Page 81 of The Gaybor War

Candace waves at us with a smile that suggests she's already planning centerpieces. Shania starts saying you boys instead of our names. The neighborhood has apparently decided we're dating.

The unsettling part is... they aren't wrong. The only person who seems determined not to acknowledge the obvious is me.

Benji made me ask him to dinner. He said yes. And then I never actually chose a restaurant.

Every evening after work I spend twenty minutes researching places, another twenty rejecting them for reasons ranging from too loud to insufficient parking, until somehow I'm standing on Benji's porch with takeout instead.

Which, according to Benji, is "aggressively on brand."

I tell myself tonight is practical. Benji's working late. I ate something depressing at my desk around four-thirty that technically qualified as dinner if you lowered your standards enough. We both needed to eat anyway.

This isn't avoiding the date. It's... pre-date logistics. That's probably a thing. I knock anyway, even though I'm not fooling myself.

The door swings open. Benji is wearing reading glasses. Actual reading glasses.

Thin red frames sit low on his nose while the sleeves of his shirt are shoved to his elbows. His hair is slightly messy, his attention clearly somewhere else before he opened the door, and for one disorienting second he looks less like a walking neighborhood incident and more like an actual professional.

It's alarmingly attractive.

He blinks when he sees me. Then smiles. "Well. If it isn't my favorite HOA menace."

My brain immediately abandons every prepared thought.

"Oh."

One eyebrow lifts. "Good oh or bad oh?"

"I wasn't aware you owned glasses."

His grin widens. "I own several pairs."

That feels excessive. He probably has a pair in every color to match his best outfits.

I hold up the takeout bag before my brain can wander somewhere unproductive. "I brought food."

"Perfect." He steps aside. "Come in. I'm on a deadline. You've arrived during peak productivity Benji, which is a rare and elusive phenomenon."

I step inside. The dining table is a controlled explosion of color, littered with mockups, notes, and a tablet propped up with an image on the screen next to his laptop.

It's chaotic. But not random. Everything seems to belong exactly where it is.

Benji circles the table and drops back into his chair. "Don't judge me."

"I wasn't."

"You were absolutely judging me."

"I was evaluating."

"That's finance for judging."

I set the bag down and glance at the screen. "What are you working on?"

Benji brightens instantly. The transformation is immediate.

He taps the tablet and swivels it toward me. The cover is… a lot. Two shirtless men with sweat, veins, and a stare that could peel paint. One of them looks like he could lift a car. The other looks like he’d dare you to watch.

I feel my ears warm. "This is—" I clear my throat. "This is your job?"