Page 2 of Sugared

Leland shook his head. “Not necessary. Your bus should be here any second to take you back to school, and I have some errands to run, so I wouldn’t be able to supervise you.”

He definitely had errands now. The class had decimated his store of sugar, and he needed at least three dozen more eggs for the class he had to teach that afternoon. And those were only things for Hawthorne House’s teaching kitchen. He needed a few things for his own fridge upstairs in his flat.

He directed the students to clean up as much as possible while they could, and when their bus arrived, he grabbed his keys and headed out to his car. The other nice thing about teaching for a living instead of working in a busy kitchen was that he had more free time to get things like errands done.

And who knew? Maybe one day soon, he’d actually have time to date again, too. It had been ages since he’d gone out with anyone and even longer since he’d stayed in with them. He felt ready to start the next, romantic chapter of his life. He couldn’t say what it was, but he’d been feeling a sort of buzz in the air, like the man for him was just waiting to stumble into his life. Maybe he needed to start attending some of The Brotherhood’s theme nights at The Chameleon Club to help the process along a little.

He pulled into the parking lot of his favorite local grocery store, cut his car’s engine, then entered the tiny shop with a smile on his face. He didn’t need to shop at the huge, overcrowded grocery chains when all he needed were basics, and he loved the idea of supporting local entrepreneurs. Javed was one of the new friends he’d made in the last few months because of it.

He found a basket and quickly gathered what he needed before approaching the front counter. Javed was busy with a young man in shabby clothing who appeared to have a lottery ticket of some sort in his slender-fingered hand.

“It’s a winner,” the young man insisted. “I know it’s a winner. I saw the numbers in the paper. I know it’s from a couple weeks ago, but there’s still time to claim the prize, right?”

“Sorry,” Javed said, looking far more anxious than Leland had ever seen him. “I’ve checked, and the numbers on that ticket don’t match any of the winning numbers for the last three months.”

“But he swore it was a winning number,” the young man said, growing more agitated by the second. “These have to be the winning numbers.”

“I’m sorry,” Javed said, spreading his hands hopelessly. He glanced to Leland as if there was something he could do.

“Please,” the young man begged him, sobbing. “You don’t understand. This has to be a winning ticket. These have to be the right numbers. I…I can’t keep living like this. I don’t have anything, no home, no job, nothing. I don’t even have another change of clothes. Someone stole my bag.”

Leland’s heart sank for the young man. His rough look suddenly made sense, although to be honest, he looked a lot better than some of the unhoused people who used to come begging at the back doors of the places he’d worked in London sometimes.

“I wish I could help you,” Javed said, taking the ticket from the man and looking at it again. “Whoever gave this to you was dishonest about what it is.”

“No,” the young man said, lowering his head and weeping. Actually weeping.

Leland’s gut hurt for him. He set his basket on the ground and reached for his wallet. He always paid for things with plastic, but he was pretty sure he had a few quid to give the young man at least.

Javed seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Would a twenty help?” he asked kindly. “Consider it my Valentine’s Day gift.”

The young man dropped his head even more, like the charity he was being offered was humiliating. Leland could only imagine how hard it must have been to be forced to accept charity from strangers just to get by.

“I’ve got more than I need,” he said, pulling a twenty from his wallet. “You’re welcome to it.”

The young man turned to face him, tears streaming down his smudged face.

Two things hit Leland at once. First, the young man was gorgeous. Even with his brown eyes red-rimmed and full of tears, he was a sight to behold. His high cheekbones, curly brown hair, and shapely lips belonged on a model. Despite what he’d said that implied he was living rough, his skin was clear. He was skinny and had a desperate edge to his appearance, but he was still one of the most beautiful men Leland had ever seen.

The second thing that smacked Leland hard was that he knew the young man, though he hadn’t seen him for years. He was Ean Jones, the little brother of his old school chum, Davie. Little Ean Jones, who had followed him and Davie around with his big, round eyes and eager-to-please smile, who had been the sweetest, kindest, loveliest young man Leland had ever known.

Whatever had happened to land Ean on the streets and whoever had let it happen, Leland definitely had something to say about it.

TWO

Ean couldn’t believehis eyes. Of all the people who could have ended up standing behind him, witnessing the most humiliating and defeated moment of his life, it had to be Leland Page.

“I—”

He tried to say something, to explain why he was standing in a tiny off-license, dressed in the only clothes he currently owned, which smelled as unwashed as he did, holding onto a useless lottery ticked and the last shreds of his dignity, but nothing would come out of his mouth.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Leland said, stepping forward slightly.

Ean flinched back on instinct, but immediately felt terrible. Leland wasn’t one of the nasty predators who had reached out to him with pretend care only to offer him a lousy fiver to suck his cock. And Leland didn’t deserve to be sullied by touching someone who had accepted that fiver and sucked that cock so he could afford to pay for a sandwich instead of taking the risk of stealing one.

Whether Leland had intended to touch him or not, he changed his motion to picking up his basket of groceries and setting it on the counter. “Thanks, Javed,” he said to the man who had crushed his hopes of getting out of the mess he’d fallen into by refusing the lottery ticket.

Except the guy behind the counter looked sad and embarrassed instead of smug. It wasn’t his fault Ean had been duped.

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