by Peter Styles
It could have been his grandparents, I guessed. Especially after his grandfather’s scare, he wouldn’t want to be far from them.
A smaller part of me wondered if it was because of me.
I pushed that thought away quickly. We’d been together weeks—and, sure, I wouldn’t want to leave without him, and if he did accept the position and he, I don’t know, wanted or asked me to go with him, sure. Sure, I could do that. But—
I swallowed.
“Anything else?” Harris asked. “Besides forcing me to go into another round of hiring, because both of my picks turned me down?”
I looked down sheepishly. “You could always send more than one.”
Harris’s eyebrows shot up to his forehead. He smiled slowly. “Something to consider.”
I sat there for another second, wondering what I was supposed to do with this new information. Confront Luke? Did asking your boyfriend about his job prospects count as a confrontation? Would it turn into one when we both accused each other of having a crush on each other?
My head hurt. I wanted another coffee.
I sighed, slapped my thighs, and then stood up to leave. I got to the door before I paused.
“Oh, Uncle Harris?” He sighed and looked up. “That package we delivered—it’s been driving me crazy. What was in it?”
Harris grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Nothing that I couldn’t have sent via regular mail.”
He winked. My mouth fell open in surprise. “You knew!” I accused.
Harris laughed. “Go ask your boyfriend why he won’t accept my job promotion.”
My cheeks burned, and I flipped my uncle off before going back downstairs to do exactly that.
My coworkers’ responses to my question led me to find Luke, downstairs at a coffee kiosk. He was fourth in line.
“Luke.” I jogged over to him.
His hands flew up. “How did you know?”
“Know?” I frowned. “About the job?”
“The—no, not the job. The coffee. I was going to cheap out and order you a brew, instead of an Americano, and you know.” He tilted his head. “Wait, you know about the job?”
“Yes,” I said, then stopped and glared at him. “Hey, you bitch.”
“I’m sorry; I’ll order the right drink.” Luke sighed heavily.
I waved him off. “That’s not important. Why did you say no to the job?”
Luke’s head snapped up and he bit down on his bottom lip. He looked away. We moved up in line. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.” My heart started to hammer. I tried to not grin.
“Yes, I do,” Luke sighed. He turned and looked at me fully. His face was bright red. “I know we’ve only been dating for a little while—”
“Three weeks,” I interrupted. I was full-on grinning now.
Luke didn’t seem to notice. “Fine, three weeks, and I know that’s short but I—wasn’t ready to, I don’t know, fuck it up! Not when I might do that accidentally, at any moment now, and—“
I grabbed him by the neck and yanked him toward me, shutting him up with a kiss. He stood frozen for a second before melting into me.
I pulled back and kissed the bridge of his nose. “I turned the job down, too.”
His eyes popped open. “You’re kidding.”
“Well, I’m not ready to fuck it up, either,” I said.
Luke laughed. It was a bright, happy sound. I wanted to keep it against my skin forever. “We’re idiots.”
“Completely,” I agreed.
“I can’t believe we both turned the job down,” he said.
“It’s a good thing,” I assured him. “It means we get to keep doing this.”
Someone cleared their throat. We jumped apart. “It’s your turn,” the woman behind us said kindly.
I blushed. Luke was a bright red. “Um, thanks.”
We ordered our coffees quickly. Luke even got my order right.
“Hey, Luke?” He took his change back from the barista and glanced at me.
“Hmm?” he asked, shoving the change in his pocket. He handed me my coffee. “Here.”
We started to walk back toward the elevators. “You can take the job.”
He spun to me. “What?”
“The job—if you want to take it, take it.”
His eyes widened and his lips turned down, a hurt expression crossing his face before he could hide it. “I thought—”
I realized what my words sounded like, and quickly interrupted. “Harris would transfer me.”
Luke inhaled sharply.
“If I asked,” I said, softly, “he’d transfer me.”
Luke looked at me, his eyes flickering across my face. His lips spread in a pretty, soft smile. “You, too, Max.”
The elevator door dinged and parted. Luke nodded his head. “After you.”
We rode the elevator up quietly, holding each other’s hands. I was starting to really love this elevator.
20
Luke
“Listen, I know that the moon is in Gemini right now, but that’s no goddamn excuse.” Max crossed his arms and glared at me.
I jabbed a finger at him. “You know I don’t know what the hell that means.”
Max huffed. “I send you a weekly horoscope, man. It’s not my fault you don’t read it.”
I rolled my eyes, but didn’t say anything. Technically, he was right.
Max grinned, clearly taking that as triumph. I tried not to fidget with annoyance.
“I think the bed looks good here.” I didn’t actually care. It was fun to see Max squirm.
“It looks like trash, actually,” Max said pointedly, and shoved at the metal frame. “And I want it east-facing.”
Begrudgingly, I helped him move it to the other wall. “What fucking blog did you read that on?”
“I didn’t!” he protested. I raised my eyebrows. He looked away. “Okay, Stella did. But!”
I laughed. We got the bed east-facing and Max threw himself onto the mattress happily. “This is so much better,” he said.
“It looks dumb over here. We’re going to wake up every morning at five a.m. with the sun.”
“You like the sun,” he pointed out.
“The sun is fine.” I waved a hand and lay next to him on the bed. “But I actually like sleeping.”
“You do not,” Max said. He rolled over and pinned me against the mattress. “I like the bed here.”
I sighed, shifting my legs so I had one thigh on either side of one of his legs. “What if I just waited until you were at work and I moved it?”
Max titled his head down and kissed the bridge of my nose. “Babe,” he said sweetly. “You try that, and I’ll superglue it to the floor.”
I burst out laughing. Max grinned. The apartment was barely furnished, all of our things were still taped up in brown boxes, and as a joke, we’d been eating nothing but Boston Cream donuts all day. The move to Boston had been a bit arduous, if not full-on impossible-feeling most days, but now we were here.
The branch was getting up and running, Max and I co-managing it. We’d only been here a few days now, but already I could tell I preferred it to Seattle. There was less rain, less competition, less pent-up worry from years of being afraid of things I couldn’t control.
Max leaned lower and caught my bottom lip between his. His mouth wasn’t a shock anymore—his lips didn’t send thrills of surprise down my spine. Instead, it was something steadier—something warmer. His lips were soft and gentle against mine, moving comfortably, familiarly. Max tasted, felt, like home.
I slid one hand into his hair, sighing happily against his mouth when my fingers gripped in his hair. Max had the softest hair of anyone I’d ever met—it was thick and curly and beautiful, and I joked constantly about leaving him when he started to go bald.
My other hand curled around his neck. I opened my mouth, slipping my tongue into his mouth. He groaned and kissed me harder, deepening the kiss until we were panting against
each other.
One of my legs hitched up around his waist. I tugged hard at his hair to pull him away from my mouth, taking a ragged breath before kissing at his neck.
“Okay.” Max sighed, rolling his head back to give me more room to kiss. I happily went to work. “You should probably get going.”
“No,” I mumbled against his skin. I wrapped my arms around him and held him close.
Max laughed, the sound slowly morphing to a moan when I sucked at his pulse point. “Luke.”
“Mmm.” I licked at his neck and tugged at his shirt. “Say that again, but lower.”
Max laughed again, the breathy sound blowing the top of my hair. He knocked my hands off of him and rolled to the side. “Luke, man, you gotta go to work.”
I turned my head and frowned at him. “I don’t want to.”
Max quirked an eyebrow. “You love work. You get hard for work.”
I wrinkled my nose. “That’s gross.”
“Babe, that’s you.” Max nudged me with his shoulder. We both looked up at the ceiling. “Should we get glow in the dark stars?”
“I don’t know, should we get a time machine and be twelve years old?”
“You’re a jerk.”
“You love me.”
Max smiled. He reached over and put his hand on my face. “True.”
“Fuck off,” I mumbled, reaching over and fisting his shirt. I pulled him to me and kissed him again.
“Go to work!” Max said, swatting me on the shoulder. I reluctantly rolled off of the bed.
“I want to stay here with you,” I admitted, going to the box in the corner of the room and grabbing a tie. I knotted it and watched Max, who was sprawled across the bed, watching me.
“You’re a nerd,” Max said affectionately.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, never mind. I would rather leave.”
Max laughed and threw a pillow at me. I dodged it and slipped on my shoes. “Okay. Enjoy your day off.” I headed to the door.
“Don’t forget about dinner! We’re going to Sorellina!” Max called after me.
I paused at the door, frowning. “Sorellina? That fancy place?”
Max flushed. “Yes. It—had good reviews! Let me celebrate this move.”
I lifted my hands in defeat. “Sure, sure. I’ll meet you there. Seven?”
“Seven!” Max said. “Not a minute later.”
I nodded. I considered calling off of work again, but figured it would be a bad move for the boss to stay home just to screw around with the other boss. I sighed and tore my gaze away from Max’s smiling, languid body. “The bed looks bad there! Love you!”
I heard another pillow hit the door as I left. “Fuck off! Love you, too!”
I laughed all the way out to my car.
— — — —
Max
The flowers on the table were a full half-inch too short for the vases they were in, and I wasn’t sure if I was angrier about that, or the fact that I knew that.
“Dude, Luke doesn’t care about flowers.” A tall girl with exceedingly bright hair crossed her arms.
I frowned, trying to place her. One of Luke’s friends from back in Seattle—dating his roommate, I thought. Marie? Maggie?
I nearly snapped my fingers when I remembered. “Macy,” I said. She cocked her head. “I don’t give a fuck that Luke doesn’t care about flowers. I don’t care about flowers.”
“Then why are you panic-sweating about the flowers?”
I huffed and pointed a finger at her. She stared at me, unimpressed. I jabbed the finger in the air again, and then spun around. I grabbed a waiter by the sleeve.
“The flowers are wrong.”
The waiter blinked at me. I groaned and waved him away.
The restaurant was beautiful. It had also cost the entirety of my signing bonus for the new firm to rent out for the night. Luke had invested his.
Good god, Luke was going to kill me for spending this money. I threw myself in a chair and buried my head between my hands.
“He’s going to say no,” I said to whoever had just sat down in the chair next to me. It didn’t really matter. I had flown out all of my and Luke’s family and friends, and so whoever was in this restaurant was entitled to hear my panic. “He’s going to say no, and I’m going to be an old, barren loser.”
“You’re already old, barren, and a loser,” Stella said. I looked up. She looked pretty tonight, but her eyes were sharp, which told me she wasn’t going to be putting up with any of my bullshit. “But you’re also deeply in love and about to get engaged.”
I took a deep breath. “Do you really think so?”
“You’re, honest to god, a giant fucking idiot.”
Stella wrapped her arms around me. I hugged her back.
“Remember when we made a pact to get married when we turned fifty?” I asked against her shoulder. She hummed in response. “Sorry I’m fucking that up.”
She pulled away. “I’m not. We’d be a terrible married couple. So much cheating on each other!”
I laughed. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Stella perked up and looked toward the window. “Well, start believing it. I think I hear him.”
“Oh, fuck.” I jumped up. “Um, places!”
There was scattered laughing, and then everyone was ushered into the other room. I swallowed hard when a waiter turned the lights off.
“Um, excuse me, am I early? This place looks—closed.” Luke’s voice timidly wafted in as the door opened.
I couldn’t help but grin. The waiter laughed. “No, sir.”
“Oh, please don’t call me sir,” Luke corrected quickly. I rolled my eyes.
The waiter led Luke around the corner. I took a deep breath when he came into the room.
Luke froze.
I could only imagine what Luke was thinking right now—an entirely empty, dimly-lit restaurant, with dozens of flowers too small for their vases, and candles melting wax onto tablecloths, and me, in a blue tie, of all colors.
He was going to say no.
Fucking hell.
“Um, hi, honey. How was work?”
Luke dropped his coat on the floor. He closed the space between us quickly. “Luke?”
His hands fisted into my suit jacket and he yanked me toward him, kissing me hard. I kissed him back, winding my arms around his neck.
We lost ourselves in the moment until we heard the soft sound of someone clearing their throat. I flushed and pulled away. “Um, it was that good?”
Luke’s eyes were wide. He couldn’t stop looking at the room and back to me, eyes flickering everywhere. “Shut up,” he said softly. “What is all this?”
“Luke.” I moved one hand until I was gently cupping his face. He leaned into the touch, and I smiled. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Can you—” I took a step back and he took a step forward. I laughed. “Can you, like, stand a bit away? You’re distracting me.”
“How?” He took two steps backward.
“Your face is distracting me,” I corrected. I winked at him. He rolled his eyes.
“What is all this?” He repeated his question, but the growing smile on his face seemed like he knew.
I breathed deeply in and then let it out. Here goes nothing.
I got down on one knee. Luke let out a strangled sound.
“I know this is old fucking news but, Luke, I really love you—”
“I love you, too,” Luke choked out.
I grinned. “And I know that you really hated me for a long time—”
“I never hated you,” Luke disagreed.
My head fell back as I tried to control the urge to laugh. “Babe, this isn’t really a participatory thing. No need for call and response.”
He blushed. I heard laughter coming from the other room and he frowned, looking at the door, so I grabbed his hand to get his attention back.
“I know you really acted like you hated me, thought I
was a prick, but I—I never minded. Because even having you annoyed and frustrated at me is so incredible. Just having any bit of your attention is an incredible thing.
And for some reason, I got lucky enough that you decided I was worth more of it. Of your attention, and your time, and, eventually, your love. I’m so thankful that you give me the time of day.
But as you pointed out one day a long time ago, on a road trip we had no business being on: I’m selfish. I’m selfish, and I love you, so even though I don’t deserve one second of time with you, I’m going to ask for all of it. I want all of your time.
Luke, please marry me. Marry me, and let us spend the rest of our time together.”
Slowly, Luke slid down onto his knees. He cupped my face, his eyes wide and wet with unshed tears.
He leaned forward and gently kissed me. I wrapped one arm around his waist, the other clutching to his wrist. One of us was crying; I could taste the tears on my lips. I didn’t care who.
He pulled away after a moment and leaned his forehead against mine. “Yes,” he whispered. “Let’s get married.”
My eyes popped open. “Really?”
He laughed. “Really.”
I kissed him, an onslaught of quick pecks against his lips, cheeks, forehead, eyelids. “Oh my god, I love you so much.”
“I love you too!”
He kept laughing as I tackled him to the floor to kiss all over his face. His hands went to my belt. I froze. “Babe, you’re going to want to stop.”
He frowned. “The place is empty.”
“Yeah, except for that room over there where all our friends and family are waiting.”
Luke’s eyebrows shot to the top of his head. “Hi, Luke!” I heard Stella call.
I laughed. His face burned. “Hi, Stella.”
The doors opened, and everyone flooded in. Nick practically lifted us up with his bare hands to hug us.
Luke’s grandma flew to him and started peppering him with questions, while his grandpa came over to me.
“Sir.” I shook his hand.
“Welcome to the family, son,” Bill said. He grabbed me in a hug.
I caught Luke’s eye from over his grandfather’s shoulder. He looked happier than I had ever seen him.