Page 30 of Twice Shy

“So hot chocolate for the boys,” Dee prompted, interrupting what Amy would have called ‘a downward spiral of catastrophic thinking’. “Ollie likes a hazelnut latte when he’s treating himself. And for you...?”

It was no accident, he supposed, that Dee knew Ollie’s favorite order but not his own. He was surprised she even knew his name; he hadn’t exactly been Mr. Sociable since he got here. And for good reason. Socializing meant questions and gossip and rumors. Especially when you were a teacher. For his own peace of mind, he preferred to keep his private life private.

After he’d paid for their drinks and a couple of slices of pumpkin spice cake, plus two chocolate chip cookies for good measure, Dee said, “Take a seat. I’ll bring it all over.”

By the time Joel returned to the table, Luis was strapped into a highchair kicking his legs noisily against the wooden frame, earning a disapproving frown from the only other customers, a young couple on the other side of the coffee shop. Joel gave them a hard look and sat down, back turned. People needed to learn a little patience. Kids could be noisy, sure, but they were as much part of society as everyone else—and they had a right to be kids. Next to him, Rory sat on a regular chair working on a coloring book that Ollie had magicked up from somewhere. Joel couldn’t ask him because Ollie had his head down, rummaging in the huge bag of tricks he kept under Luis’s stroller. He’d slung his jacket over the back of a chair and the snug sweater he wore was riding up a little as he reached down, revealing a bewitching strip of bare back above well-fitting dark jeans.

Joel stared. He couldn’t look away, overcome by a flood of imagined sensations: sliding his hand beneath the hem of Ollie’s sweater, feeling warm skin against his palm, the muscular flex of a strong male back. His pulse raced, gooseflesh rising all over his body in a swell of intense arousal the like of which he’d not felt in a long, long time. Maybe never.

“Got it!” Ollie straightened up, a green plastic bib in one hand. “I knew I had it, Lu— Oh, hey.” He smiled, and that bright expression stole Joel’s breath.

His taste in both men and women had always run toward lithe and athletic—long limbs and firm bodies—and Ollie was pressing all his rusty buttons. Helen had too, although that’s where the similarities ended. Where Ollie was all dark sexy curls, Helen had been sleek and blonde. Where Ollie was willowy, Helen had been statuesque. And where Ollie was full of energy and insecurity, Helen had been poised and confident—a woman who’d known what she wanted. And what she wanted had turned out to be Simon Lewis, Joel’s impeccably straight boss.

“Hey. I ordered for us all. Hope that’s okay?” Joel swallowed, very aware of the heat in his cheeks. “Two kids’ hot chocolates, and Dee said you like hazelnut latte?”

Ollie’s smile widened, and he pushed his hair out of his eyes with one hand. “I do, thanks.” Slipping the bib around Luis’s neck he said, “How much do I owe—?”

“Nothing. My treat.”

Their eyes met and there was no mistaking the question in Ollie’s look. Joel doubted he was kidding anyone that this was ‘just a coffee’. He returned a weak smile and ran a hand nervously through his hair.

“That’s generous of you,” Ollie said. “Thanks.” He was smiling down at the table, a hint of pink in his cheeks. Hell, the guy wascute.

“Here you go, boys.” Dee set down a loaded tray on the table next door and began unloading their drinks and a large plate of cookies and cake.

“Cookie!” Luis said, making grabby hands, feet drumming harder. “Cookie! Cookie!”

“I want one!” Rory’s eyes were wide. “Can I have one, Ollie? Please?Pleaaase?”

Joel grimaced. “I hope this wasn’t a bad idea?” He caught Ollie’s eye and thought it probably had been. Shit. “Sorry, I should have asked first.”

“No, it’s fine.” But Ollie looked doubtful. “I mean, it won’t hurt if they don’t eat their dinner, right?”

That look in his eye? Hell, that was a real question. He was asking for something—advice, or approval.

“It’s not gonna hurt them,” Joel said, although he felt like a dumbass for not checking with Ollie first. “They look pretty healthy to me.”

Ollie gave an uncertain laugh and Dee said, “It’s food for the soul, Ollie. Once in a while, a fun time and a treat is better for kids than a balanced meal and an early night.”

“Yeah?” He looked relieved. “Yeah, okay. It’s not every day we get to have hot chocolate and cookies with Mr. Morgan, is it Rory?”

“And do swinging,” Rory said, although his eyes hadn’t left the plate with the cookies. All credit to Ollie, Rory hadn’t taken one without permission.

In the end, Ollie broke one of the cookies in two and gave the kids half each. Joel helped Rory kneel up on his chair to reach his hot chocolate and gleefully fish out tiny marshmallows with his teaspoon, while Ollie poured some of Luis’s hot chocolate into a plastic sippy cup, swirling it around and blowing on it to cool it down. Turned out, Luis couldn’t manage a normal cup yet and that showed exactly what Joel knew about raising young kids.

He watched, fascinated and a little awestruck, as Ollie organized everything for the boys, leaving his own coffee cooling and untouched until he’d made sure they both had what they needed. It wasn’t so much the complexity of what Ollie was doing that impressed him, because it wasn’t complex, but the extent to which Ollie’s needs, even something as simple as taking a sip of coffee, came last. He guessed this was what parenting meant, and maybe it was simply Ollie’s youth, or the fact that he was starting to understand what the guy had sacrificed to parent these boys, but Joel was touched. No. More than that, he felt moved to help, to somehow lift the burden Ollie carried on his young shoulders.

Which was both ridiculous and overly dramatic. Unfortunately, ridiculous and overly dramatic were Joel’s modus operandi when it came to romantic relationships. Not that this was any such thing: at most it was a promising friendship. Although it would be a lie to pretend that Joel’s attraction to Ollie didn’t have a romantic as well as a physical element. The two always went together for him. Truth was, Joel was a sucker when it came to affairs of the heart. And that left him vulnerable. He needed to be on his guard.

“So,” Ollie said when he finally had a moment to pick up his latte and take a sip. “Mmm…” His eyes closed briefly, and he smiled in pleasure. Joel felt that smile like heat all over his skin. Opening his eyes—warm in this light, a deep brown—Ollie said, “This is a real treat, thanks.”

“I figure we earned it today, after all that chasing about.”

Ollie took another sip of coffee, both hands wrapped around the mug as if he were cold. “Gotta say, when I moved here, I was looking forward to being close to the beach—but not so much in October.”

Joel laughed. “New Milton’s a beach town every day of the year. So I’m told.”

“You’re not from here originally, then?”

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