Page 31 of Meeting Mr. Adorkable
“It’s getting a little cool. And perhaps I should be going. Thank you for feeding me — again.” Lucian laughed, but it was forced and awkward; he pushed himself to standing and stood behind his chair, shuffling from foot to foot.
No, don’t go… but Arlo bit back the words, killing them before he could say them aloud. It was for the best, but it didn’t feel like that. The air around them had shifted, yet it had nothing to do with the quickening breeze coming down from the mountains.
Lucian pushed his glasses up his nose as he kept his eyes downcast, and Arlo hated that he’d wiped the smile from his face.
“Luc—”
“Perhaps you could call me a cab? It’s a rather long walk back to town.”
Arlo jolted, Lucian’s words cutting him short. “No. No, I’ll give you a ride back. And you don’t have to leave yet. We can go inside. I’ll put on some coffee…”
Lucian shook his head. “That’s very kind, but I think it’s time to leave. Work tomorrow. Bibi needs me to open up the store.”
“Oh, okay.” Disappointment gnawed at Arlo. But what the hell did he expect? He’d become quiet and sullen over dinner as he’d retreated into himself, pulling all his doubts and fears around him like a cloak. No wonder Lucian couldn’t wait to get away. “I’ll take you back. No argument,” he said, when Lucian opened his mouth to protest.
Moments later, they were in the pickup. The night sky was a dense black, all the stars blotted out by the clouds that had rolled in, their brightness snuffed out. Arlo glanced at Lucian, who was blank faced, his smile tucked away and nowhere in sight.
Arlo started up the engine, and in silence, they drove away.
They hadn’t had the ice cream after all.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
“What’s all this?” Lucian picked up the sashes and peered at them.
Every one in the pile Bibi had dumped on the counter was red, white, or blue, and many of them all three, and printed with either Happy Jake’s Day! Or, I Love Collier’s Creek.
“Jake’s Day.” They were the only words she said as she picked up a poster from a bag on the floor, unrolled one, and gave it a critical stare.
Was he supposed to be a mind reader? Was he supposed to have a crystal ball to find the answer to whatever the hell she was talking about?
“Luci-Ann, will you stop peering at me like that?” Bibi didn’t raise her eyes from checking one poster after the other, nodding her approval to each one. “These are still good,” she muttered.
“I’ll stop peering at you like that if you stop talking in riddles.”
Bibi huffed, nodding to the poster she held up. A young cowboy, all leather chaps and rugged jaw, stared into the middle distance. Lucian had seen nothing as butch since his last PRIDE parade, the year before, in London.
“Jake’s Day. Haven’t you seen the billboards around town? The displays in the stores? The front page of the Collier’s Creek Citizens’ Chronicle?” She dropped the poster on the counter, planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Two weeks from tomorrow, the town celebrates its founder, and that founder’s Jake.”
“Oh. No, I haven’t noticed.” But he’d not noticed anything, having walked around with his eyes glued to the ground, shoulders hunched, feeling a spark of life when the store door opened only for it to go out when it wasn’t Arlo who walked through.
“You have been a little quiet and distracted, I guess.”
A little? He shrugged. “You want these draped in the window?”
“Sure — and you can put together some of your cute little displays.”
Lucian slid his gaze from the sash to Bibi. God alone knew how she’d ended up owning a floristry business. Her knowledge and skills were barely above rudimentary.
Yes, he could do some of those, anything to take his mind off the way everything had suddenly gone cold with Arlo just as they’d been heating up.
What had he done wrong? What had he said? It might have been madness to have let Arlo kiss him, because he was definitely staying away from men, especially older men who had more than a hint of silver fox about them, while he found himself and reset… Thank you, Mother, and your half-baked New Age philosophies. But Arlo’s lips on his had sparked the first genuine signs of life he’d felt since he’d arrived in town. God alone knew why Arlo had backtracked so fast. Perhaps it’d been for the best, before Arlo discovered that being involved with him was a bad idea, and that he really was sub par after all.
But sub par wasn’t how he’d felt as they’d kissed, and when Arlo smiled into his eyes.
A light hand on his shoulder saved him from sinking further into the gloomy morass of his thoughts.
“Luci, are you okay? You seem so sad suddenly — way more than a little quiet.”
