“Me? Homophobic?”
“Yeah. I mean, granted you’re doing me a solid with this hug right now. But you act like my touch sullies your straight virtue. Well, it’s bullshit.”
“That is not—” Sullivan halted. Warm breath tickled over Reid’s temple. “Yes, okay. I hear you. Nobody is falling for anybody, and all touches between us are friendly ones.”
Reid sighed. Another quick peek revealed a checkout line free of Toni and Gym-rat.
He pulled back from Sullivan and gazed up at his thought-absorbed face. “They’re gone. Can we start over, Sullivan?”
Sullivan released him, hands skating off his hips. Those shockingly blue eyes pierced Reid. “Let’s.”
Reid held out his hand. “I’m Reid. I like cuddling. I’m prone to misadventure. And for no traumatic reason, I’m deathly afraid of the ocean.”
Sullivan’s cheek twitched. “Sullivan. I haven’t made the best first impression, but I’d like to get to know you.”
“A little,” Reid amended for him. He pinched two fingers an inch apart.
Sullivan’s chivalrous grin appeared between them. “Maybe a little more than that.”
Back at the yacht, Reid and Sullivan unloaded their reusable produce bags. Reid couldn’t stop biting his lip on the constant urge to grin. The entire walk, Sullivan had fired curious questions at him. Reid had given Sullivan a breakdown of his life, dwelling mostly on his grams, who raised him. Somehow Sullivan steered the conversation back to Toni.
“She might need me to pick up my belongings, and I might not have answered her texts.”
Sullivan shut the fridge. “When?”
“She messaged this morning. She wanted me to come today or wait until she returns from Hawaii.”
“I’m guessing you’re procrastinating?”
“Ugh. I was feeling good, but you seeing how pathetic I am ruined it.”
Sullivan laughed. He’d laughed more freely since the supermarket. He was still blunt as hell, but his laughter tempered it. A bit.
“When she’s back,” Sullivan said. “I’ll borrow Alanis’s car and drive you.”
“Okay, seriously. Who are you and where’s Sullivan?”
Still grinning, Sullivan pulled out a package of pasta, onion, garlic, crushed tomatoes, and an eggplant. He procured two wooden boards and knives and handed Reid one of each. “Let’s see you cook.”
“There he is.”
A glint hit Sullivan’s eye as he surveyed the vegetables between them and set the eggplant on Reid’s board. “You prepare that for the sauce and I’ll cut the onions.”
Of course Sullivan had chosen the most difficult vegetable. The one Reid had the least experience with. He’d never bought the vegetable before. Had once eaten it at a restaurant—and that was ordered by mistake.
Reid scowled at Sullivan’s smug delight. “Stop looking at me like you know everything.”
“I do know everything. All the time. Like right now,” Sullivan said, leaning toward him, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “You are sweating behind that counter, clueless how to prepare the nightshade before you.”
“Pssht. I totally know what to do with it. You focus on your onions. Practice crying.”
Sullivan began chopping onion like a pro, and Reid surreptitiously angled his phone under the lip of the counter. He kept his posture casual, tapping out a message to Loretta. He prayed she would answer.
Reid: Help!
He muted the volume, and smiled innocently at Sullivan. “Just deciding how I want to cook it. Too many options, you know?”
Sullivan’s lips quirked.
Reid glanced at his phone.
Loretta: What’s wrong?
Reid: Sullivan presented me this fat