This concept pleased him so much that he set down the Bradbury book and reached for his sketchpad. He’d do a few concept drawings now and sketch it out on canvas after cleaning the studio. He owned a couple of photos of the Blanchards, souvenirs from family barbecues he’d attended, and those would serve as adequate references.
Frank put the sketchpad down and stood. “You know what? I’m going to start on the studio cleanup right now.” He’d turned off the radio and was deciding whether to change into old clothes when one of the frogs startled him with a loud croak.
And then the doorbell rang.
Although Frank’s heart wasn’t generally prone to theatrics, it did a little tap dance. “It’s just a Fuller Brush man,” he whispered. “Or maybe Mrs. Caron from next door wants to borrow a cup of sugar.” As he walked to the door, however, his heart continued to do its best imitation of Fred Astaire. He felt very much as he had just before leaping out of airplanes, a dizzying mixture of anticipation and dread.
Without looking through the peephole, he turned the knob and opened the door.
Carver Reed stood at the threshold, grinning, a Santa hat perched on his head, a large paper bag in one hand and a wrapped bouquet in the other.
“You’re in Paris,” Frank said.
That only made Carver smile wider. “Am I? This looks a lot more like Burbank to me.”
“But—”
“I got as far as New York. I stood there in the middle of Idlewild Airport and thought, I don’t want to get on that plane. I don’t want to be in France. I want to be where Frank is. So I got on a different plane and flew home. Landed here early this morning. Then I got cold feet.”
“Why?” Frank asked, bewildered.
“What if you don’t want me here? What if our interlude the other day gave you as much Carver Reed as you wanted?”
“It didn’t,” Frank said hoarsely. Then he stepped aside and waved him in.
Carver stepped into the dining room, set the bag on the table, and looked around. “You got a tree!” He seemed delighted.
It was plastic, only about two feet tall, and had been in a special display at the market, seemingly focused on procrastinators and the desperate. Although not yet decorated, Frank had considered hanging a few small sketches on the spindly limbs. Honestly, it looked a bit pathetic in its spot atop the sideboard, but he liked it anyway. “The frogs asked for one.”
“Smart frogs. Do you have a vase for the flowers?”
Frank didn’t, so Carver used the juice pitcher instead, setting the bouquet in the middle of the table. The result was lovely: white roses, blue delphinium, and bright greenery, and it smelled wonderful. But it wasn’t the floral aroma that made Frank dizzy.
“Carver, why are you?—”
Frank didn’t get a chance to finish the question. Carver swept him into an embrace and kissed him so thoroughly that it made Frank’s knees weak. “You taste like chocolate,” Carver whispered into his neck. He followed up with a tongue swipe across Frank’s pulse point, and it was really a good thing his arms were around Frank; otherwise, Frank would have swooned right onto the floor.
And— Oh, to hell with it. Frank kissed him back. Carver tasted like wintergreen, as if he’d just brushed his teeth.
It was wonderful, but they couldn’t kiss forever. Eventually, Carver took a half-step back, although he still kept one hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Cookies,” he said.
“What?”
Carver removed three cardboard bakery boxes from the bag and set them on the tabletop. They were white, tied with string. “Mom likes to bake. It’s… we don’t get along all that well, my parents and I. We never have. It’s nothing tragic or horrible, just different personalities. But we do see one another at Thanksgiving and speak on the phone now and then, and every Christmas Mom sends me a bunch of homemade cookies, which I guess is her way of saying she loves me. And I always call and tell her how they’re better than anything I can find in LA—honestly true—which is how I say I love her.” He stared at the boxes as if they confused him a little.
“That’s very sweet, actually,” said Frank.
“Well, she sent them like always, and they arrived yesterday morning right before I left for the airport. I put them in my kitchen.” While he spoke, Carver took a penknife from his pocket and used it to cut the string on each box. “And the entire way to New York, I was thinking about those cookies. How they were going to be stale by the time I got back from Paris, and how it was a shame to waste something given as a labor of love. I couldn’t get my mind off those damned cookies.”
He paused, and Frank said, “I thought you returned for me.” He kept his tone light, though, because he knew there was more to the tale.
“That’s the thing. By the time I reached Idlewild, I realized I was sublimating—don’t make that face; I played a psychiatrist a couple of years ago—and what I was really regretting was leaving you.” He lifted his chin and squared his shoulders like a man expecting an argument. But then he seemed to remember the cookies. He opened the top of one box and shoved it against Frank’s stomach. “Have a spritz wreath,” he demanded.
Frank obediently took one and had a bite. “Delicious.” And it was, but what really had his attention was the vulnerability in Carver’s eyes, which the little show of belligerence wasn’t masking.
“All of my mom’s baked goods are delicious. Here. Rugelach.”
Frank ate one of those as well. “Better than I used to get at the bakeries in New York.”
