Page 57 of Candy Hearts
“Over an hour.”
William closed his eyes. Here he was, making the exact same mistakes he’d always made. “I’m so sorry.”
Benji shrugged and moseyed over to the squat bookcase in the corner. It was full of old college textbooks. “It’s fine. I don’t mind. You lost several days to the power outage. Your job is important, William. Don’t feel guilty about being good at it,butwe’re eating lunch, and I will eat your entire helping of pancakes if you don’t get your ass out there.”
“Where did the pancakes come from?”
Benji froze, hovering halfway over the bookcase.
“Benji? Everything okay?”
Benji stood up abruptly. “Huh?”
“Where did the pancakes come from?” William repeated.
“Manuel went to the store for ingredients.” His voice sounded odd. Not bad, exactly, but a little artificial.
“Come here.”
With a slight shrug, like he was shaking off a fly, Benji stepped over Wren’s cosmetics bag to land on William’s lap.
“Hi, valentine,” William said, pressing a tiny kiss to his cheek.
Benji blinked a few times, nodding to himself. Then he kissed William, dirty and wet and full of need.
* * *
Benji was breathless, and not because he was kissing William like there was no tomorrow.
That paper on the bookcase. Fuck.
What had the title been? “Prospective Partner Criteria.”
Benji licked into William’s mouth. He didn’t want to face this yet. Bullet points danced in his mind’s eye though.
Thirty-five or older
Business professional or business owner with high investment in career
William cupped Benji’s shoulders. It felt spectacular to be held and caressed. Almost spectacular enough to distract him.
Must like nonfiction,The New Yorker, and true crime podcasts
What the hell was that?Must like, it said. As if people who didn’t read nonfiction were somehow not smart enough for William.
Was he too young for William? Not successful enough? Acceptable for a fling but nothing else?
Serious demeanor, thoughtful, good taste
That last one burned Benji’s retinas. Serious, thoughtful, tasteful. Benji really wasn’t any of those things.
Someone else had written, “Doesn’t want a sugar daddy,” followed by “Must throw down in the kitchen” at the end of the list. Benji couldn’t even do the easiest thing on the list. He was a trash cook.
And the sugar daddy thing … it highlighted their differences. Benji didn’t want a sugar daddy. It had never crossed his mind, but he did want William, and there was a disparity there. Benji was solidly blue collar, solidly lower-middle class. William could actually be a sugar daddy if he wanted. That type of financial solvency was unfathomable to Benji.
Shit, shit, shit.
William pulled back, biting Benji’s bottom lip before releasing it. “What’s wrong?”
