Page 11 of State of Mind

Someone very new, in fact, and very out of place. The stranger hung back, looking awkward with his hair impeccably styled and a thin, gauzy scarf wrapped around his neck in spite of the summer evening heat. He wore a white tank-top with a jean vest, and his legs were perfectly outlined in his artfully torn jeans. Wilder might have guessed he was in college if it weren’t for the faint crow’s feet at the edges of his dark eyes, and just a hint of grey at the temples of his near pitch-black hair.

He looked a bit lost, his eyes wide behind his glasses, darting around, almost like he was searching for an exit. Wilder felt sorry for the man—in all honesty. He was tall, and he was gorgeous, and he looked like he would never, ever belong in a place like Savannah.

Wilder knew what that felt like—those achingly long weeks as he scrubbed all traces of the Leib brothers from the shop. And it wasn’t because he didn’t want to preserve something old and important to the city. He had been just so damn desperate to have something that belonged to him—and only him.

It had taken a while—it had taken blood, sweat, tears, and shouldering the comments that his cupcakes were good, but Adam and Talia’s food was better, and how much they missed Noah’s face in the window. He sucked it up and went by each day with a smile and a straight back, and suddenly Savannah became home.

People stopped comparing him to what was, and people started treating him like he belonged. He felt wanted—as himself—for the first time in his life.

“Do you know who that is?” Wilder asked as Jayden slid up to them with two bottles of wine. It wasn’t enough for the night, but it would get them started.

Jayden’s eyes followed Wilder’s gaze, then his mouth stretched into a grin. “Yes. I told you about him. Adriano’s brother?”

Wilder frowned until it dawned on him. “Oh my god, he’s…he’s…”

“Right?” Jayden asked. “God, their entire family is fucking delicious.”

Wilder rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Jayden he was wrong—because he wasn’t. Adriano was sculpted beauty, which came with the territory of making adult films. His body was for sale, and he kept it pristine. But even under the weightlifting and strict diets, Adriano had a sort of simmering allure—hot and almost untouchable.

Of course, Wilder knew that was just his look. Noah touched—a lot. And most people who saw them together didn’t totally understand, but the more Wilder had gotten to know them over the years during their visits, the more he had come to understand the appeal of both sides.

His brother, though, looked nothing like him. There was a passing resemblance in the cut of his jaw and the brown of his eyes, but he didn’t have the same confidence. He held his head up like owned the place, but Wilder had been good at reading body language for years—and he knew false arrogance and insecurity when he saw it. The poor man was teeming with it.

“What’s his name again?” he asked, stealing another long look before turning his attention back to Jayden.

His friend lifted his hand to spell, ‘Luca,’ in slow letters.

Luca. It was fitting. He looked like he belonged in an art gallery sipping wine and staring at a canvas with a piece of string tied to a nail or something. It almost made him laugh, but he knew that wasn’t fair. Luca and Adriano both came from very different worlds—just like Wilder had. Wilder’s upbringing just helped him fit into a place like Savannah a little more than the streets of Malibu.

‘Ready?’ Wilder signed.

Talia nodded. “I won the bet.”

“Does that really count if you have to give her a profit percentage?” Knox asked, and Talia simply grinned and held the wine bottles up by the neck.

Knox muttered something under his breath as he held the door for them, and even if Wilder could have heard him over the crowd, he wouldn’t have understood.

Talia replied with a snappy tone, but Wilder missed the conversation as his eyes trailed back over to Luca—who was hovering in the back of his booth. He had his hand around a martini and a smile on his face. But though he was surrounded by people, he looked absolutely and completely alone.

* * *

“You’re irritated.” The words slipped out before Wilder could stop himself, but instead of Talia getting annoyed, she just let out a small snort of laughter and shook her head.

“Well spotted.”

They had been sitting side-by-side with their feet in the pool for a while, sharing the last dredges of Jayden’s winning bottles, not saying much. Knox had disappeared early on, and then Jayden got bored and went to hunt down his boyfriend, which left Wilder and Talia who were only just starting to creep into friendship.

Talia was, by nature, an acerbic person. She hadn’t warned Wilder off, but she hadn’t been entirely welcoming at first, either. Wilder understood—on some level.

“You know how Oscar and I have been toying with the idea of joining forces with a new food truck?” she said softly.

It was something Talia had been talking about for the last few months, so he nodded.

“I had a meeting with him this afternoon and—” Talia rubbed her fingers through the back of her hair, and she huffed through her nose. “We’re not seeing eye to eye on an issue right now.”

Wilder cocked his head to the side, putting his right ear a bit closer to Talia since he could hear a fraction better that way. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Talia turned her face up toward the sky. “Have you met Paxton?”

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