Page 150 of Pretty ’n Peak

Austin’s smile didn’t falter. “I’d like to think so. And I think our ground rules are long overdue for some revision. I’ve been so caught up in my own stuff that I haven’t been communicating very well. Teo, I am very interested in you. And if you can find it in you to put up with an older guy who’s still figuring himself out and might make some mistakes, I’d like you to be my–” He squinted. “–well, whatever the nonbinary equivalent of boyfriend is.”

Mateo found himself nodding before he could even speak. “Yes! Yes. I mean…” That was really all there was to say. “Yes.”

Well, he would answer differently when they were in private. Yes, Daddy.

“Good.” Austin looked supremely happy. He held out his hands and Mateo took them. His boyfriend’s hands.

Damn.

A throat-clearing caught his attention and he looked up. A server was waiting a few feet from the table, notepad at the ready.

Oops.

“Sorry, we’re uh…” Mateo tried to disentangle their fingers, but Austin held tight.

“No worries,” the server put in. “I didn’t want to interrupt your moment. But are you ready to order?”

Mateo hadn’t even looked at the menu. Austin squeezed his hands. “Want me to order for both of us?”

“Sure.” Was this a Dom thing? A Daddy thing? Or just knowing that Mateo’s head was spinning?

Either way, he kind of liked knowing that Austin already knew what he liked to eat and wanted to get it for him. Although… wasn’t he supposed to be taking Austin out tonight? They’d have to get back to that.

Austin rattled off a few names in quick succession, then added at the end. “Oh, and can you bring some hot sauce with that?”

God, those little things. His boyfriend! Mateo had a boyfriend.

Their food came out while they chatted, an eclectic menu that Austin asked Mateo to divide between them. Lemon-baked chicken with green beans. Gooey mac-n-cheese. A small pizza with fresh mozzarella. And some little puffed pastries with meat inside.

“This food doesn’t make any sense together,” Mateo noted in amusement.

“No. It’s just the four best things on the menu. And I knew you’d like them all.”

Mateo did. Especially slathered in hot sauce.

Especially when Daddy was rubbing his foot up the inside of his leg and talking about all of the things they could do together this weekend. And the next.

Mateo was happily agreeing to all of it, until he looked up and ice shot through his veins. Was that…? He whipped his head around to check. Then turned back just as quickly to hide his face, yanking his hand from Austin’s loose fingers.

“Babe? Is something wrong?”

He waited until the slender woman in the purple dress and curly black hair came close enough that he could watch her without being observed.

As soon as she passed by, he slumped in his seat.

“I thought I saw my sister.”

“Maria José?”

His heart was still thumping. “No, the other one. Sofia. She’s the only one in my family who lives in Portland. Well, and a cousin who I’m not as close to. I don’t know if he would recognize me.”

“But your sister would.” Austin stated it as a fact.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I just panicked. I can’t…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t want to come out like this.”

The last two minutes had taken years off his life. “I know it sounds dramatic, but…”

“But you’re risking a lot,” Austin finished gently.