Coming Home- Rock Bay 1 (10 page)

A
WKWARD
. God. Shit. Why did I kiss him? Because you wanted to. Now you get to deal with the fallout.
Maybe there wouldn’t be any. Maybe he and Tally were both mature enough that one little
amazing, sexy, totally full-on delicious
kiss wouldn’t mean days of feeling weird working together. Or maybe he was full of shit.

Tally was due to be at the shop in minutes. Lex had opened on his own for a few hours, and as soon as Tally got there, they’d finish the morning rush together. Then Lex would thankfully get to retreat to his office and get his battle plan for the permit office ready, or at least valiantly try to work and not spend all of his time thinking about the flavor of Tally’s lips. He’d been able to push thoughts of the kiss out of his mind that weekend—for a few minutes at a time, at least. Then, without warning, it would come back, flashes of Tally’s tongue slipping into his mouth, those warm fingers curling around the back of his neck. Lex shivered, then squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. He wanted to pound his fist against the wall until it bled but was grown up enough to know that would mean hours of work fixing the dent in the drywall and touching up the paint.

The overhead bell rang, and Lex’s stomach flip-flopped before taking a nosedive to his toes. Tally. Shit.
“Morning, boss, how were things over the weekend?”
Long. I missed you.
He stared at a chip in the old wood flooring. “It was okay. Saturday was quiet, but there was a big line before church yesterday since it was so cold and rainy.”
“You could’ve called me if you needed me to come in. I wasn’t doing anything, really.”
Lex finally looked up. His cheeks turned pink at the sight of Tally’s long-lashed brown eyes, eyes that were currently looking at him appraisingly, like he was wondering what was wrong. Not too surprising, since Lex was acting like a sixth grader with an awkward crush.
“Lex, is this about Friday night?” He seemed concerned and sweet, and Lex wanted so bad to close the foot and a half between them and sink his tongue back into Tally’s mouth so it could be happy again.
“No. I’m fine. What do you mean?”
“Fine?” Tally chuckled. “Okay. Just remember that I really liked kissing you, that I’d kiss you again in a heartbeat if you would let me. There’s no bad anything on my side, okay?”
Lex nodded, his heart skipping at just the thought of that kiss. “I need to use the bathroom. Can you watch the shop for a few minutes?”
Tally chuckled, and Lex knew why. They both knew Tally was perfectly capable of watching the shop for more than a few minutes, and he
also
probably knew Lex was asking because he was nervous. About the kiss.
Moron.
The rest of the morning was painful, in a comfortable sort of way. They slid into their respective jobs with ease. Tally had conquered the high school kids days before, smiling and flirting with the giggling girls as they dropped their dollars in the tip jar while they batted their eyelashes at him. The older crowd, which began to trickle in just as Tally was tying his apron, had started to warm up to him too. Women in tracksuits with strollers and friends smiled at him, tentative but genuine, as he took their orders and chatted. Lex noticed that Tally had learned names, asked about their gardens or the dinner they’d made over the weekend. Made them feel like he cared. They guy was a natural. Lex supposed it was from all the years of waiting tables. It was fun to watch, all the same—all those prickly people turning slowly toward him. He knew from experience working at a similar shop in college, that it was hard enough to win over people who knew nothing about you. Tally was managing it with people who would’ve been happy to kick him in the knees a few short weeks before. Impressive.
But it was still hard to be in the shop with Tally.
He
was hard. Almost constantly. And that one little fact made Lex want to curl up and die. Every time they bumped up against each other, every time he heard Tally’s low flirtatious chuckle or smelled him or thought of how perfect it felt when Tally’s tongue slid up against his, up he went again.
Jesus.
“Hey, Lex?” It took him a moment to realize Tally was talking to him.
“Oh, sorry, I was spacing.” There it was, that sexy chuckle that made his stomach all weak.
“Sherri wants a peppermint mocha, and I just noticed the peppermint syrup is empty.”
“Oh, I’m sure I have another one of those in the storeroom. I’ll be right back.”
Breathe, moron.
He stood in the storeroom, peppermint syrup bottle squeezed tightly in his hand, willing his body to get over the reaction it always had to Tally. Why did he even bother? No matter how hard he concentrated, it just got stronger.
Lex was grateful when it was time for him to hit his office and do paperwork. Entering information into his accounting program had never been Lex’s idea of entertainment, but he was exhausted. Hours wanting to kiss Tally, wishing he could get right up against him and inhale as long as possible, had worn Lex out. Mind-numbing repetitive tasks were all he had the brain energy for.
He forced himself to concentrate on the work that honestly did need to get done. There was usually a stack of papers and invoices the size of a football field to be entered into his computer. It had gotten better since he had Tally to take over in the afternoon, but paper organization had never been Lex’s strong suit, and it was still something that would constantly need work. Lex started with the invoices, entering them methodically and making sure they were allocated to the correct accounts. When he’d just pulled out his stack of cash register receipts from the previous week, he was startled by a shout from the front room.
“Hey, Lex, Amy’s here. Should I send her back, or are you coming out?” Tally’s friendly call startled Lex out of the quiet trance he’d been in. As much as he hated doing the picky little accounting shit, it was probably the only thing that occupied his mind enough to push Tally out of it.
“Yeah, send her back,” he called and dropped the pile of papers he still needed to deal with back in their basket.
Later….
“Hey, sweetie,” Amy chirped as she dropped into the only other chair in his office.
“Hey, Ames. What’s up today?”
“First of all, this latte is divine. Either you’re a master at training, or he’s just naturally gifted.”
“Lemme taste.” Lex held out his hand. What he’d already had of Tally’s was good but—
ohhh
. Heaven in a cup. “What
is
this?”
“I don’t know. He asked if I’d be the guinea pig for something he’d been working on.”
Lex had to know. “Tally, can you come back here?” he called.
A few seconds later a startled looking Tally stuck his head around the doorjamb. “Yeah?”
“What on earth did you put in here? It’s amazing.”
“Hold on.”
He came back after a minute or so holding a syrup bottle with a piece of masking tape that had “T-special” written on it. “It’s a special mix I’ve been working on. It’s based on this cake they serve at Le Gateau, one of the restaurants I used to work at in Seattle.”
“Le Gateau?” Amy asked.
“Yeah, it’s a dessert cafe right outside of Pacific Place. Next time you’re in Seattle, you should go there. I can’t even begin to tell you how good it is. Anyway, there was this cake with cherries and almonds and apricots and a bunch of other stuff. I used to get it with coffee after work sometimes. The combination of the two was perfect. I thought it might work as a drink.”
“You were right. Amazing job. Do you mind if I make it the special next week? Maybe we can advertise it to go with one of the pastries.”
Tally grinned, his face so open and beautiful. It was the first time Lex had seen him looking completely happy since they’d met. Even before, in high school, he’d never had such a genuine grin on his face. Not that Lex remembered, anyway. It made his palms itch to slip around Tally’s face, and his lips wanted to…. Damn. Not again. He focused on Tally’s excitement instead of his mouth.
“You really want to make it the special? That’s great! I thought it would go maybe with that plum crumble, or if that’s too much fruit it might be good as a contrast to the bittersweet brownies, you know, sweeter to balance out the dark?”
Lex smiled in return and started to wonder if, awkward after-kiss feelings or not, hiring Tally might have been the best thing he’d ever done. The guy had great instincts.
“Let’s run it with the brownie. They’re popular anyway. But write down the proportions in that syrup. We don’t want to run out in case it’s a huge hit.”
“Already did!” Tally slipped a note card from his back pocket and handed it to Lex. He knew Lex kept a recipe file for all the special mixes he’d concocted over the past few years.
“Thanks—” Just then the shop bell rang, and Tally froze before tossing them a rueful smile and jogging back to the front to wait on the new customer.
“You do know you just made his entire week, right?”
“Mine too. Give me another sip of that.” He drank appreciatively. “You know what, go out and have Tally make you another one. This is mine.”
“Hey!” Amy laughed. “Oh, I almost forgot. Perfect coffee addled my brains. That new nurse, Mason, in my ER that I was telling you about a few weeks ago?”
Lex groaned. He’d forgotten their conversation about the nurse in the wake of everything that had happened lately. It had been one of the times that Amy tried to set him up with someone she knew from Astoria. He routinely blew her efforts off.
“I was trying to forget. I’m really not into blind dating, Ames.”
“I know, but he’s cute, Lexie, and he’s asked me about you a few times.”
“How old is he again?”
“Twenty. But he’s really mature.”
Lex shook his head. He didn’t want some twenty-year-old nurse, he wanted Tal—Lex caught himself thinking about exactly how much he did want Tally for what had to be the hundredth time that day and cringed. What was it going to take to get over one kiss?
“You know what? Give the kid my number. I’ll ask him to dinner.”
“Really?” Amy looked ridiculously pleased with herself.
“Yes, really. Dinner only, though.”
“Yeah, yeah. Dinner only.”
After Amy left, humming to herself and happy that she’d finally gotten Lex a date, or at least the potential of a date, Lex slipped out into the hallway to watch Tally. He’d done it a few times a day since Tally had started taking the afternoons. Lex told himself that it was just good business to keep tabs on his employee, and he was right. It was. But it was also pure joy to watch Tally work, wiping the counter, taking orders, leaning over to get something from the shelf under the espresso machine. Lex groaned. It was not in his best interest to watch Tally bend over. Those artfully faded jeans and that
uh-maaaz-ing
butt had a way of making Lex lose the ability to breathe.
Lex was in the middle of staring at Tally when his cell rang. Tally jumped a little at the ringer.
“You scared me. I didn’t know you were in here.” He smiled nervously.
“Just watching my shop. I miss it in the afternoons, sometimes.”
Tally chuckled as Lex hit talk on his phone and stepped back into the office.

I
T HAD
been a hell of a day. Tally had managed to psych himself up so he didn’t act like a complete fool the second he saw Lex again. He managed to make it work, at least he thought so. He smiled, calm and friendly like he practiced Sunday night, and even kept himself from throwing Lex over the counter and kissing him like he wanted to so desperately. That part was nearly impossible. Those awkward little smiles, nervous chuckles, and the way Lex held his breath for a second every time Tally brushed by him; it was
killing
him. Even the sight of Lex enjoying the drink Tally had made in hopes of impressing him was enough to warm the insides of his stomach. He wasn’t ready to give up. They had so much chemistry; he didn’t think Lex could pretend to ignore it forever. Lex Barry was going to be in his bed, damn it. Well,
a
bed somewhere, he amended, thinking of his little cramped twin. All Tally needed was time to wear him down….

L
EX
drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his BMW.
I shouldn’t have said yes.
The pit in his stomach was telling him that it had been a horrible idea to accept a date with someone else when all he could think about, the only person he was even aware of in his world, was Tally. Tally, who’d said he would happily kiss Lex again and again if only he had the chance. Lex’s stomach tightened the same way it did every time he thought of Tally saying that. It was unfair to the poor kid… Mason, right? His phone beeped with a message.

Lex swore, typed back a quick “ok,” and gunned the gas on his car. He needed to get to the restaurant quickly, or else he’d end up turning around and heading straight for Tally. He wanted to. Hell, he wanted to. It was too late, though. If he ditched his poor blind date, he’d be the biggest bastard in the universe. He already felt like a bastard for going on the date in the first place when there was someone else he wanted to be with. Lex knew he had to smile at the guy and seem pleasant and interested, and, even harder, he had to keep his mind off the way Tally tasted—which was amazing. Lex gritted his teeth together.
What a mistake.
The only thing he wasn’t sure of was which part was the bigger mistake.