Page 26 of Ted's Temerity
We’ve reached the bottom of the stairs and I squeal as he makes a swipe for me, playfully threatening retribution for the wise crack against his age. I race for the kitchen, laughing and breathless when he catches up to me, cornering me against the kitchen bench and kissing me senseless.
“I really am sorry about earlier,” he says as we pull apart, his eyes meeting mine so I can gauge his sincerity. “It’s my fault for not listing it in my limits.”
“Honestly, it’s fine.” I reach up to cup his jaw in my palm, stroking my thumb over the prickle of a day’s growth. “And when -if- you want to talk about it, we can. But it’s enough just to know that you’re not into it.”
This time when Ted kisses me, I can’t help but feel like he’s trying to apologize anyway. He’s tender and sweet and appreciative, and when he rests his forehead against mine afterwards, murmuring, “How’d I get so lucky with you, tiny dancer?” my insides light up.
It’s only been a month, but I can feel myself falling for this man. It’s a new sensation. I’ve been smitten before, and I’ve loved before, but nothing has felt quite this intense so quickly. I don’t feel like we’re rushing things, but at the same time, I’m surprised by how fast my feelings have progressed.
In past relationships, my feelings have been slow to build. I had to work hard on building the foundations before I got so attached. But with Ted I think I was attached from the beginning. He draws me in like nobody I’ve ever met before, and the foundations (the friendship and the flirting and the things we have in common) all seem to click into place without any actual effort.
Coming back to the conversation at hand, I smile and wrap my arms around his neck. “I’d say you’re not the only one who hit the jackpot, Mister Masters.”
“Is that so?” With his smile turning wicked, the remnants of our earlier tension begin to melt away.
“Uh huh. See, I’ve got this insanely hot silver fox at my disposal…and he’s going to feed me ice cream and treat me like a queen.”
Even though I’ve said it playfully, that’s exactly how the evening plays out.
* * *
By the time Wednesday rolls around, I’ve pretty much forgotten all about Friday’s incident when I meet up with Asher for lunch. Their community center is only a fifteen-minute walk from the dance studio where I teach, so Ash and I have made this a regular event since we met, with Charlie tagging along with his husband when he’s not in meetings.
I have to admit, it has been good making new friends. When I first came to the city, I was still trying to adjust to my new reality, and I’d been content with the idea of being a lone wolf. All my dance friends had moved on with their lives, keeping in touch via memes on Facebook, but never really stopping to ask how I was actually doing. It hurt too much to watch them continue with their careers, and eventually I just gave up the pretense. It was easier to be alone than to carry on with fair weather friends.
I hadn’t been looking for a new social circle when I went to The Grove that first time. I really had just been looking for a bit of escapism and being little usually helped with that.
Then I’d met Ash and Chance.
Ash, for all that he tries to tell me that he’s painfully shy, saw that I was alone and demanded that I play with him. He got me to open up about being new to town and somehow sensed how lonely I was, but never made me feel badly for it. He just told me that he had also started from scratch a couple of years ago and that he was always looking to make new friends. There was no sense of expectation from him, just his genuine joy at sharing his little time with a playmate.
Once they’d explained that Chance wasn’t Ash’s Daddy but was stepping in as Uncle Chance, he had sat back and just let us play, occasionally joining in whenever Ash prodded him. Of the two of them, he’s the one that struck me as genuinely shy, though he was every bit a doting Daddy when it was required of him. Afterwards, when Ash and I had gotten changed and were ‘big’ again, we’d all walked together to our cars, laughing and chatting like we were old friends.
It had struck me in that moment that being a loner would never work for me, and when Ash had suggested we exchange numbers, I couldn’t deny that building a new social circle sounded appealing.
Since then, I’ve gotten pretty close with my fellow Little. Being strong-armed into attending his wedding was a surprise, but I’m beyond glad that I went along. At the time, I suspected he was trying to set me up with Chance because we had gotten along during Littles’ Night, but now I realize that he was just trying to introduce me to their entire group. The fact that I ended up hitting it off with Ted is, to Ash, the cherry on top.
When I first confirmed that we were dating, he squealed, added me to the group chat, and started planning play-dates. Today he’s brought Charlie with him and I anticipate more of the same, but when Ash brings it up because we are still yet to make it happen, Charlie frowns.
That sets off a bubble of anxiety in my gut.
“What’s wrong?” I prod, running a fry through a small puddle of ketchup, my appetite fading the more I look at Charlie’s face.
He attempts to school his expression into something milder. “Nothing,” he says, shrugging casually. “I’ll run it by Ted.”
I don’t know Charlie as well as I know Ash, but there’s somethingoffabout the way he says his best friend’s name.
“Have you guys argued?” I hazard a guess, watching Charlie closely for his reaction.
I’ll give it to him; he’s pretty cool under pressure, probably because he was a cop. But his eyes are expressive and they give him away. I can tell he’s uneasy, even while he blinks slowly to control his facial expressions. “Nope.”
Liar. I want to call him out on it, but at the same time I don’t think it’s really my place to do so. Whatever’s going on between him and Ted, it probably has nothing to do with me. Besides, we haven’t been together long enough for me to reasonably stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong.
Ash, on the other hand, has no such compulsions. He cocks his head at his husband and says, “Want to try that again?”
“Ash…” The word is essentially a plea for Asher to let it go.
Proving that we’re very similar people, Ash only digs his heels in. He sets down his fork, abandoning the creamy pasta dish he’d ordered, and glares at the other man. “What happened to honesty and open communication, Daddy? Do you have a problem with Ted and Zephyr together? Because I’ve been begging you to invite them over for weeks now and you’ve made excuse after excuse.”
