Page 72 of Just Past Two

Matthew examined the hourglass-shaped beaker with the wooden collar around it. “You have one of these?”

“Definitely.” Silas took his phone back. “Creates an entirely different flavor profile from other coffeemakers.”

“And you drink your coffee black, I see.” Matthew gestured to Silas’s cup.

“I always start with it black, to get a sense of the type of coffee, and then I might add cream and sugar, depending on the blend.” Silas realized he was getting animated, moving his hands about, and he forced himself to put his hands down on the table. “Sorry. I get excited when I talk about coffee.”

“Yeah, you do.” Matthew’s voice was thoughtful. “You don’t have to apologize for it. Is that . . .” He paused. “You mentioned you have some social issues, and you seem self-conscious about how you’re acting sometimes.”

Silas looked down at the table, where his hands were still pressed to the wood. “Mild Asperger syndrome, apparently. I don’t like putting a name on it, because then people have a hard time seeing me instead of a disorder. I don’t like to think of myself as a ‘disorder’ or a ‘syndrome.’ ” He raised his fingers to put air quotes around the words. “But I am on the spectrum. And sometimes I’m a little weird, so I try not to get overly excited about things, at least in public.”

When Matthew smiled back at him, his grin was wicked. “I like seeing you excited. In public or in private.”

Silas felt his heart rate quicken. That was a sex joke. He was being flirted with again, he was fairly sure, and he felt another thrill of uncertainty.

When he didn’t respond, Matthew pressed on. “So, tell me about yourself. Have you always lived here?”

“Oh.” Silas looked down at the cup of coffee in his hands. He didn’t usually answer questions about his personal life, primarily because most people didn’t ask. He was the type of person who kept mostly to himself. Dee knew all of this, and she was one of the only people who had ever broken through his walls, but few others had the same perseverance or even interest. Matthew seemed genuinely curious, though. It couldn’t hurt to share a few of the facts. “I grew up about an hour north of here. I went away to college at MIT, moved back to do graduate work at UF, and somewhere in there, Wayscorp offered me a job. I’ve been there for almost five years now.”

“And your family?”

Silas hated this question, the way his answer made him sound like a sympathy story. “I don’t have a family. My parents died a few years ago, shortly after I moved back. Car accident. I was an only child.”

“I’m sorry.” Matthew’s voice was gentle. “That must have been difficult.”

“Yes, well, you get over it.” He shrugged, giving the pat response he’d learned to give when people found out. He wasn’t sure how accurate it was. Did you ever really get over something like that? After months of being fine, he’d smell a similar perfume to his mother’s and be right back with her again, for better or worse, with all the tumultuous emotions that accompanied such a memory. He knew how to deflect the conversation. “What about you?”

“Yup, Tampa born and raised.” Matthew leaned back, draping one arm along the back of the booth. “I’m an only child, too. Did you always know you wanted to be a biomedical engineer?”

Silas remembered his affection for literature, his occasional immersion into books when the rest of the world seemed overwhelming. “I thought about going into English, but engineering seemed much more practical.” He thought about his parents’ stern rebukes against the humanities, a reminder that science was practical and serious work, the work someone with his gifts ought to be doing. “My parents felt very strongly about it.”

Matthew nodded. “That’s a lot to live up to.”

“I guess so.” Silas didn’t need to share the overwhelming guilt he felt whenever he slacked off, the unshakable feeling that he was disappointing their memory.

Matthew tipped his head to the side, surveying Silas thoughtfully. “You know, I’m starting to think there’s a lot more to you than you let on. You just keep it under wraps. I’ll bet when you unwind, there’s much more to you than just being uptight.”

Silas looked back down at the table, feeling an urge to curl his shoulders in. This type of direct confrontation was not in his comfort zone. “I don’t think of myself as uptight. I’m focused.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you focused.” Matthew put his chin on his hand again. “I think I like you better unfocused. In fact, I think I’d like to unfocus you. Tonight. Right now, actually, if you’re up for it.”

Oh. That was certainly direct. When Silas picked up his coffee cup again, his hand had a slight tremble to it, so the liquid sloshed. He forced himself to steady it as he sipped, an act that took all his concentration. When he put the cup back down, he ran his tongue over his lips to draw in the last drops of coffee. Matthew was watching him with darkened eyes, and Silas thought he could fall into those eyes and not come out of them again. He knew he was prone to staring sometimes, but Matthew met his stare head-on.

Without consciously deciding, he found himself nodding. “All right.”

Matthew gave Silas a half smirk again. “I’m parked outside. Follow me back to my place.”

---

God, what was he doing? His heart raced for the entire drive, despite deep-breathing exercises. He stayed focused on Matthew’s Honda in front of him, driving with extreme caution and trying to keep his mind on the road instead of on the very handsome, very talented man in the car in front of him. They ended up at a block of new high-rise apartments in downtown Tampa, in the quarter of the city mostly populated by up-and-coming young people and growing businesses. Silas had watched these apartment buildings going up over the last few years and wondered who was moving into them. They parked in the underground garage, and Silas got out of his car in a daze.

Matthew was waiting by his car when Silas walked over. The stale concrete-scented air of the parking garage was all around them, pressing close, making Silas feel a little claustrophobic. Maybe that was just his nervousness. When he neared Matthew, the other man took him by the hip and pressed him back against the concrete pillar next to his car, casually crowding into his space with a few steps forward.

“You been thinking about me, Silas?” Matthew asked, his voice soft and low. “You want to come upstairs to my place?”

Silas felt his knees go weak at the quiet intensity in Matthew’s voice. He nodded. “Yeah.”

Matthew smiled. Silas had seen many smiles on Matthew’s face—smiles of mirth, happiness, and mischief—but this devilish, wicked smile was turning out to be his favorite. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” He hesitated, as if deciding whether or not to act, but then stepped in closer and lowered his lips almost to Silas’s. Then paused. Silas’s heart beat a tattoo against his ribs, his lips already parted, mouth damp and waiting and needy. Matthew’s eyes were open, boring into his with an intensity that bordered on the uncomfortable, lips so close that only a breath separated them. Silas wanted to pull him in, wanted to devour and be devoured, but he remained frozen as Matthew closed the distance. Their lips brushed with only a delicate, featherlight touch, and then Matthew stepped away and left Silas reeling for balance and desperate for more.