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Her brows furrowed. “Just tell me if you’re in trouble.”
Wren smiled. “No, babe.”
True biz?
True biz, he promised. He held out his arms, and she clung to him in a fierce hug before pulling back. “It’s just emotions. And you know how stunted I am when it comes to emotions.”
“What about your emotions?” Luke signed in Wren’s periphery.
He turned, but Ananda beat him to the punch. Train-Go. Sorry.
Luke looked like he was going to have an epic pout, so Wren took the opportunity to excuse himself, taking his bagel with him and making his way down to his brother’s office. The space was partly his, considering Wren filled in the gaps of ownership when Caleb wasn’t around, but it never quite felt like it belonged to him.
He enjoyed being a silent partner in his brother’s endeavor, but he knew the café wasn’t his endgame. It was a stopgap between his past and his future. The only trouble was he had no idea what he wanted his future to look like. Obviously he wanted to be financially stable, but he hadn’t gone to college with dreams of slinging lattes for the rest of his life.
And while Caleb had hinted around at Wren opening up and running a second store on the other side of town, Wren had always carefully avoided the topic. Being tied down to something so…permanent made him feel all itchy. Sort of like when he thought about shit like marriage and kids.
Taking a seat in Caleb’s chair, Wren set his food down, then kicked his feet up on the edge of the desk. He smiled at the sight of the digital photo frame he’d gotten Caleb a few birthdays ago. It was the first time he’d seen it set up, and now it had several photos of their friends and several of Caleb and Bodhi mugging for the selfie camera.
Caleb looked happy—like properly happy—for the first time in a long, long time. Wren had initially been skeptical of the relationship, mostly because he hadn’t trusted his brother to fall back on his bad habits of turning into an asshole when things got complicated. But Bodhi seemed to be good for Caleb.
He hadn’t had a personality replacement. Instead, Bodhi just seemed to bring out all the best parts of Caleb that he preferred to keep hidden. He could still be an overstressed dick at work, of course, but he was actually taking time to exist outside of the café doors. He was embracing other parts of his life, not just a shop owner, and Wren could have cried with relief.
And yeah, maybe he was also a little jealous. Most of the time, the idea of relationships gave him a sour stomach, but he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be with someone who got him. Someone he wanted to spend all of his time with.
Someone like…
No. No. He wasn’t going down that rabbit hole. It was bad enough he’d caved and told Percy he’d work with him on his ASL. His feelings for that man were so complicated it felt like he was losing his mind, and if he let himself think about a future with him for even a minute, bad things were going to happen.
He could feel it.
Checking his phone, he dropped his legs, then fired up the computer to get to work on some of the accounting. He wanted to make things a little easier for Caleb—maybe even talk him into taking a vacation with Bodhi since summer was rapidly approaching.
He knew that Ravi and Bodhi had planned a trip to see their dad for the first time in years, and he knew Caleb wanted to go to support his boyfriend. It felt like a lot in a situation that was so little, and Wren knew he’d give just about anything to see his brother happy.
Wren wanted to pretend like he’d forgotten all about promising Percy his time, but Wren couldn’t ignore how anxious he was to see him. In fact, as much as he wanted to pretend that it was a huge inconvenience, he was looking forward to it in ways he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
Luke had taken a few weeks off from teaching so he could finish up his wedding plans, which meant Percy was learning from Anthony. Wren still felt like shit at how he’d let things with his former hookup get too far, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret anything.
The guy had been fantastic in bed, and he’d been amazing to talk to.
The only thing Wren missed was having the chance to be his friend properly. He knew it was far too late to make those kinds of amends, but it at least allowed him to relax about Percy taking lessons from him. Anthony was kind, and he was patient, and although Percy seemed timid and easily scared off, Anthony would be able to handle him.
When Percy came in that afternoon, the café had been balls-to-the-wall busy most of the day. Wren had taken the opportunity to remove his processors so he could deep clean the milk steamer, and he’d forgotten he was supposed to be paying attention for his scheduled meeting with the man he’d once fucked.
The man he still wanted.
But the task was a good way to keep his mind off his feelings. In fact, he was so distracted he hadn’t noticed the flashing lights when the door opened. Or the tall, gorgeous body standing awkwardly next to the pastry case, waiting for him to turn around.
Wren scrambled to look like he had his shit together, and Percy was adorably shy as he stood there like he didn’t know what to do. Wren flailed for a moment, then gestured at a table in the empty lobby.
“Ready?” he signed.
Percy blew out a puff of air, then copied the sign. “Ready.”
It took Percy nearly thirty minutes to become comfortable signing over speaking, but eventually, he did. He made beginner mistakes, which Wren patted himself on the back for not laughing at, and after a beat, they found a groove. He was liberal with praise, and watching Percy light up with each passing minute was doing things to him.
It was testing his resolve.
