Page 152 of Pride High

Anthony couldn’t think of anything clever to say in response. He simply stared in admiration, because Charles was stunning in a way that he’d never conceived of before.

“I love your egg salad sandwiches,” Cameron said when accepting a plate.

“Thankfully,” Charles replied. “I’m a bit of a one-trick pony in the kitchen. There’s nothing but eggs in the fridge. And the chicken who lays them.”

“He’s full of it,” Cameron said. “The chicken lives in the yard.”

They both laughed when Anthony glanced around to look for it. He blushed and considered the sandwiches, which used a firmer and thinner bread than what he’d grown up with. There were little green squiggly things in it too. Sprouts maybe? Charles poured them tea from an actual kettle, recommending honey instead of sugar when Anthony admitted that he wasn’t sure what he’d like in it. Then they all settled down to talk.

“You know,” Charles said, “when Cameron told me that he found someone, I pictured another little Mormon boy like him.”

Anthony snorted so hard that tea almost shot through his nose.

Cameron rolled his eyes.

Charles smiled as if pleased. “I didn’t expect you to have such a vicious sense of style, Anthony. I’d love to rummage through your closet. If only you’d get out of it and make some room.”

“We’re working on that,” Cameron assured him. “I planned on coming out today, until my parents had a meltdown.”

“Still doing theirHoneymoonersroutine, eh?”

Cameron nodded. “Yeah. The usual.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Charles said, reaching across the table to pat his hand. “So you brought your boyfriend to meet your dear old auntie instead.”

Anthony guffawed before blushing. He felt so awkward. As if he was starstruck, which was silly, because he knew almost nothing about this person. Struggling to find his voice, he asked, “How’d you two meet?”

“Well!” Charles said, setting down his teacup and leaning back. “Have you heard about the time Cameron bonked a bully with a bagel?”

“Yeah,” Anthony said with a dopey smile.

“I wasn’t there for that part, although I do enjoy thinking about it while grocery shopping. And I’ve been tempted to use similar tactics when mothers try to shield their children from me, as if my glamour and prestige is somehow contagious. But how did such a fascinating creature come to grace this world with her presence? It all goes back to when I was a little girl.”

Cameron cleared his throat.

“Oh fine,” Charles said, pretending to sulk. “We’ll skip to the part where I finally laid eyes on you. I had just finished my lunch break. We deliver meals to the elderly, and if I recall, we’d lost someone that day, so I was literally eating off a dead man’s plate. Not in front of the body or anything gruesome like that. We’d received a call earlier, so it would have gone to waste, and I was terribly busy. I returned from my hurried meal with a to-do list longer than Whitney Houston’s weave, when what did I find beneath my desk but the cutest young man I’d ever seen.”

“That would be me,” Cameron said, raising his hand. “I knowit sounds bad—”

“Criminal even!” Charles declared.

“—but I was down there for a reason.”

“The wood?” Anthony guessed, not intending it as a joke, but the others laughed anyway.

“He knows me too well,” Cameron said, smiling at him.

“And you know your antiques,” Charles murmured. “Myself included.”

“It was a white oak roll-top desk from the… Victorian era, I think?”

“Edwardian more likely,” Charles said, “but it’s a trivial difference. Despite the unusual situation, we hit it off right away.”

“And I ended up learningwaymore than I knew before,” Cameron confided.

“Mostly because I put him to work,” Charles said with a wry grin. “My husband and I dabble in antiques, and we had a storage unit filled with furniture that we’d always intended to restore and sell.”

“So it didn’t matter that I lost my job,” Cameron said. “I found a new one that I liked way better.”

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