Love Him Steady

by E M Lindsey

  Lorenzo froze. “How?”

  “I know a guy. He’s got some animals—it’s nothing big. You won’t be roping cattle or anything. I mean, it’s Cherry Creek.” Wilder’s lips twitched again. “But maybe it’ll help?”

  Lorenzo chewed on his lower lip, then sighed. “Okay. Right now, or…?”

  Wilder laughed. “I have work. I don’t close up until six, but how about tomorrow? I’m closed on Thursdays for Market prep, but most of my stuff is already done so I could spare a few hours in the morning.”

  Lorenzo nodded, looking suddenly bright and elated. Wilder almost felt bad because he knew that spending half a day at Collin’s farm was only going to prove that his indie film bullshit idea of finding himself in the dirt under his nails was only going to break his heart, but Wilder knew he had to do it. Lorenzo seemed like the kind of person who needed to learn lessons the hard way, and Wilder had never shied away from that.

  And apart from that, he also had a feeling Lorenzo was a good person, underneath the confusion and defense. He had kind eyes—a lot like his brother—and his rough edges could be smoothed out with maybe a little attention and a little care.

  “Are you allergic to anything,” he asked after a beat, and Lorenzo rolled his eyes.

  “Pine nuts.”

  Wilder bit back a laugh. “I remembered that part. I mostly meant animals.” Lorenzo shook his head, so he dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone, opening up a new contact. “I’ll text you, and I’ll be by to pick you up probably around nine.”

  “Oh. Early,” Lorenzo muttered.

  “It’s a ranch.” He took his phone back, then shot off a quick smiling emoji before tucking it away in his pocket. “I could be making you do this at sunrise—I mean, if you wanted to do it right.”

  Lorenzo pulled a face. “I’ll get to bed early.”

  Wilder stood, then bent over to pick up Lorenzo’s empty water bottle, and he smiled. “See you bright and early.”

  Lorenzo’s body deflated, but there was still a light in his eyes, and Wilder suddenly realized he didn’t want to see that dimmed.

  Chapter Five

  Lorenzo stared at the mess in the kitchen sink with a sigh, lamenting that there weren’t housekeeping services to make it disappear. And really, this was what he’d asked for. Self-reliance—and more than that, hard work. A little sweat, a few tears. Maybe more than a few, if he let himself think about recent events.

  The night before had been fine before he’d almost poisoned himself with the first bite of his salad, and he’d been gripped with panic when he realized his epi-pen was sitting in his shaving kit at the Manor, which would have taken too damn long for anyone to get. There was a fire station across the street, but he didn’t trust some small town to be well equipped, and he wanted to find himself there, not die from anaphylactic shock in some tiny little bar.

  He knew it was fear and anxiety that had set him off, then faint humiliation—again—when everyone at the bar was staring at him. So, he did what he did best—he stuck his nose in the air, told everyone to fuck off, and then he’d disappeared.

  He hadn’t expected the actual cold-shoulder the following morning, but by the time the cupcake baker found him, he knew his time was up. He’d been just seconds away from hitting the purchase button on a ticket home when the man had sat beside him. And Lorenzo wasn’t entirely sure what to do with everything the guy said to him, but he thought maybe the universe was giving him a sign.

  Wilder was sweet. He was unlike most people Lorenzo was used to dealing with. He looked late twenties or maybe early thirties that had aged well with laugh lines and soft eyes, and a gentle sort of beachy wave to his dark hair.

  His voice was heavy with a sort of internal confidence that Lorenzo knew he was lacking, and he outright admitted to pitying Lorenzo for his sorry existence—not that he could blame the guy. He was just getting tired of being this caricature of himself, but he had no way to stop it without figuring out who the fuck he even was.

  Once upon a time, he might have been an accountant. In school, he was good with math, and there was the thought of an MBA on the horizon. But he’d stopped after his bachelor’s, and he’d gone to work at a pizza parlor, and that paid his shitty rent and gave him beer money—and it was all fine until Rocco showed up with his first seven hundred thousand dollar paycheck and dropped more cash in Lorenzo’s account than he’d ever thought he’d see in his life.

  Pietro taught him how to invest, and Rocco taught him what good art was supposed to look like. And Lorenzo bought expensive clothes and designer shoes and hung out with people ten years younger than him because he thought it made him look good. He funded Gabby’s law school entry because she was going to be so good at it, but also because she liked to fuck him without strings.

  And that was who he was. In that moment, to that day, that’s who he was.

  His stomach twisted in on itself, and he turned his back on the dishes. He’d managed a weak pasta, though his sauce had promise if it marinated in the fridge for a few days. But he wanted to be more than a man with a fat bank account, soft scarves, and a good marinara recipe.

  He locked the apartment behind him, feet snug in Birkenstocks that made him look like a tool—though he didn’t give much of a shit considering his reputation couldn’t be worse right then— and he took the stairs carefully. He meant to sneak out the front door when Raphael wasn’t looking, but Lorenzo’s heart stuttered when he found the other man standing leaning on a crutch, his other arm folded over his chest.

  “He lives,” Raphael said.

  Lorenzo’s cheeks flushed. “Look, I’ve already been told that I’m not wanted, so if you’re standing here to rub it in…”

  “You look like a man who needs a pedicure.”

  Lorenzo’s throat went tight. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because your entire body is one long line of tension, and a foot massage can help that.” Raphael leaned over the desk and came back with a second crutch, hooking the cuff on his arm before turning. He moved into the salon a bit farther, then turned when he realized Lorenzo wasn’t following. “If I promise to put up the closed sign, will you come along?”

  Lorenzo walked to the doorway, then stuttered to a halt. “Not to be a dick, but…”

  “Oh je,” he moaned, turning all the way. “I’m not here to mock you or to embarrass you. You did that enough for yourself last night.”

  Lorenzo felt his blush all the way to his toes. “So, what is this?”

  “Kindness? Have you heard of it?” When Lorenzo didn’t move, Raphael walked all the way back, let go of a crutch and clawed fingers into his shirt. He tugged Lorenzo all the way in, then slammed the door, locked it, and reached for the little button on the open sign. “Happy?”

  Lorenzo dragged a hand down his face. “Fine.”

  Raphael seemed satisfied enough, and he started back to a small room with two pedicure chairs, and two short rolling chairs. He pushed his crutches against the wall, then straddled the lower chair and attached the liner and the magnetic drain before turning the water on. “Saddle up, cowboy.”

  “God, please don’t,” Lorenzo begged, but he finally walked into the room and eased up onto the chair before leaning over to roll up the cuffs of his jeans. “Why are you like this?”

  “Like what? Sweet, adorable, kind?” Raphael asked with a grin. He scooted over with his legs to a little cupboard and began to take out white packets of pedicure tools. “Or do you mean massive pain in the ass?”

  “The second one. But…also the first?” Lorenzo eased his feet into the water, hissing at the temperature, but after a moment, he felt knots in his calves start to ease.

  When he dared to look back up, Raphael was back at his feet again, looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face. His eyes, a sort of soft blue, were narrowed. “People really aren’t nice to you?”

  “People are nice when they want something from me,” he said with a shrug. “They’re nice w
hen I have influence. That’s just how life works.”

  “Not always,” Raphael said quietly. He turned the bubbles on, then pushed his hands into the water and grabbed both of Lorenzo’s feet, digging his fingertips into the arches. It hurt, and he gasped, but suddenly his muscles went lax, and he sagged back against the massager that wasn’t moving. “Good?”

  “Very,” Lorenzo breathed out.

  “I don’t normally do this. The owner, Jayden, he has me do his toes sometimes, but I don’t have fine motor skills with my fingers so I could never get the polish right. But I’m great at the massage.”

  “I can live with that,” Lorenzo groaned when Raphael pushed his fingers in again. “He should let you do this always. Why don’t you?”

  “Because touching most people’s feet is disgusting. But you seem like a clean man.”

  “I’m glad you think so highly of me,” Lorenzo deadpanned, but even as he said it, at the sight of Raphael’s little smile, he almost gave one back. He sank back a little more when Raphael pulled his left foot out, and he opened one of the packages to begin on his cuticles.

  “You have good feet. You get pedicures a lot, don’t you?”

  “Every four weeks. I don’t usually do polish.” He groaned as Raphael set the tools aside and poured oil into his hands, digging in deeper than he had in the water. “Shit. Remind me to tip you a hundred percent.”

  “Of zero?” Raphael asked with a small laugh.

  Lorenzo opened his eyes. “What?”

  “I don’t charge for this. This is not my job. I answer phones, and I deal with the bullshit that Jayden doesn’t have the patience to deal with. I like that job. This is for friends only.”

  “We just met. And I was a massive asshole.”

  “Yes,” Raphael said, dragging fingertips from his ankles to his knee, then back down again. “You were. I don’t think it was on purpose.”

  “Everyone else did,” Lorenzo said softly as Raphael lowered his foot into the water and began on the second. “I don’t handle fear well.”

  “What were you afraid of?”

  Lorenzo swallowed thickly. “There weren’t pine nuts listed on the menu.”

  “So you said. Loudly. To Sonia and then to the chef,” Raphael said with a small smirk. He dug into the edges of Lorenzo’s nails, then reached for the oil again. “People here aren’t used to that.”

  “I’m allergic,” he said after a beat. “Really allergic. I have an epi-pen, but I realized it was here—in my fucking shaving kit, and I was starving, and I panicked because I knew I couldn’t order anything else in case the kitchen was contaminated.”

  Raphael’s hands stopped for a beat, then resumed the massage before easing his foot back into the water. He leaned on the bowl, then grabbed Lorenzo around the back of his calves and held tight. “You should have just said.”

  “I was humiliated. Again. And panicking…and I don’t—” Lorenzo heard his voice break, and he wanted to punch something—or maybe just give in and cry. He did neither, even though his throat ached like it was on fire. “I don’t belong here. I tried to fucking leave, but that baker—Wilder—stopped me.”

  Raphael choked for a second. “He stopped you?”

  “I was booking a ticket,” Lorenzo leaned forward and shifted his feet in the rapidly cooling water. “I was sitting on a park bench like some pathetic kicked puppy, getting ready to confirm my purchase, and he shows up with a bottle of water and a goddamn cherry cupcake. And somehow, he talks me into going to a farm tomorrow.”

  Raphael stared at him a long time, and for a moment, Lorenzo thought he was going to laugh, but the sound never came. Instead, he reached in the bowl, pulled the drain, then set Lorenzo’s feet on a fresh towel before he started to pat them dry.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Again, he added to himself.

  Raphael looked up with soft eyes and shook his head. “No. I like Wilder.”

  “Oh.” Lorenzo sat back and tried to shift away from Raphael, who grabbed him by the ankles. “It wasn’t like that. He definitely wasn’t interested.”

  Raphael’s eyes softened along with his smile, and he shook his head. “That’s not a surprise. The man has lived here for three years, and he’s never so much as looked at anyone that way. But, that’s not what I meant.”

  Lorenzo sagged with relief, but he wasn’t really in a place to explore that feeling any deeper.

  “I just mean he’s a good person.”

  “That seems to be going around,” Lorenzo said, and there was a touch of bitterness in his tone that made Raphael look directly at him. “That’s not my life, you know? That’s not where I came from.”

  With a sigh, Raphael finished drying Lorenzo’s feet, then pushed back and reached for his crutches to stand. “See that room right there,” he lifted his crutch and jabbed it toward a door at the far end of the room. “That’s the lounge. Go sit down, and I’ll bring something to drink.”

  “Like alcohol?”

  Raphael chuckled. “Do you want alcohol?”

  The truth was, yes. He did. He wanted to lubricate his awkward sober social skills with expensive gin, but that was what he was trying to escape. “Something else,” he said, then slipped his feet back into his Birkenstocks and shuffled away.

  He felt a little boneless and fatigued, but in the way a good massage had always done for him. It felt odd to not have any obligations in this moment—to shed his usual desire to impress someone long enough to want to stick around. The urge was still there, but he’d already humiliated himself beyond reason in front of this man, and Raphael still wanted to be his friend.

  He knew he would drive himself up the damn wall if he continued to worry about it, so instead, he pushed through the door and found a quaint little sitting area with a sofa, love seat, coffee table, and a mounted TV. There was an essential oil diffuser in the corner that was turned off but still smelled faintly of rose, and the soft, yellow lights at the top of the ceiling were more soothing than the harsh fluorescents in the main shop.

  He eased himself down into the soft leather, and he felt the cushion form around him gently. It was oddly decadent, and he wasn’t expecting it, but he decided to indulge in that moment as his eyes closed and the rest of his body relaxed. He barely heard when Raphael moved back into the room, the clink of his crutches and the soft shuffling noise of his feet.

  The sofa moved gently when Raphael sat, and Lorenzo opened his hand but not his eyes when something humid and cool touched the back of his wrist. “You can’t sleep here tonight.”

  Lorenzo snorted, then finally looked at the bottle in his hand—something pale and fizzy with Turkish letters he recognized only from his month-long excursion to Istanbul when was attempting to procure art for his global display. He cracked the top and took a sip, and was startled by the sharp, subtle pear flavor. “This is good.”

  “It better be. One of my friends ships it to me,” Raphael said. “It’s expensive.”

  Lorenzo squirmed. He wasn’t used to being the man people lavished with gifts—even something as small as this. He was never the person in that position to be pitied for his circumstance, and it was becoming a small, festering wound in his belly.

  “Can you go upstairs at all?” Lorenzo asked after a beat.

  Raphael raised an eyebrow. “I’m not going to have sex with you.”

  Choking on the swallow he’d just taken, Lorenzo swiped his hand over his mouth in an attempt to regain some dignity. “I’m not hitting on you.”

  “Not your type?” There was a slight edge to his voice that made Lorenzo’s defenses rise.

  “Are you trying to pick a fight?”

  “I just don’t get you.” Raphael leaned forward and put his drink down. “You’re rich and gorgeous, you show up here saying you want to find love…”

  “Wait, you want me to fall in love with you?” Lorenzo felt rising panic until Raphael rolled his eyes.

  “No,” he said plainly, then he laughed. “I don’t w
ant you to fall in love with me.”

  “Good, because I don’t plan to. You’re completely wrong about that. That isn’t why I’m here.”

  “You said you wanted what your brother got,” Raphael pointed out.

  At that, he dragged a hand down his face before he put his own drink down and turned to face Raphael better. “That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t lacking in sex or relationships back home. I’m not looking for a Simon.”

  Cocking his head to the side, Raphael drummed his fingers on his knee and met Lorenzo’s gaze long enough to make him uncomfortable. “Do you even know what it is you want? Because my guess is no. My guess is you showed up here looking for answers to questions you weren’t even brave enough to ask yourself aloud.”

  Lorenzo bit the inside of his cheek, and he felt a bit too seen right then. “Why do you care? You don’t know me. Hell, I can’t even tell if you like me.”

  “I like you. I mean, I feel sorry for you, but I like you.”

  “That helps,” Lorenzo said dryly.

  “It is what it is.” Raphael let out a sigh and then reached for Lorenzo’s knee, giving him a gentle pat. “Sometimes we earn pity. Maybe it’s a good way to motivate you into something more. Something better.”

  Leaning his head back, Lorenzo groaned softly. “Honestly?” he asked, and Raphael nodded. “You’re right. I don’t know what the fuck I’m looking for. I just…my brothers and sisters have these full lives. Even before Rocco met Simon, he had a good life. His boyfriend was an epic shithead, but Rocco never defined his worth by what people thought about him.”

  “And you do?” Raphael’s voice was soft, and Lorenzo had no defense against it. He swallowed against a lump in his throat, and it took him a moment to answer.

  “It’s all I’ve ever had. Before any of us had money, I was totally content to work some bullshit pizzeria job. I was heading toward thirty and making just enough to cover my rent in some shitty apartment, and I was happy with it. I didn’t ever bother to want more, you know?”