Bitter Taffy (11 page)

“You have to celebrate the Day of the Dead and you can’t burp after dinner without your grandmother lighting a candle for your sins?”

“Your grandmother’s going to hell—the bad one where nobody remembers you, just so you know. But
no
, it means you can wear
color
, dammit! Blues, reds, greens—hell, I’d settle for a decent brown! You put that gray next to your skin and you look
dead
!”

Ezra had
loved
this outfit. For a moment Rico defended his old lover while he fought betrayal. “You’re exaggerating. It can’t look that—”

Finn’s phone dinged. Finn read it and grinned like a little kid, vindicated. He held it out to Rico, and Rico had to look twice to figure out who the green guy was.

“Oh God—”

“No, read the caption,” Finn instructed.

“Tell him he looks fucking dead. Darrin said to put him in my khaki shorts, white tank top, and the dark blue button-up with the bright green slashes on the side.”

Rico raised his eyebrows. “He’s just going to
dress
me—Darrin doesn’t even know m—”

Finn had already disappeared, and Rico grunted, setting down the phone and taking off the offending silver-gray clothes. One of Adam’s paintings sat in the right corner of the shot, behind Rico’s shoulder, and the color on the phone was dead-on, which meant that Rico really
did
look dead. He’d wanted to look put together and not slutty—dead was definitely overkill.

Finn came back into the living room with Adam’s clothes over his arm.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Rico asked, because that had been the plan, right?

“Yeah—I’m asking your date for a ride in. I hope that’s okay.”

Rico blinked. “You’re wha—?”

And at that moment they heard the knock at the door. Finn gestured to the clothes on the couch and waved his hand, shooing Rico to the bedroom while the dog went apeshit all over the apartment, begging to eat the stranger on the other side of the door.

Rico dodged into the bedroom just as Finn greeted Derek, and he dressed in record speed, praying liked he’d
never
prayed about a date before that the family member who’d opened the door wasn’t embarrassing the holy hell out of him.

He took a moment to check himself out in the mirror as he was turning away, and he had to stop a little longer. First he messed with the hair, cut ruthlessly short to help style it as it grew out of being shaved. Yup. Black, straight, and gelled—not going anywhere. Then he straightened the collar of the bold blue shirt and made sure the tank was tucked in underneath. Adam’s shorts fit him surprisingly well, given that Adam was about four inches taller—probably because Adam was all lean strength and Rico was built a little stockier. The ribbed tank was snug—but then it was meant to be—and the bowling-style shirt actually looked really good with Rico’s caramel skin.

Well, Finn probably
couldn’t
wear clothes like this, Rico had to concede. With his hair and eyes, it would look garish and clashy—but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate them on.

Rico was just patting down his ass for the familiar lump of his wallet and his phone when Finn shouted, “Rico, I fished your wallet and shit out of the corpse shorts! Stop looking under the bed for it!”

“Oh God,” Rico muttered, and then he petted Jake the comatose cat twice for luck and ran out to the front room.

Finn was wandering around the living room, picking up Rico’s clothes and folding them to put them away, which was so generous that for a second it made Rico’s throat catch. God, he was a nice kid. Then Rico heard what he was actually
saying
to Derek, and wanted to build a life-size gerbil cage so they could lock
Finn in it.

“Yeah, he must have been really nervous. He’s been trying to find decent clothes
forever
. I appreciate you giving me a ride back to Old Sac—I don’t mind if you just drop me off before you go over the bridge to the field. Adam didn’t want Rico alone before the big date. Yeah—oh, hey, Rico!”

Rico stood there, looking at Derek and feeling stupid.

Derek
knew what looked good.

A River Cats jersey and denim shorts. That was all. But the confidence he wore it with?
That
was dazzling.

However, when he saw Rico, he straightened and gave a low whistle. “Don’t you look nice,” he said, voice low and suggestive.

Rico had to fight not to go get the “corpse shorts” and throw them on.

“Uhm.” That was it. Brain blown. Conversation over. It was going to be the worst date in history.

“Darrin helped us pick it out,” Finn said proudly, shoving the last of Rico’s clothes in his dresser.

“Darrin?” Derek pulled his alarmingly intense blue-eyed gaze from Rico and back to Finn, and Rico felt like he could breathe again.

“Yeah—he’s got a thing for Rico.”

Rico’s eyes widened, and Derek’s must have too, because Finn wrinkled his nose at both of them and shook his head.

“No, no, not like that. Like he had a thing for Adam—wants to give him advice and stuff. He keeps telling Adam to bring him by the store so he can… what was it? Oh yeah. ‘Assess the damage.’”

“I had no idea,” Rico said, bemused.

“Yeah, Adam keeps telling him to keep his big nose out of your business.” Finn started to pet Clopper, who was looking at them balefully, as though he knew he was about to be left alone again. “We’ll be back, Clopper. Don’t worry. I’ve got a short shift, Adam’s off in four hours—we’ll take you to the river and let you run until you pass out.” Clopper licked him on the face, and Finn laughed and scratched him behind the ears some more.

For a minute Rico wanted to look away from the intimate moment between some other guy and his
own dog
, but then Derek came over and started petting Clopper, and Rico couldn’t have looked away if robots had started humping in the kitchen.

Derek had long-fingered hands—elegant, not like a woodworker but like the businessman he’d made himself into—and they slid into the ruff of muscle and smooth-furred skin at Clopper’s neck with fluid ease as Derek gave him a thorough rubdown, complete with over-the-top praise like “How’s my beautiful boy? You gonna stay here and be an angel while your daddies all go and party? Don’t you worry, Uncle Derek’s gonna bring you
the best
treats! Oh yes he is! You’ll get fat and then we’ll take you running and it will be
glorious
!”

Nonsense, all of it, but Rico’s slutty dog, who apparently could be had for a bowl of food and a fondle? Ate that shit up.

By the time Derek stood up and said, “Okay, all, are we ready to go?” Finn was at the door, jiggling his house keys in his pocket, the dog was sprawled on the floor, sated with the ecstasy of all the attention, and Rico could barely walk for the hard-on.

Something about watching a man in a T-shirt get friendly with his dog—Rico had no idea it would be sexy, but as Derek’s muscles worked and his friendly ease of command just
ordered
the dog to be happy and asleep, everything in Rico’s body from his toes to his nose to all points in between was happy and tingling and ready to be rubbed, scratched, and fawned over just like the damned dog.

Derek turned to Rico, a goofy, dog-loving grin on his face, and Rico just stood there, fully clothed and fully aroused, his mouth parted a little as he tried to get his whole perspective under control.

“Oh,” Derek said, his expression changing entirely. “Liked that, did you?”

“Uhm….” The whole date might have died right there as Rico’s word brain blew up one more time, but Finn got impatient.

“Uh, guys,” he said, one hand on the door, “as much as pet care could count as foreplay, I really gotta get to work.”

Both of them shook themselves—much like Clopper, actually—and turned to Finn at the same time before filing docilely out of the apartment and down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, Derek’s chariot awaited, cherry red exterior, white upholstery, top down in the spring sunshine.

For a moment Rico was appalled. “You left the top down? In
this
neighborhood?”

But Derek just laughed. “My God, you worry a lot. Get in—but let Finn in the back fi—”

“Woo-hoo!” Finn whooped, vaulting over the side of the car for a sweet butt-landing in the back. “Now Derek,
this
is a car!”

“You don’t like the Crown Vic?” Rico asked, absurdly hurt for his baby.

“In the winter? Yes. The black interior works. But on a day like today?” Finn laced his fingers behind his head and grinned. “To Old Sac, Jeeves! And step on it!”

Derek chuckled and Rico rolled his eyes.

“You know, you’re sort of a demanding little shit,” Rico told him affectionately, and Finn leered.

“Yeah, I know—Adam says so too!”

Both Derek and Rico groaned.

“No!” Derek howled. “I
do not
want to hear about your sex lives. No, no, no, no—”

“Dude,” Rico agreed. “I’m sayin’—man, the only way the roomies thing works is if we pretend it doesn’t happen.”

Finn smirked, his little Cupid’s bow mouth pursing in an evil line. “Oh, it happens. Chew on
that
,
both of you.”

Derek shuddered and started the car in an attempt to flee the vision of Finn and Adam naked together.

“I don’t know what
you’re
so grossed out over,” Rico said over the purr of the engine and the sudden whirr of the wind. “I mean, he’s
my
cousin.”

Derek’s mouth curved up at the side, and he shot a smoldering glance at Rico as he stopped at the intersection. “Not grossed out,” he growled soft enough that Finn couldn’t hear him.

Rico blushed. Turned on. Oh God. Yeah. Without the cousins thing, the vision was probably shameless porn.

“Oh,” Rico said, looking away. For the fifteen minutes it took to get to Old Sac, Rico looked studiously out the window, watching the tree-lined streets in Sacramento stretch luxuriously in the spring sunshine. By the time Derek turned on the cobblestone walk of Front Street, the weather and the smell of green and river had relaxed Rico enough for him to lean back and enjoy the ride a little.

And then he saw that instead of pausing in front of the boardwalk, Derek was finding a place to park.

“But… where… I thought….”

“Well, I wanted to eat at California Fats!” Derek said brightly. “’Cause, you know. Salads. But first I thought we’d stop in and see what kind of candy you liked.”

Rico gaped at him while Finn hit the seat back repeatedly with his knee. “Rico, I can’t vault out of the back, ’cause then I’d have to stand on top of the leather, and that would be a crime, and we like Derek.”

Rico got dumbly out of the car, and Finn hopped out, waved at the two of them happily, and sprinted toward River Burger. Then Rico turned his attention back to Derek, who was smiling gently and gesturing with his shoulder.

“Come on,” he said playfully. “Who doesn’t like candy?”

“The last time I was here, Darrin fed me a cricket,” Rico said darkly.

Derek laughed. “Yeah, he’s done that to me too. But see, I think he only does that to people who don’t know what they really want.”

Rico stopped and squinted at him. “But I knew what I really wanted. I wanted the chocolate truffle—that’s my favorite!”

Derek rolled his eyes and tugged at Rico’s hand. “Yeah, but those are for special occasions. What’s your everyday candy, the kind that you could have one a day after lunch and go, ‘That’s it. Need for sweet over.’”

“Chocolate truffles,” Rico said obstinately.

“You don’t eat chocolate truffles every day!” Derek argued. “If you did, you’d be really fat.”

“And you wouldn’t be hitting shamelessly on me.”

“You think your ass was what got my attention?” Derek snorted. “Because seriously, I beg to differ. You could have a massive muffin top, love handles for six, and multiple chins, and I
still
would have noticed your eyes.”

“My eyes?” Oh God. Was Rico really that weak? Such an old line, but it got him, oh yes it did.

“Yeah.” Derek quirked up a corner of his mouth. “Like chocolate truffles.”

Rico’s mind flailed, and he didn’t find purchase until they got inside the candy store.

“Oh my, look what the dog dragged in,” Darrin said as they came in. He eyed them both, responding to Rico’s anemic wave with an arched eyebrow. “What can I do you for, boys—or are you here to see Adam?”

“Just trying to get Rico his favorite candy that’s
not
truffles,” Derek said, grinning cheekily. “Something that will sit through a baseball game and not melt.”

“Hard candy is thataway”—Darrin gestured—“but I already know what he wants.”

“If you give him the lemon sour, it’ll kill him,” Adam said, coming down from the high wooden loft.

“Rico doesn’t get the lemon sour,” Darrin said pleasantly. “He’s more a cherry kind of guy.”

Adam studied Rico like they hadn’t been eating oatmeal together since they were both in diapers. “Yeah, okay. What’s Derek? Spearmint?” Then, before Darrin could answer, Adam said, “No. Apple mint. Yeah, Derek? Apple mint—the candy sticks are right there along the side.”

Derek grimaced. “Close, Adam, but no cigar. Root beer.”

Adam groaned. “
Dammit
.”

“But it’s still in the candy stick area.” Derek gestured. “So I’d say you’re getting as good as the boss.”

“He is my assistant manager,” Darrin said mildly. “Now go get Derek his root beer candy sticks, and get your cousin his wild cherry.”

Adam wrinkled his nose and trod lightly over the dark wood of the sanded boards. He reached above the barrels lined up at the Front Street door and pulled out two boxes, one with dark red sugar sticks wrapped in cellophane and the other with dark brown.

“Yeah, well, Derek won’t let me get the boner truffle,” Rico accused, and Derek winked at him.

“I’d rather see if we don’t need one of those,” Derek said smugly.

Rico allowed his gaze to rake over Derek critically. “Conceited much?” he asked before checking out the candy he was apparently specially suited for. Each stick had a label talking about how the candy stick was a classic candy product and how the company made the same product that used to be found in general stores everywhere, and as Rico grabbed a few, he got one of those flashback moments—one that took him back to being a little kid.