Page 11 of Relief Pitcher

Tyler shook his head. “Want help?”

I stood. “You a good cook?”

One side of Tyler’s mouth tilted into a grin I admired for a few moments too long.

“If you ask my roommates, they’d emphatically argue that I barely know how to boil water.”

“Want to learn some things?” I wasn’t sure why I invited him to join me in cooking, but I supposed I was making the most of having someone in the house who wasn’t Danita. With Tyler I could pretend I wasn’t some lonely guy withering away in the woods, terrified to put himself out there.

I decided to make spaghetti with a homemade sauce. It was simple enough and didn’t require a ton of attention, but I could show off with a few tricks. Not that I had any reason to.

After I demonstrated how to cut a bell pepper, he popped another piece of sliced bell pepper into his mouth.

“I can’t believe I cut these up. That trick you showed me of pushing down the stem and prying it open with my hands made them a hell of a lot less intimidating. I thought all those curves meant it would be hell to cut.” Tyler eagerly stared down at the cutting board full of uneven pieces of red, green, and yellow bell peppers.

“You did good. Now that you know how to open them and remove the seeds, you could fill each half with ground meat and spices to make a stuffed bell pepper. It’s pretty easy.” I wasn’t a chef by any stretch of the imagination, but Tyler seemed impressed by my cooking skills. Shamelessly, I wanted to keep impressing him. I’d forgotten what that felt like. The only people I’d impressed were customers at work.

Tyler turned and leaned his hip against the counter. “Don’t tell my roommates, or they’ll expect me to cook stuff.” He winked, which made my stomach flip. “What’s it like to live all the way out here?”

I stirred the vegetable mixture as it sautéed. “Quiet.”

He snorted. “Shocking. Are you one of those people who gets off on trees? Is that why you’re a tree doctor and live in the forest? Is there an A&E episode about you and your forbidden, misunderstood love?”

“Are you one of those people who gets off on beer? Do you roll around naked in a vat of hops?” I arched my eyebrow at him while trying not to picture the fictional scene.

He hooked his bottom lip with his teeth. “No, but now I kind of want to try it. Austin would kill me, but I bet we could go viral on social media. Or do some sort of charity calendar and raise money for the queer youth shelter in Portland.”

He scratched his face and stared at the ceiling. I could practically see the wheels turning in his head. There was a focused seriousness there that I hadn’t seen in the hours we’d spent together. He’d gone from frat boy to professional in a moment.

We continued chatting as the sauce cooked.

“How many plates should I grab? You expecting anyone home for dinner?” Tyler asked as he opened the cupboard I directed him to when he offered to set the table.

The breezy question nearly floated on by, but it stung. A stark reminder of who used to live here. “Nope. I live alone.” I didn’t exactly want to declare that I was a single hermit who hadn’t been with anyone in years.

I watched the pot of water inch toward boiling. Tyler was putting out some pretty clear signals. I knew enough about his brewery to know each owner was queer. Not that his being queer equaled interest in me, but his flirting made that pretty obvious.

Tyler might be a great person to hook up with to get over whatever block was preventing me from “getting back out there,” as Danita liked to call it. She’d been trying to get me on the dating apps for a long time.

It was hard to imagine getting over the initial hump of being intimate with someone for the first time since Aleck had died. It felt like a big deal, but I didn’t want it to be. Part of me wanted to get it over with, but something kept stopping me from ripping the bandage off.

Then again, being around Tyler was the first time I’d experienced something stirring that wasn’t from watching porn. It had to mean I was ready for…something, right?

As Tyler rummaged through my wine rack and held up a red blend, I let myself imagine what it would be like to take his flirting seriously. Honestly, it was the perfect situation. One night under the same roof. A guy who openly said he wasn’t looking for a relationship. Someone who would probably be a hell of a lot of fun and wouldn’t laugh at my being rusty.

But doing that under the same roof I’d shared with Aleck? I wasn’t sure I could. Then again, if his spirit was hanging around, he sure as hell would love the show.

The conversation stayed light through dinner and a few episodes of a workplace comedy. After his third jaw-splitting yawn, I suggested I get the couch and him set up for bed.

I grabbed a toothbrush from my dentist swag stash and a clean shirt for him to sleep in. He returned to the living room fully in my clothes while I was getting the sofa bed ready.

“This shirt is soft as hell. Where’d you get it?”

“Costco.”

“Haute couture.”

I laughed, but I hadn’t seen anyone in my clothes since Aleck. Ever since Tyler practically landed on my doorstep, Aleck had been at the forefront of my mind, but I supposed having another man in my space for the first time would do that. A good night’s sleep would sort me out. Time to process was all I needed to get my equilibrium back.

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