Page 91 of Time to Shine

“No,” Landon said, after a long moment of thinking about it. “I’m tired. And I don’t think it would work anyway.”

“Okay.” Casey kissed him. “For the record, sex still ‘works’ even if you don’t come. I mean, if you want to tap out before coming. Not that it’s cool to not even try to make someone come, or to give up on them when they still want to. As long as everyone is feeling good and gets what they want, it totally works.”

Landon seemed to consider this. “Would you call what we just did sex?”

Casey raised his head. “Hell yeah it was. Technically, I would call it amazing sex.”

Landon smiled, all shy and adorable. “Amazing?”

“Uh, yeah. You think I was bananas about you before? Bananas times a thousand now, bud.”

Casey carefully, and reluctantly, detached himself from Landon and went to the bathroom for some damp facecloths. He cleaned them both up, tossed the facecloths on the floor because that was a tomorrow problem, then crawled into bed, pulling the blankets over them both. Landon rolled to face him.

“Not to make things weird, but this was the best night of my life.”

Casey’s stomach flipped. “Aw, Stacks. Just wait until tomorrow night.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Casey had been disappointed to find himself alone when he’d woken up the next morning, but his disappointment only lasted until he registered the smell of food being cooked.

He threw on some sweats and bounded down the stairs like a kid on Christmas morning, because that was the level of giddiness and joy he was at. He wanted to run in circles in his living room gleefully shouting Landon’s name. He wanted to throw open the windows and announce to the world that he’d had sex with him and that he maybe would again. Maybe today. They’d been given the whole day off to allow for Christmas party recovery.

Instead, he went to kitchen and found Landon making pancakes. Fucking pancakes!

Casey took a chance and kissed the back of Landon’s neck. “Good morning.”

“Hi.” He turned to smile at Casey over his shoulder. “Hungry?”

“Starving. I can’t believe you’re making pancakes!” Casey moved to stand next to Landon, and leaned on the countertop. “How do you know when to flip them?”

Landon gestured with the spatula. “They get little bubbles. When there are enough of them, you flip it.”

Casey leaned in to examine the bubbling batter. “How many is enough?”

“I don’t know. Just, like, more than a few.” He flipped the pancake with the spatula. It was perfectly golden brown on the other side.

“You should open a pancake restaurant,” Casey said. “Stacks’s Stacks!”

“Oh my god.”

“Can you do the thing where you flip the pancake into the air and catch it in the pan?”

“No.”

“Aw, come on.”

Landon sighed heavily, and then did the thing. The pancake did a neat little flip in midair, then landed dead center back in the pan.

“Happy?” Landon said flatly.

“That was so sexy.” It really was. Maybe Casey had a competency kink. He filed that away to contemplate later.

“Sexy,” Landon scoffed.

“Yup. You know what else was sexy?”

Landon’s whole neck and most of his face was pink now. “What?”

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