Page 5 of Sugar

Juno rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I can drink.”

“I mean, you’re old enough, right?”

“Excuse you, old man,” Juno said with a dramatic gasp, holding his chest. It felt good to be normal for a second. “Are you here to steal my innocence?”

Piper’s eyes darkened as he stalked forward, and Juno had a moment of profound anger and grief thinking at some point he was probably going to lose Piper’s face. He stared hungrily, desperate to imprint the image in his memory. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

Piper’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Not as young as I was afraid of, but still a?—”

“Don’t say a child. Trust me, I’ve never really been a child,” Juno warned.

Piper held up both hands. “I wouldn’t dare. And I’m going to buy you a drink. And dinner. Close the shop.”

Juno wanted to argue because he couldn’t really afford to lose a whole evening of business, but in reality, he knew he’d just end up spending the night trying to frost cupcakes blind without any idea how to really do it. Then he’d get frustrated, glare customers out of the store. He might as well take the loss and spend the evening with Piper, making himself feel better.

There were worse ways to spend his night.

“I didn’t drive tonight,” Juno said.

Piper grinned at him. “I’ll be your chauffeur. Meet me at the garage in fifteen.” He was gone before Juno could answer, leaving him with shaking hands and a rapidly beating heart.

CHAPTER TWO

The most frustrating part about Piper’s new job wasn’t that it was mall security. It was that everyone assumed he considered it demeaning. After all, how did a man go from being an astronaut to walking around chasing tweens out of Sephora? No one considered he wanted this change. That he needed this change.

That the stress of his former job was worse on his heart than space had been.

He didn’t need to work anyway. He had plenty of money that he could have retired early and lived happily and comfortably for the rest of his life. But he was also the sort of man who needed to keep busy. His life before this had been raising his little brother—minding Phoenix and making sure that he grew up as adjusted as he could be to a world not built for him.

Then Phoenix had to go and meet the love of his life, and suddenly, Piper was without purpose. Which wasn’t strictly true. Not really. He just needed to figure out how to live his life for himself instead of a demanding job and a sibling who was no longer a child.

So, he moved. Phoenix and Maddox decided that they were going to head to the West Coast, so Piper did a little house-hunting and found a place near the beach forty miles north. He tried a few at-home hobbies before he got bored, and a week later, he stumbled on the mall security job.

The man who hired him was younger than he was and confused when he looked at Piper’s resume.

“I did your background check,” Karl said. “You’re not lying about any of this. You have a PhD in astrophysics. You spent two years on the International Space Station.”

Piper had shrugged. He had, yes. But he’d been back on Earth for a long while now. He’d adjusted to normal gravity. He stopped dropping things midair and expecting them to float up instead of fall down. His health was doing better, and in his last checkup, his cardiologist seemed confident that his condition was going to improve.

Provided he didn’t push it. Or fuck with his cholesterol too much.

He was presently on a list to get a cardiac alert dog, but the one he’d chosen was still in the womb and would need at least two years of growing and training, which he was willing to be patient for. He didn’t mind a little while on his own before he had a companion. He went to work, and did his job, and made friends with his neighbors, and it was fine.

He even took up flirting with the adorable baker at Sugar, eating too many baked goods and hoping that his blood sugar levels weren’t shot when he went in for his labs. It was nice. He liked Juno. The man was striking and sweet and didn’t ask too many questions. He didn’t recognize Piper, but he didn’t treat him like some low-level mall cop either.

He was just…kind.

And he was also sad. And the afternoon Piper walked in on him frosting cupcakes with a towel wrapped around his eyes, he was scared.

Piper recognized the look on Juno’s face—something had shattered inside him. He figured a death in the family. He hadn’t expected Juno to tell him he was going blind. On the way back to his office to clock out, he let himself get a little wobbly about it.

It was fucked. It was beyond fucked.

Piper himself had been at risk of losing his vision. Space could deform the retina and leave permanent damage. He hadn’t been up on the ISS long enough for it to happen, but it had been one of the many, many things he’d been warned about.

Juno was clearly starting to crack, but he was holding himself together better than Piper ever could. This wasn’t the way he’d wanted to integrate himself into Juno’s life. Hell, he’d been on the fence about acting on his urges the entire time. Juno had a lot of life in his eyes. There was something about him that called to Piper, but what did that make him?

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