Page 16 of Sugar

“It’s a post-retirement hobby. I don’t need to work. If they won’t give me time off, I’ll put in my notice.”

“Fuck. That must be nice.” Juno’s tone was playful but a little bitter, and Piper didn’t blame him for it.

He touched Juno’s chin. “You and I are going to talk about the future of your bakery soon. For now, I don’t want you to worry. Tonight, let’s forget just like you wanted. Tomorrow, we can plan. And after that…”

“Let’s pin it and figure it out later?” Juno asked. Now, his tone was pleading, and Piper was more than happy to agree because he still didn’t know what kind of partner he was capable of being. He didn’t know what he could give Juno long-term.

All he knew was that he needed this right now.

“Kiss me,” Piper said again. “Then let me take you to bed.”

Juno pressed their lips together one last time before pulling back. “Yes. Please, yes.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Piper fidgeted at Juno’s door, waiting for him to answer. He’d been kind of a nervous wreck all morning. He started his day by calling out sick, then headed to the bookshop, where he paced the aisles, not quite sure what he was looking for.

He knew what he wanted. He’d spent hours researching online and had been at the bookshop doors before they opened, and he ignored the raised brow of the employee when he was finally let in. He felt entirely out of his depth as he perused the journals, and he let out a small breath of relief when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Can I help at all?”

Yeah, he’d been there way too long. Piper rubbed the back of his neck and offered a sheepish smile at the short woman with a name badge that read Crissy. “I’m shopping for my—uh. Friend.” Friend sounded wrong, but Juno wasn’t officially anything else to him. Not yet. And he didn’t want to say the word lover to a total stranger.

“For journals?”

Piper heaved a sigh and shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s complicated. He’s losing his vision. He won’t go completely blind, according to his eye doctors, but…” Piper trailed off with a shrug. “The internet said high contrast was the way to go, but I don’t even know how to find that. I don’t really know how that translates to paper.”

“Ah.” Crissy’s smile widened. “One of our employees has low vision, so we carry a lot of helpful things here that he helped us order.” She led him to the end of the aisle and pulled two journals from the endcap. “One of these is dark pages. We have markers here that write in bright pastels that you can see on black.” She handed him the one with a black cover and the year embossed on the front in gold foil. “This other one is white pages with really big lines, so if he needs to write larger to see it, he can use a Sharpie.”

Piper clutched them to his chest and allowed Crissy to show him the markers. He picked up way too many, but he didn’t think Juno would mind. Laugh at him? Probably, but at least he tried.

“So, your coworker. He’s good, right? His life is good?”

Crissy burst into laughter as she rang up each marker. “I’d like to think so. He’s married with kids, and he seems pretty well-adjusted.”

Piper chuckled when she winked. “Sorry, that sounded rude.”

“I’m guessing this is all very new, right? And he’s freaking out?”

Piper bit his lip and nodded. “As of the day before yesterday, I think.”

Crissy winced. “Okay, yeah. Unfortunately, Ben can’t really relate. He was born blind. He has ocular albinism, though, so he’s been dealing with contrast stuff his entire life, and he swears up and down by these markers.”

“Then I’ll take them.” Piper wasn’t entirely sure Juno would appreciate the gift, but he was willing to take the risk.

Crissy swiped his card, then handed it back and slipped the receipt into his bag. “So the one thing I’ve learned from Ben is that there’s people out there like him when he’s ready to meet others. Ben is a cool guy, but he’s also just a guy. Tell him he’s not alone.”

“Thanks,” Piper said. He wasn’t sure he could tell that to Juno. His life hadn’t exactly been full of people who gave a shit, and he wasn’t sure hearing that wouldn’t trigger a flood of trauma. But he appreciated the sentiment, and it felt nice that a total stranger would give a shit.

He smiled at Crissy and grabbed his bags, then proceeded to have a small anxiety attack in his car at the thought of doing this all wrong. The risk was worth it, yes, but he wasn’t sure he was prepared to deal with the possible fallout of getting it all wrong.

But he was determined to try, and that alone calmed him down. Juno deserved people in his life who were willing to fight for them. And, more than that, who were willing to just stay.

And that was why he was standing at Juno’s front door about four hours after dropping him off. Juno had asked him to come over after his shift, and Piper hadn’t told him that he was calling out, so there was surprise written all over Juno’s face when he opened the door.

“Uh? You’re here? I thought you had work.”

“I called out sick. And I got you something,” Piper said, shuffling from one foot to the other.

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