Where Corey would have taken his head off for such a reprimand, Crispin smiled sheepishly and ran a hand through his hair. "You're right. I'm sorry. I didn't expect him to get to me that much."
"Seriously, it's not like he cheated on you," Shannon said with a huff of laughter. "Sit down, I'll get us more beer."
"I really am sorry. I saw him there and just… wanted to punch his stupid face."
Shannon cast an amused look his way as he opened the fridge. "He hasn't gotten the job instead of you yet, cowboy. Chill out."
"That—" Crispin snapped his mouth shut, face going the most adorable shade of pink, but at Shannon's quizzical look only said, "Nothing. I was being stupid. I can't apologize enough."
Taking a seat, handing over one of the beers, Shannon replied, "I mean, I'm not gonna complain about you upsetting Corey. It was kind of hilarious. Just saying you might want to tone it down at Winter Wonderland, since I'm guessing we're going to see this CEO there, though you didn't actually say."
Crispin rolled his eyes. "Did I seriously not say? Yeah, the company is one of the event sponsors, and they're going to have a whole huge ass tent with toys for sale, hot chocolate, smores, the whole shebang."
"Oof. So no pressure."
"Basically."
The doorbell rang, and this time Shannon got up to get it. Thankfully, it was the food, and in short order they had a feast fit for kings spread out on the coffee table. Shannon opened one of the boxes, which proved to hold a deep dish with pepperoni, mushrooms, and anchovies. "Shit, this is my favorite."
"Why didn't you just tell me that?" Crispin asked, though he looked inordinately pleased with himself.
Shannon shrugged. "Didn't think it mattered, and almost nobody likes anchovies. You should see the unmitigated hate my family gives me when I dare to order them."
Grinning around a bite of buffalo wing, Crispin swallowed and said, "Don't worry, nobody in my family will eat my cooking because I'm the only one who can handle spicy, and my idea of 'mild' is apparently untrustworthy."
"I love spicy."
"I'll make you my habanero mac and cheese sometime. Least I can do for all this."
"Pissing off Corey is payment enough, but I'm not turning down habanero mac and cheese, so deal."
After that, they ate in companiable silence, turning on the TV and landing on a football game that had Crispin so excited that Shannon couldn't bear to keep scrolling, even though he found sports hopelessly boring.
By the time Crispin left a couple of hours later, Shannon was in a better mood than he'd been for days. Maybe even weeks.
The only way it could have been better was if Crispin really wanted him, but Shannon wasn't going to ruin his high by dwelling on that. Locking up the house, he grabbed his sketchbook and headed into his studio slash office to work some more on his drawing before bed.
*~*~*
"These are… not what I ordered," Shannon said with a sigh, shoving his hands through his hair. He should be staring at paintbrush sets with either blue, green, or umber handles. Not some pink, purple, teal, and gold flakes marbling monstrosity that reminded him of his mom's latest nail job.
Katrina abandoned the canvases she was half-heartedly sorting through to take a look. "Wow, that's amazing."
"Not the adjective I'd go with." Shannon sighed and grabbed the invoice. Which definitely had what he ordered on it. "Looks like someone mixed up boxes. Just great. There's no way we'll get the correct ones in time for the Christmas sale." He also did not have the time to be on the phone with salespeople all day.
"Don't worry about it, boss man. We can work this out. We still have those canvases we got at the closeout sale months ago, and paint we were gonna clearance off anyway. How about we bundle them into cute little 'artist starter packs' or something? Nobody will care what the brushes look like."
The tension bled from Shannon's shoulders. "I wouldn't last a day without you, Kat. Make it happen. Put the twins on it. They've got energy to burn."
"Will do, boss," Katrina said with a giggle. "You should—"
What he should do, he never learned, because Javier threw open the door connecting the backroom to the front of the store and bellowed, "Jefe, someone here to see you."
"If it's a salesman, tell them to go away, I'm not interested."
Javier said something in Spanish that sounded like 'el vampiro', then said in English, "No, says he's a friend. Looks like he's a friend of Dracula, you ask me."
Hot tingles raced down Shannon's spine. No way. Crispin? Had come to see him at work? And had come in the front door? Instead of just parking around back and texting him to hurry up and come outside? "On my way."
"Friend of Dracula?" Katrina asked.
Shannon just shook his head and hurried out while trying not to look like he was hurrying because he'd catch no end of hell from the smartasses he called employees.
Sure enough, Crispin was there, looking at the works of art in the little corner of the store that Shannon had dedicated to local artists. He was wearing another suit, but this one was a beautiful brown houndstooth with a dark blue vest and tie. Shannon had never seen anyone look that good in houndstooth, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
"Hey," he said, hoping he didn't sound as pathetically eager as he suspected. "What brings you to my side of town?"
"We had a lunch thing with the bigwigs at the Rooster. It ended a bit early, so I thought I'd pop in and see if you wanted to do dinner tonight. You know, get to know each other better and stuff."
In all his years, no one had ever popped in on a Wednesday to ask if he wanted to get dinner later. His actual relationships had never been as sweet as this fake one. How in the world was this man single? Shannon would sell his left testicle to have Crispin want him for real. Shit, he'd probably sell both.
"I'd love to. Did you have somewhere in mind?"
"Thought I'd see what you liked."
"As long as it's not yet another steakhouse, I don't care," Shannon replied.
Crispin smirked as though he knew exactly what Shannon meant, and come to that, he probably did. "I can do a little better than that. Dress nice, I'll pick you up at eight."
"Dress nice, eight. I can do that."
"Awesome." He pointed at the painting he'd been admiring, depicting the silhouettes of an ambiguous pair tangled together in bed. Every now and then he got a snide remark about 'that kind' of artwork being on display, but there was nothing sexual about it. He'd always found it soft and romantic, with a side of wishful thinking. "Can I buy that and get it from you later? I don't want to drag it around downtown and risk leaving it at the office or something."
"You want that one?" Shannon asked.
Crispin tilted his head. "Is that weird?"
"I did it," Shannon said, the words tumbling out in a messy rush.
Damn it, if Crispin didn't stop busting out all these pretty smiles, Shannon was going to do something reckless and stupid, like kiss him senseless right there in the store. "You did it? That's even better. How much?"