"Second shelf in the pantry. You've just never looked."
He shook his head and kept smiling. “Well, now that I know where your stash is, don’t expect me to be able to stay away from it.”
There was a knot in my throat as I imagined the life we could build together. “What’s mine is yours.”
He turned to me and met my gaze. “Same.”
After dinner, we walked toward the night market happening downtown. Vendor lights were strung between the stalls, and people strolled with drinks and treats in their hands. We stopped when something looked interesting and kept moving when it didn't.
The cotton candy cart was very interesting, so Ozzie bought me some cherry flavored, and my tongue and fingers were instantly red.
And as we walked, Ozzie reached for my hand and just kept going. He didn’t say anything about it at first. And then he did.
"So this is what it feels like." He seemed to be speaking to himself, but he wasn’t quiet about it.
I looked over at him, and he looked relaxed in the way that I was starting to see more and more often. "What what feels like?"
He squeezed my hand once and didn't answer right away. We walked past a stall selling dumplings and another one with hand-dyed scarves before he turned to me again. “Being in love.”
I didn't know what to say in response. I just held on tighter and smiled so wide that my cheeks hurt.
8
OZZIE
When we got back to our building, we stood in the hallway and looked in both directions, deciding where we were spending the night.
“I need to do some laundry and water my plants.” I gave him my best puppy-dog eyes. “Can we stay at my place tonight?”
Cedric was almost giddy as he nodded. “Happy to. Your TV is so much better than mine.” It was only a few inches bigger, but the OLED was amazing, so I was glad he appreciated it.
He came in and went straight to my couch while I went to the kitchen to water the fiddle leaf that I’d kinda forgotten about all week. When I came back, Cedric had his phone out and was tapping through something with a focused look.
As soon as I was beside him, he turned the screen and showed me his online medical chart. "All clean."
I knew he would be, but the confirmation brought me an internal sigh of relief as I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my own results. “Me too.”
He unfolded it and barely glanced at it before looking back at me. “Cool.”
It was just a formality, but now we didn’t have to wrap up if we didn’t want to. “Very cool.”
His smile was too cute, so I leaned forward and kissed him. One kiss led to another, slow and gentle as his hand came up the back of my neck and he gripped me. Within seconds, our playful testing turned into somewhere desperate and hungry.
My hand slid under the hem of his shirt, and he whimpered against my mouth. Fuck, I loved that sound.
Then I turned my face into his hair and inhaled.
He pulled back, mortified. "What?"
I smiled. "You smell like smoky short ribs."
He went still for a second and then leaned in and sniffed my collar. "I wasn't gonna say anything, but..." He looked up at me with an expression that was working hard to stay neutral. "You too."
I raised an eyebrow, excited about this turn of events. "Shower?"
His gaze turned mischievous as he bit his lip. "Only if you wash my hair."
My bathroom was the same as his, so I got the water going while we quickly undressed. Next time, we could take the unveiling part slowly, but this time, we both needed to get wet and naked quickly.
