Page 68 of The Shots You Take

That stung a bit, but Adam ignored it. “It’ll be fun,” he said, and hoped he was right. He was very curious about Riley’s friends, and about his rural gay life in general. He was also legitimately curious about the process of making maple syrup. He imagined the dinner being nothing but stacks of pancakes. He wouldn’t hate that.

“I’m starving,” he announced.

“If only you had fifty or sixty cookies.”

“Those are for later.”

“If those aren’t gone by noon, I’ll be surprised.”

Adam smiled. “I’ll pace myself. I’m not exercising like I used to. I’ve gotta watch it.” He patted his stomach.

Riley glanced at him quickly, before he began backing out of the parking spot. “You look all right to me.”

Adam rode that high for most of the drive back to Riley’s house. They’d left things in a weird place last night. He’d told Riley he’d been in love with him, Riley had kissed him, Adam had told Riley he wanted to do things right this time, yet somehow all of that added up to a lot of uncertainty about what they were doing now.

At the house, Riley dropped Adam off, and Lucky took his place in the passenger seat. Adam stood beside the truck and talked to Riley through the open driver side window.

“Text me if you have any questions,” Riley said, “or if…”

“If I get lonely?” Adam tried.

Riley’s cheeks darkened as he smiled. “Sure.”

“I will. Have a good day.”

“Thanks. Don’t let Cathy bully you.”

“I won’t.”

“And, um…” Riley’s hand kneaded the steering wheel anxiously. “We can maybe talk. Later.”

“I’d like that.”

Riley nodded. “Okay. See you later, then.”

Adam wanted to kiss him goodbye, but he settled for quickly squeezing Riley’s shoulder. “See you.”

Adam resolved, as he watched Riley back out of the driveway, to try to woo the man a little. He wanted to give him all the open affection and adoration that he deserved, and that Adam had been too scared to offer before, all those years ago. To let him know, without pushing, that he was serious about wanting to earn whatever Riley was willing to offer.

Chapter Twenty

The first thing Riley noticed as he walked into his house after work was that it smelled like fish.

“Shep?” he called out. Lucky barked, once again alerting Riley that they had an intruder. “Iknow, Lucky.”

He heard Adam swear, and then say, “In the kitchen!”

Riley mentally prepared for the possible total destruction of his kitchen as he approached the room, but was shocked to see the opposite. Adam was standing by the stove, wearing an apron and stirring something in Riley’s largest pot. Fresh parsley was chopped on a small wooden cutting board, and, most startlingly, there was a large bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table, arranged in one of Riley’s vintage green glass vases.

“Hi,” Adam said, smiling shyly.

It was probably a symptom of Riley’s age, or maybe the fact that he was, at his core, a deeply boring man, but he realized in that moment that he was looking at his ultimate fantasy.

“Hi,” Riley said. “Um.”

Lucky barked once, letting Riley know he’d discovered the intruder, then left the kitchen to inspect the rest of the house.

“I made dinner,” Adam said. “I’ll warn you now, I’m notmuch of a cook, but I found this cookbook and thought, hey, I can probably manage a fish chowder.”

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