Jeremy’s cooking hit his mouth. After that, he practically inhaled his first plate and was working on seconds when he looked up to find Jeremy watching him with a bemused expression. Paul swallowed the bite in his mouth and put his fork down in chagrin.
“Sorry. It’s really good, and I guess I was hungry.”
Jeremy laughed and shook his head. “Don’t apologize. It was flattering. I’m glad you like it. I don’t cook all that much anymore, so it’s good to know I haven’t lost my touch.”
“You haven’t,” Paul agreed and was gratified to see Jeremy’s smile broaden along with what might have been the start of a blush. If being honest counted as flirting, then maybe he wasn’t so completely clueless after all.
Paul finished off what was in his wine glass and refilled for both of them, trying to redeem himself from his earlier lack of manners. “So, uh, that was your aunt on the phone earlier?” he asked because he couldn’t think of anything else.
“Yes. She checks in every once in a while to make sure I’m doing okay.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, how come you’re not with her for the holidays?” Paul realized after he said it that he was prying again, but Jeremy didn’t seem offended.
“Honestly? I didn’t want to deal with them again.” Jeremy sighed. “I know it sounds bitchy and ungrateful, but I was there for Thanksgiving and it was just uncomfortable. They didn’t know how to act around me, and I didn’t know how to make them feel less uncomfortable, so I just decided I wasn’t going to do it again for Christmas. My mom and I usually did those holidays here, and going somewhere else didn’t really change the fact that it wasn’t going to ever be the same again. My aunt’s still not happy about it.” Jeremy shrugged.
To lighten the mood, Paul said, “Well, I’m grateful that you decided to stay home, since it meant you were there to save me.” Jeremy’s answering smile was still so sad that Paul instinctively reached out and laid his hand over Jeremy’s on the table. He wasn’t sure why he did it. Being touchy-feely hadn’t exactly ever been his strong suit, either, but it felt right and Jeremy’s surprised smile was all the encouragement he needed.
“I’m sorry. I promise you I’m not usually this much of a downer,” Jeremy said with a weak chuckle.
Paul let go of his hand and smiled in understanding. “It’s no big deal. I think you have good reason to be a little sad. Your mom obviously meant a lot to you, and that’s pretty cool in my book.”
Jeremy laughed. “So you don’t think I’m a pathetic momma’s boy?”
Paul chuckled and punched Jeremy’s shoulder playfully. “Nothing pathetic about you, I promise.”
Jeremy held his gaze for a moment before clearing his throat. “Why don’t I get this cleaned up and we can go sit on the couch instead of these hard wood chairs?”
Paul shook his head. “Nope. You cooked. The least I can do is clean,” he said as he started to gather the plates and carry them to the sink.
Jeremy followed him, carrying more dishes. “I can’t just sit and watch while you clean. So, if you insist, then I’ll help you.”
Jeremy showed him where to find the soap and cleared off enough counter space to put the clean dishes down on, and Paul scrubbed in silence for a few minutes. When Jeremy finished putting the food away, he came to stand by Paul at the sink and dried while Paul washed. It was comfortable and easy. They fell into a rhythm almost immediately, and Paul really loved the fact that Jeremy didn’t feel the need to fill the silence. The first time their hands touched, Jeremy jumped a little, but when Paul didn’t pull away, the other man seemed to relax. As they worked together in the small space, their hands touched and their hips and shoulders brushed more and more often until Paul got the impression that maybe it
was intentional on Jeremy’s part, and maybe, just maybe, all his worrying about how to flirt and whether or not he should would turn out to be moot.
Paul became hyperaware of every move that Jeremy made and every look the other man gave him from then on. His heart rate sped up, and his skin tingled everywhere they touched. Paul was so keyed up by the time he put the last bowl in the soapy water to soak that when Jeremy pressed against his side and said, “Last one?” in his ear, Paul’s breath stuttered in his chest. Even someone as completely clueless about flirting as Paul wouldn’t be idiotic enough to miss that signal. When he turned to look at Jeremy, the other man didn’t step back, so they were almost nose to nose when Paul met Jeremy’s eyes.
Jeremy searched his face for a few moments before smiling shyly and leaning forward to brush a light kiss across Paul’s lips. It was way too brief to be anything but a peck, but Paul still felt it all the way to his toes. He forgot all about the dishes at that point and pulled Jeremy against him, returning the kiss with a lot more heat. Their lips pressed together and parted, tongues tangling and releasing until they were both out of breath and grinding against each other. Somewhere along the line, Paul’s hands had ended up cupping and squeezing Jeremy’s ass, and it occurred to him that maybe he should be taking things a little slower. He didn’t want Jeremy to think he was a total pig. He’d gone straight from washing dishes to ass squeezing without a stop at shoulders, sides, or back along the way.
He looked up, smiled rather sheepishly into Jeremy’s eyes, and said, “Is this okay?”
“Are you kidding?” Jeremy asked before diving back in to kiss him breathless again.
Their sweatpants didn’t provide much of a barrier, so when the grinding began again they were soon moaning into each other’s mouths. When Jeremy pulled back again, his fair skin was flushed a bright red and his eyes were dark and hooded behind his glasses. “Do you want to take this upstairs?”
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