Page 4 of Temptation at Randy's

Uh… should I be offended?

“What do you mean?”

They just groaned.

“Sorry, sorry. Julian keeps saying it’s funny how I have no way with words.” They rolled their eyes at some memory I wasn’t privy to. I knew who Julian was, obviously—Ben’s boyfriend, and the other half of one of the longest-lasting queer couples online. But Julian wasn’t in many videos, and he definitely did not talk a lot when he was there. “I just mean… There are different kinds of introverts, right? There are the ones who… stay introverted, I guess. Then there are the ones who are introverted at first, but then you give them some time, and boom, they suddenly don’t shut up. And the ones who benefit from a third person to move from introvert to not shutting up.”

Huh.

I guess I was that, then. My cheeks still heated up, though. Was it a good thing, a bad thing… a neutral observation? I couldn’t tell.

TWO

Claude

Personally, I blamed Ben. Julian, too—but that was just because it annoyed him, and annoying him was fun. The thing was, we were FaceTiming yesterday, and Ben had just come back from a meet with fans. He’d been charged up, going on about how he didn’t understand how I didn’t miss meets.

And… I did. Obviously, I didn’t tell him, but I did. It had been our thing, too.

We’d meet up at a diner or an overpriced café with a few select fans. It was cool. They were chill for the most part. Sure, I didn’t come across as the friendliest, and I had to set boundaries a time or two, but…

Maybe it was an ego thing, but it was nice to be around someone who was so invested in seeing you thrive. Someone who was so happy that you were living your best, out life in the open. I didn’t get that anywhere else, so the meets had had a healing factor attached to them.

Meets were not the same as one-on-ones, though. Arlene wasn’t the only one who functioned best when she had a clutch. Well, I knew how to turn on a persona and act approachable. It was exhausting, though, and I was out of practice.

Arlene was intriguing, though. I’d seen her at Randy’s before. The PR agency I was working at wasn’t too far from here, and I’d quickly become a regular. The food—I was biased to their cheesy fries—was amazing, they had a good, queer-friendly crowd, and they hosted community events, too. I’d made a promise to myself that if they hired me here and I relocated, I was going to make an effort to build a network.

Randy’s was the best way to do that.

“So, what do you do when you’re not telling people they can’t have avocado toast for breakfast?”

Arlene spluttered for a second. It was cute.

“I don’t tell people that,” she protested. Cute. “But, uh, I like baking? I mean, I like it a lot. It’s my way to decompress, basically.”

“What’s your best dessert?”

“What do you mean?” Her head tilted to the side as she spoke.

“Like…” I licked my lips. Man, I was hungry, too. I couldn’t wait to get my fries. “If you were to bake something to impress a date, what would you do?”

“Oh.” Heat reddened her cheeks, spreading down her neck. “I mean, it depends. On what they like, I mean.”

“Right.” Should I take pity on her? I bet most people would say I should. I was curious, though. I’d once read a book where a character said they tested people by seeing how they reacted under pressure or when their anxiety ran high. I supposed I internalized some of that mentality. “I like cheese. All kinds. And chocolate. And berries. No coconut, though. Well, I like the flavor of coconut oil, but the texture is icky.”

I assumed she was going to say cheesecake with something. It was the unknown something that had me salivating. Man, back home, there was this small bakery that delivered to my place…

I missed it.

“I’d probably go for cheesecake bars.” Arlene swallowed, maybe self-conscious about the confidence in her tone. It was hot as fuck and definitely grabbed my attention. “I haven’t fucked those up in years.”

“What are those?”

“Basically a cheesecake, but the base is cereal, or Oreo cookies, and marshmallow fluff or honey. I go with one or the other depending on what I add to the cheese batter.”

Ohh.

Ohh, I wanted those.

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