Page 6 of Coffee and Tea

“You like it.”

“I do.” Colby sparkled at him. “So much. Feeling you, seeing you…I told you once I like seeing you dripping out of me. I do. I feel so…oh, deliciously wanted. Claimed. Taken. Oh, good heavens, everything’s all twinkly…” He held out a hand, turned it over, laughed. “Like little stars. Under my skin. So bright. Crystals. Salt. Oh, did I talk about the ocean? I’m so glad you don’t mind that I talk.”

“I love it,” Jason said, wholeheartedly. “Honey and rain and oceans. I love knowing you feel so good you just…spill over with it.”

“I feel as if I did. Spill all over, I mean.” Colby’s smile was magnificent. “And I feel as if I could bake a dozen sea-salt and caramel miniature cakes—or pie? I think I said pie, earlier—and get up and sing karaoke, and kiss you everywhere, all over…I can do anything, just now.”

“I’ll help with the cakes. Or pies. In a minute, no rush. Want some trail mix? Cinnamon cranberry.”

“Probably a good idea, thank you…” Colby waited while Jason lunged for the nightstand and the collection of aftercare options. After a bite or two, in the circle of Jason’s arm, he said, “…or go to a gala with someone I don’t want to see,” as if that was the next logical item in the sequence. The lamplight painted his hair with topaz. The lamp, rocket-shaped—an old-fashioned rocket, a Jules Verne invention, made of grace and slim fins and smoky glass—obligingly gave him a halo.

Jason took a breath, held a dried cranberry up to Colby’s mouth, sorted out an answer. “I know you want to be there.”

“I do, and I’ll have you, and I think it’ll be fine.” Colby swallowed. The oceans of his eyes brimmed over with elation, lingering joy in his face, and seriousness in his expression. “I do want to. And I can. We’ll leave if I start…not feeling well…around people, I mean in general, not only Simon. I promise I’ll tell you. I always do.”

Jason nodded. That was true; Colby did. That worked; they worked. Together.

Colby put a hand on Jason’s chest. Right over his heart. “So I can do this. Something I want. Because I do.” He paused. Gaze and hand steady. “And I want sea-salt and caramel in dessert form. And perhaps a shower. At least before baking. Since I’m a bit sticky. And I very much want you, always. With me.” He paused again. “And in me. Very much so.”

“Spilling out of you,” Jason said. “All over. We can sing in the kitchen if you want—”

“Oh, good heavens, I did say karaoke, didn’t I?”

“—we can do that right here, and.” He cupped Colby’s cheek, touched those expressive lips. “Also over there. London. In our flat. Since we’re going to your gala.”

“Everything I want,” Colby declared, and kissed Jason’s finger, “with you.”

Chapter 2

“I cannot go to this event.” Simon swung an arm dramatically, colliding hard with a stack of books on the table. And flopped over on the sofa, while Ben steadied the books in question. “I absolutely can’t. Colby Kent hates me.”

As a good husband, Ben should probably say something like don’t be silly, of course he doesn’t. As a very good, if mostly retired, spy, and one who knew that his husband had scandalized a lot of people but also carried around a fair amount of old self-loathing, he said, “Why do you think so?”

“Honestly? It’d be easier to summarize why not.”

Ben considered options. He had their reply card in one hand; he’d been expecting to say yes.

The Foundation invitation was an honor, requesting Simon’s presence as a bestselling author, as someone who’d bring others in, achievements recognized. This particular youth literary and literacy initiative did good work and championed inclusion and diversity; Ben had looked them up when the invitation had first arrived. Solid, reliable, a good cause. With, significantly, Hollywood A-list shining-star actor and screenwriter Colby Kent as supporter and sometimes spokesperson.

He looked at the card again. He’d been planning to go for a run, and to drop their reply in the mail on the way. Simon Ashley, relatively famous bestselling author, plus husband, one Benjamin Smith, decidedly not famous. Fitting together just right somehow.

The weather was nice today, an early Virginia morning made of sun and sky and their quiet neighborhood, picture-perfect, friendly and unassuming. Simon had been planning to get some writing done, after consuming a significant amount of tea; Ben had decided that he himself could work on staying in shape, because he wasn’t as young as he used to be, and then he could come home to his beautiful artistic half-pint-sized husband and pounce on Simon, assuming he wasn’t interrupting acts of literary genius.

He’d kind of wanted to meet Colby. That appeared to be in question, given his husband’s reluctance.

Ben Smith, former field agent and present-day instructor of new and eager Agency recruits, would not ever have had occasion to personally get to know silver-screen icon Colby Kent. Different lives, different worlds. But as an unabashed romance lover Ben had cheered and cried and had emotions through all those fluffy romantic comedy films, and he’d seen a few of Colby’s interviews and press tour moments. Colby was adorable and wide-eyed and endlessly sweet, and unlikely, as far as Ben could tell from the public persona, to hate anything or anyone.

He sat back down on the sliver of sofa near Simon’s hip. He put the reply card down on Simon’s imperiled book-tower. He also, after a moment’s consideration, moved his husband’s teacup out of any flailing arm’s reach.

Given his profession, he’d of course known who Colby was decades ago, for certain reasons. The only child of the American ambassador Howard Kent and the renowned upper-class literary-elite English poet Lydia Sable, parents now divorced, on frosty terms. Not the most interesting of persons of interest, but around at the fringes of diplomatic and high-society circles, and therefore a low-priority but potential target for causing stress between nations. A boy who—like Simon—had grown up amid the glittering heights of upper-crust society, with connections.

He guessed Colby and Simon likely had met, at a party or reception or some official function. They’d have been around the same age, when Colby’s family had been in London.

He asked, as tactfully as he could, “You didn’t, um, spend an evening with him, did you?”

Simon made a despairing sort of noise, and threw an arm over his face. “God, no. Not that I might not have, just for fun, to shake him up a bit. Not my type, not these days, but back then I didn’t have a type, anything and everything, and he was always just drop-dead gorgeous. Those eyes, those legs, obviously brilliant, wanting to please people. Would’ve been a delight, if he’d ever have gone for it.”

“But you didn’t.”

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