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I smiled and folded my arms over my Posy Pusher apron. “I hope the Beavers are paying you well. You’ve spent a small fortune on flowers the past couple of weeks.”
His eyes flared as his cheeks went from pink to scarlet. “Oh, I well...yeah, I do good. I mean for a rookie and all. I just...the flowers are for important things.”
“I know. Yesterday’s order to thank Prime Minister Trudeau for liking your tweet about poutine was really thoughtful.”
He stared at me openly, jaw loose, for a few seconds. “They make the best poutine in Toronto and I just thought that he should...shit.” He tugged off his toque and began twisting it in his hands. “Okay, so I think that maybe you’re onto me, yeah?”
His gaze lifted from his hat to me. The passion I saw in his eyes felt like a kick to the gut from a mule. It left me a little breathless and lot confused.
“Are you coming here to flirt with me?” I asked. The damn phone rang as he opened his mouth to reply. I held up a finger. “Let me take this.”
He nodded. I hurried to scribble down an order for a dozen roses to be delivered tomorrow morning in my aunt’s old neighborhood. When that was done, I laid down my pencil and order pad.
“Are you mad that I’m coming in here to see you?” He asked so quietly the soft rock piped into the front of the store nearly drowned out his query.
“Mad? No, of course not. I’m flattered!”
He smiled with relief. My whole being grew warm as cinnamon toast dipped in hot cocoa.
“Okay good. I’m not so experienced with this. Flirting. I’ve not done it much with men.”
The floorboards creaked overhead Aunt Midge was making lunch for us in her apartment. Minestrone soup, she had said, so she’d not be interrupting for a bit. I leaned closer, my forearms coming to rest on the counter.
“Are you closeted?”
“No, not really. Maybe. No. I don’t think so. I just...it never came up.” He started twisting his toque again. “See, it’s not that I’m scared to be seen with a man I just never had time to date much. All I’ve done since I was three was play hockey. It’s been my whole life.”
“Youhavedated men though, right?”
He shrugged. “A couple quick pick-ups here and there. Now that I’m on the Beavers, not much. At all. It’s a funny thing. I feel that the team would be okay with it but it’s awkward to go to a bar and be the only one checking out guys.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” It was tough when you weren’t the default setting. “So youarecoming here to see me?” He nodded, the blush on his cheeks spreading top his ears. “And that leads me to the confused part of all this. Bailey, I’m much older than you are.”
“I know.”
Oh. “And I have this.” I waved to my face.
He tipped his head. “Eyeballs? I have eyeballs too but they’re not as pretty as your brown ones.” His lips curled at the corners when I coughed in embarrassment.
“No, not my eyeballs. The scarring. And my belly.” I didn’t stand. There was no need to show off my middle-age spread.
“You have a nice belly. And ass. And smile. You’re a gamer. Such a nice smile. And pretty brown eyes. And a fine beard. I’ve never kissed a man with a beard.”
Oh hell. He licked his lips as a fire ignited in his eyes. We both felt the pull of the moment and leaned closer to each other.
“Soup’s ready. Is he back again? I wish you’d just tell him that you think he’s dreamy so we could stop with all the cow eyes at his backside when he leaves.”
My aunt’s voice cut into the romantic moment like a rusty chain saw. Bailey jumped back, hit a display stand, and knocked a ceramic bowl filled with red tulips and baby’s breath to the floor. Clean-up took no time. The man was obviously mortified and so my aunt invited him to have lunch because...just because she was my aunt.
Aunt Midge kept talking about his backside and soup as the three of us climbed to her second floor apartment. Bailey was stunned into silence as my aunt took it upon herself to give him my whole romantic history.
“...maybe he should get onto that meat grinder application thing that all the gays use.”
“Grindr?” Bailey asked as snow piled up on the windowsill behind him. I shuffled in my seat.
“I think it would be kinder too,” she replied, which made Bailey cough on a spoonful of soup.
“Aunt Midge, no. He said Grindr. And can we not talk about my sex life anymore?”
