Biting his lip, Lukas stared at the plate holding a plastic tray with a frozen dinner meal.
John started chuckling. “Try not to look so horrified. Some of us aren’t amazing cooks.”
Ducking his head, he felt himself blush. “Sorry. I wasn’t judging. It’s just that those things are so bad for you. Chock-full of salt and preservatives.”
Shrugging, John leaned back against the counter behind him, apparently not eager to get back to his food. “Like I said, I can’t cook for shit.”
His mind was going a mile a minute, and he gestured at the refrigerator. “May I?”
“Uh, sure.”
Crossing the kitchen, he pulled open the door and peered inside the surprisingly well-stocked fridge. There was meat and fruit… oh, and even some vegetables. So it wasn’t that John was opposed to real food, he just literally didn’t know how to put it together into a meal. Lukas was sure he probably only had so much meat because John was a big griller.
Such a macho man.
Smirking to himself, he started pulling stuff out. “Can you wait, like, an hour?”
John narrowed his eyes at the items Lukas had removed from the fridge. “Are you planning on cooking for me?”
“Yup!” He grinned, ignoring how weird it was that he’d invaded John’s home and was now preparing a meal for him. “Consider it part two of my nonmonetary repayment.”
Snorting, John reached toward the cupcakes again. “You don’t have to do that, but I won’t go so far as to actually turn down real food, if you’re willing.”
Dropping the food in his arms on the kitchen island, he darted over to grab the container before John could get it open. “No more cupcakes before dinner.”
John just stared at him, eyes wide. “Excuse me?”
Tucking the container behind his back, he smirked and backed away. “You’ll ruin your dinner, young man.”
Throwing back his head, John roared with laughter. Lukas’s belly swooped at the sight and the knowledge that he’d done that. Him. No one else was there; he was making John laugh. He could count on one hand how many times he and John had been alone over the years. John wasn’t exactly “Mr. Reserved,” but watching him laugh at something Lukas’s dad or one of their other friends said was so different than teasing him himself and admiring his joyful expression.
He felt like whooping in triumph but squashed the sensation. It didn’t matter how many meals he cooked or how many times he made John belly laugh—the man was so off-limits he wasn’t even on Lukas’s playing board.
When he’d been young and naïve, he’d convinced himself that loving someone enough could change how they felt, and then John would develop feelings for Lukas in return.
Ten years later, he knew better.
Wiping at his eyes, John grinned at him. “Shit, it’s been a while since I laughed like that.” He eyed the hidden container. “Seriously though. If I have to wait an hour for dinner, I’m gonna need another one to tide me over.”
Lukas just shook his head and stepped back a little more, dislodging the morose thoughts and smiling when John realized Lukas wasn’t going to give the treats back. Face falling, John followed after him, his steps a little halting like he wasn’t sure what game was happening but was up for playing.
“You little brat,” he grumbled. The creases next to his eyes and mouth gave away his humor though. He wasn’t fooling Lukas at all.
Laughing, Lukas turned and ran. “I’ll just go put these someplace safe.”
“Lukas!”
He heard John thundering after him, but he was too fast. He’d only really seen the living room and kitchen, so he beelined for the living room and quickly put the container in the corner of the sectional and covered it with some pillows.
Before John could enter the room, Lukas was on the other side, grinning innocently, hands clasped behind his back.
Storming in, John ran his eyes over Lukas, then grunted and looked around the rest of the room. “I can’t believe you did that.”
With a laugh and a wink, Lukas practically skipped over to where John stood frozen in the doorway, eyes still searching for the container. He placed a hand on John’s midsection, touch as light as a butterfly and just as quick to move on. Heading back to the kitchen, he called back, “Do you have any rice?”
John stood frozen in his living room, eyes on the obvious pile of pillows and skin tingling where Lukas had brushed his hand on the way past.
What the fuck is happening?
Lukas was Dave’s son, and John had been best friends with Dave for nearly fifteen years. He’d taken John under his wing when John was struggling to find work and had been the one to encourage him to become a plumber and then to start his own business. He’d been there for John in every way imaginable—personal and work related. Hell, he got John drunk the night Heather served him their divorce papers.
So why was he thinking about how bright Lukas’s eyes were when he teased John? Or how, even though his body tended toward lean, he had nice shoulders and muscle definition in his arms and abs, and his ass was absolutely luscious?
John had never looked at another man’s ass and thought of it as bitable, so why the fuck was he thinking such things about his friend’s son? For Christ’s sake, his dick was twitching to life just remembering how Lukas’s ass had looked as he’d run from the kitchen.
He glared down at his crotch in annoyance.
“John? Rice?”
He turned toward the doorway but still didn’t head back to the kitchen. God, even Lukas’s voice was doing something to him. It was deeper than you’d expect, given Lukas’s sweet face and affinity for a little bit of makeup when he was feeling particularly happy or celebrating something.
Lukas’s smiling face appeared in the doorway, but a frown quickly formed between his brows. “What’s wrong?” His eyes dropped, and he appeared more fully in the opening, a blush rising to his perfect cheekbones. “Do you, uh, want me to leave? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to barge—”
“No,” he cut in, not quite sure why he wasn’t taking the out. All he knew was that he couldn’t stand the sad look on Lukas’s face. “No, I want you to stay.”
Large, sapphire eyes shining, Lukas grinned. “Okay, cool. Um, rice?”
“Right.” He nodded, promising himself he’d figure out what was going on with his dick later, and started toward the kitchen. “Let’s see.”
Turned out he didn’t have rice, but Lukas wasn’t deterred. John sat on the other side of his kitchen island and watched in a state of fluctuating arousal, mixed with awe, as Lukas threw together a meal out of the combination of things John had purchased himself or Lukas’s mom, Lydia, had dropped off the other day. She’d done that about twice a month since his divorce, telling him how worried she was about what he was eating when she wasn’t around and that he should be dating more so he could find someone to take care of him.
After the way his marriage had crashed and burned, John wasn’t really interested in doing that again, so he just smiled and nodded as he thanked her for the food. He used to have to throw things away as they went bad because he didn’t know how to use them, feeling terrible for wasting so much. The last couple of years, though, he’d been able to give away some of the food to a family down the street that never had enough of anything.