Page 49 of Carver’s Craving

Our arrangement.

In truth, I didn’t understand what he meant. About him staying here? Possibly indefinitely? Sure. I hadn’t asked him if he was job hunting because I didn’t want him to feel like he had to go. I didn’t want to do anything to shove him out the door. Or even to escort him.

Because you want him to stay.

Yeah. I did. But to what end? As sexy as I found him, I didn’t feel like I could do anything about it. As much as I was drawn to him—emotionally and physically—I was too chickenshit to act on that. Again, he might misinterpret and feel obliged to leave. Hell, I might wind up doing something completely unacceptable without knowing it.

Yeah…but he’s Steven. You could, you know, just go on the app. To see if he’s still on it. Hell, maybe he had some guy over while you were at work. To that, I rebelled. No. Styx would never take advantage of my generosity like that. Would never disrupt the dogs and their routine like that. Still… I should really try to suss out his plans.

Do you want him physically? If he propositioned you, would you turn him down? The answer should’ve been hell, yes. Because he might be doing it out of some obligation, he felt because of my hospitality. But I wasn’t sure I was that strong.

I rose and made my way over to the counter. “You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, right?”

He stood—ice cream scoop poised above the cookies and cream—and frowned. “I didn’t want to assume. But I sort of invited Ryan and Simeon without asking. Partly because I want to spend more time with them, partly because I want you to have more friends, and mostly because I don’t want to leave just yet and if you need me to cook on Saturday, then I’m good until at least Sunday or Monday.”

I grabbed the scoop. “You’re good for as long as you want. Now let’s eat this before it melts.” I bopped his biceps with my elbow.

“Okay.” Another wicked grin.

We ate our ice cream in front of the television—sharing the couch with my pooches.

With Poppin between us, though, I couldn’t bop him again. Totally juvenile move on my part—but at least we’d touched. I wanted more. I needed more. And yet… Styx hadn’t given me a sign. Certainly, he hadn’t said anything. I was a guy who needed words—even if I wasn’t good at using them myself.

“You really don’t mind watching this show?” Styx held the remote and had selected a show I’d never heard of.

“Well, it sounds interesting.”

He gazed at me and arched his eyebrow.

I shrugged. “What? Inferno something and it has to do with baking?”

“Yeah. It’s a competition.”

“Then let’s watch it. I certainly didn’t have anything else in mind.” In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to remember the last show I’d been watching. I preferred reading. Thrillers, mysteries, romantic suspense novels—anything that took me out of my mundane life. Now, I had to push Frank’s death from my mind when I read those books…but I could do that.

My hands settled on my dog.

Walter leaned into the touch.

To my surprise, though, my hand touched skin as well as fur when I went to pet Poppin.

My gaze shot to Styx. But I didn’t pull my hand away.

He didn’t either. He grinned—and then turned his attention back to the television and some mad scramble the people in chef’s whites were doing. I’d completely lost the plot—if I’d ever really had it—and now I focused on my hand next to Styx’s. Warm. Soft. The pads of his fingers wouldn’t be, however. His fingers were those of a guitarist. Who used a pick sure, but who also used his fingers on strings to create magic. He doesn’t have a guitar. He needs a guitar. “Any sign of Baxter?” Shit, I was interrupting—something I hated when other people did.

Styx hit pause. Then faced me. “Nope. I can’t decide whether to worry or get more pissed off. This isn’t like him. A day or two? Maybe. But never this long and never with my guitar.”

Ah…so I am on the right track. “What do you want to do about it?”

He pursed his lips. “I’m thinking I might call the local police tomorrow. Just—” He rubbed his forehead with the hand not resting next to mine. “I don’t even know what the window is for reporting a grown man as missing. And it’s hard to say someone’s missing when they might just have gotten in their van and driven off.”

“You said the van broke down?”

He nodded.

“Right. So he would’ve had to take it somewhere to be fixed. We have two big shops in town. One’s run by Spike. He took over from some other guy a few years ago and I can never remember the name. He’s a good guy and hey, maybe you met him? He’s married to Dickens—the owner of The Owl’s Nest.”

“Yep. Good memory. I met him Friday night. Nice guy.”