The Boyfriend Recipe Read online

  “Yes,” he said before tangling his fingers in my hair, pulling me closer, and lowering his lips to mine. He nipped my bottom lip until my lips parted, and then he delved inside. Our hands were still joined, so when he wrapped his arm around my waist he effectively trapped my arm behind my back. This wasn’t a tentative kiss from a careful, overwhelmingly polite man. It was rough and full of need and I knew there would be no hiding my rapidly growing erection. But just as quickly as it started, David pulled his lips from mine and released his hold on my hair and my hand, stepping back. Despite the heat of the summer day, I could feel a breeze suddenly widened space separating us. “Was that…?”

  I wanted to tell him it was hot as hell and probably the sexiest moment I’d ever experienced. It was so intense and unexpected. God, I wanted to steal another kiss from him, but instead I lightly took his hand and said, “Mind you, I’m not grading on a curve, but I definitely give that kiss an A-plus.”

  He raised one eyebrow and said nothing, releasing my hand to rest his palm on the small of my back as we began walking toward the travel plaza. The gesture was warm and reassuring. I’d never had a guy do that, and they were always so incensed when I did so for them. After all, any man I dated more than once was usually part of my circle of friends and therefore knew I was bi and also dated women. No matter how muscular and macho the man, they’d always interpret holding a door for them, or any one of a slew of gestures of common courtesy… as being me treating them like a girl.

  It was so goddamn refreshing to be open about my sexuality, to meet someone who didn’t think that way. Of course, that was only temporary. David probably didn’t plan to see me much after this weekend except across the bakery counter. He was in this for revenge not a relationship. Gay men just assumed I was confused or closeted, so they never truly considered me boyfriend material. As a result, I’d only had three serious relationships, and they’d all been with women. Sure, women were even weirder about bisexuality than guys were… But unless faced with an ex, women didn’t ever consider that I might be attracted to men. So I never disclosed that side of myself to women, if I could help it, and keeping that part of myself private was the only way that those relationships worked.

  No. I wouldn’t think about futures or pasts this weekend. They didn’t matter. This was all pretend. We were just evening the score, screwing with his family’s minds, enjoying some friendly company, and maybe indulging in what had to be a mutual attraction.

  We spent the rest of the drive chatting casually about mutual interests (comic books, TV shows, rock climbing) and decidedly divergent interests (brainless pop vs. awesome classic rock, the value of reality shows, climbing actual real-life rocks outside like a lunatic). There was lively, good-natured ribbing and we each made concerted efforts to casually touch each other until it actually began to happen without thought. David didn’t let me drive, though, saying he felt calmer and more in control if he stayed behind the wheel. After leaving the interstate for a smaller highway, conversation died off and he turned on the radio. Since the weekend was going to be hard on him, I didn’t argue when he put on a Top 40 station.

  “I thought you didn’t like pop,” he said. “I only say that because this is the second song you know all the words to.”

  “Well, it’s on everywhere,” I said. He just smirked at me and I lightly shoved his arm. “I can’t really avoid hearing it…”

  “It’s okay, you know. It’s popular for a reason. Feel free to keep singing along,” he teased and then, after a glance at my face, asked, “Did you learn that scowl from Julian?”

  “Maybe. He just… has really effective pouts and scowls…” The jerk started chuckling. Probably at the mental image of me practicing making faces in the mirror. I stopped talking before I admitted that I received a couple of brief lessons in ‘Julianic Expressions.’ “Ugh! Shut up… with that face!”

  “Who, me?!” David gasped, eyes wide in feigned innocence. “I’m not saying anything.”

  So I made a show of crossing my arms and pouting, and it totally wasn’t just to make him smile. Which he did, before turning the music up and singing along with me.

  When we turned onto the exit for Newport, he turned off the radio so we could better hear the GPS, and asked me to use the phone to text his cousin that we were nearly there. She responded with exclamation points and a series of excited, celebratory emoji which made me very excited to meet her. The silence was increasingly tense, so I caught his hand in mine and wove my fingers through his. “We got this. And we can leave at any time.”

  “My safe-word is Pomegranate,” he told me with a small smile. “My cousin said there is a special pomegranate cocktail created just for their wedding. So I guess it would be easy to drop into conversation.”

  “True. But I don’t want to accidentally drag you out of there because you like your beverage.” I searched for something that could be viably mentioned in conversation without seeming like a lunatic. “How about… draconian?”

  “I like that. Relevant, yet unusual. Is that really your safe-word?” he asked before sobering. “Or did you choose something else because Tonya…”

  “No. On both counts. It’s Dragon, but your sister wouldn’t know that. I’ve never actually played power games or anything with women.” He started at that information and eyed me curiously, but didn’t respond. I squeezed his hand again and then kissed it for good measure. “Would anyone else know yours is Pomegranate? Doesn’t matter. We can use that and/or Dragon if we want to throw in some innuendo during conversation before leaving. Oh, that’s awesome. We totally have to do that.”

  “That… is actually a good idea. Even if we wind up being very casual in our gay-relationship-ness, a word here or there would be perfect.”

  “Gay-relationship-ness? Is that a word?” I teased. “Or is it just part of your Marketing jargon?”

  “Our advertising department assures me that, if people say something and others can interpret the meaning, then it’s a real word,” he said, channeling his work persona before taking his hand back so he could turn into the hotel’s drive. As soon as we entered the lobby, arms full of garment and overnight bags, a dark-haired whirlwind flew across the room and tackled David, before his cousin threw herself at me with the same level of enthusiasm. Unprepared for the assault, I fell over backwards and we landed in an inelegant heap.

  She laughed merrily and David helped us both up. “You’ll have to excuse my cousin. She was literally raised in a barn.”

  “It’s true,” Brooke said and adopted a shamed-faced mien. “It was a converted apple barn, but a barn nonetheless. And, given you know a little about our family, you already knew we were raised by wolves so…”

  “Clearly, you were doomed. I’m so sorry,” I said, but couldn’t keep a grin off my face at her words.

  She handed me our key cards. David had warned me Brooke had taken the initiative to reserve a room for us and everywhere else nearby was booked for the weekend, but he still looked at the little pieces of plastic as though they might bite him.

  “Brooke…”

  “What?” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I was just being helpful and checked you in. Mom and Dad are paying for the wedding and if they’re going to be such assholes, it’s really the least they can do.”

  “Thank you,” I told her. When David continued to stare at them, I stated the obvious: “There’s only one bed, isn’t there.”

  “It was all they had left,” she managed to say with a straight face before breaking into a wicked grin, which I probably mirrored.

  “Of course it was,” David sighed and, taking in our smiles, took the cards from his devious cousin.

  “You don’t need to be shy. You’re a healthy, young couple and there’s no need to hide the fact that you’ll be doing healthy, young things to each other,” a well-preserved older man said as he walked up and clasped David on the shoulder before turning to me. “And you must be Hunter. It’s a pleas
ure to meet you.”

  David gaped at him while I shook the man’s hand. “Grandpa…”

  “Brooke told me all about the kerfuffle. Your idiotic father thought the stress of the news would give me a heart attack. I tell you, if your grandmother were still with us…” David’s grandfather trailed off and took a moment to calm himself and unclench his fists. “The only thing that upset me was how they’ve treated you.”

  David continued to stare at his grandfather as if he’d grown a second head which had begun shouting curses in Klingon. Brooke beamed but managed to hold back her I-told-you-so. Eventually I asked them, “Is this staring thing a common thing with him? Am I going to have to do all the talking this weekend? Not that I mind… but he has an alarming tendency to choke on his food if I say too much during meals.”

  “Do you know the Heimlich?” his grandfather asked me.

  “Yes, sir. It seemed prudent after that first dinner.”

  “Don’t call me Sir. My name is… You know, what? Call me Grandpa.” He shook his head in frustration and changed the subject. “Now, you two should go settle in before the ceremony, maybe take a refreshing ‘nap’…”

  David made a choking sound and turned adorably red when his grandfather used finger quotes at the word ‘nap’ and waggled his bushy eyebrows.

  “See? Just like that,” I said, making his cousin giggle. “Come on, baby. Let’s go to the room and get ready.”

  “I’ll see you later, Grandpa,” David finally managed to say. “And… thank you.”

  “Enjoy your nap!” Grandpa said cheerfully. As we turned toward the elevators, he quietly added, “You should never have to thank your family for loving you.”

  Brooke insisted upon walking us to our room. Once the elevator door closed, she told David, “I talked to Grandpa last week to warn him about the impending chaos and, let me tell you, he was so angry he could barely talk. Nobody ever told him you were gay. He just thought you went to college and dropped off the face of the Earth. And then the recent no-more-boyfriend equals turning-straight and then oh-no-you’re-not-straight… Ugh. Anyway, Grandpa knows now. And he immediately joined PFLAG and has been searching the internet for information and he stumbled upon Tumblr and… well, he just really wants you to know how much he accepts and loves you.”

  Brooke dashed away a tear and wrapped her arm around David’s waist. She then shot me a mischievous look and, ignoring David’s groan, said, “You know, Hunter… David told me about your first dinner-date, but you’ll have to give me your take on that very special evening. Clearly, he left out the more amusing details.”

  “If you have a few spare minutes, why don’t you come in and we can gossip in privacy,” I suggested but she just shook her head.

  “I just couldn’t let you two arrive without saying hello but, unfortunately, I have to go spend the next few hours continuing to get ready,” she rolled her eyes and shoved her hand inside her shirt, where she must have been hiding her phone. “Here, give me your number. That way, if I can’t reach David, I can at least get you. And I can tell you all his embarrassing secrets, of course.”

  “Oh, come on. How often do we actually get to see each other in person? And you’re already gorgeous. What difference will five minutes make?” David wheedled while I entered my contact info into his cousin’s phone.

  “No, no. You two have a nap to take! You know, for practice.” Brooke lovingly pushed us into our room and skipped back down the hall singing, “David and Hunter sitting in a tree…”

  David leaned back against the door and banged his head on it a couple of times, “I’m so sorry about her. And my grandfather. And, oh my god, this is going to be so much weirder than I expected…”

  I wanted to go to David and wrap my arms around him. But I wasn’t really his boyfriend, so I wasn’t sure how comforting that would be. Instead, I took his bags from him and hung up our suits in the closet. The room was lovely but simple, and dominated by a queen-sized bed. “Don’t apologize. It’s the good kind of weird. You have people who love you and I’ll be right by your side to help hold the dragons at bay. Unless you want to be alone at some point or my presence winds up making things harder or whatever. If that happens, I can just come back here. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings. I’d totally understand. And, um… want to take that nap?”

  His eyes shot to mine and I forced out an anxious laugh. Why was I like this with him? Usually I was so good with people and putting them at ease and directing conversations where I wanted them to go. But with David, I just babbled.

  “It could just be a nap-nap. I mean, a real nap. A sleeping nap. With clothes on. Or…” I took a breath and stepped forward until we were so close I could feel his body heat. “If you need a hug? Or a cuddle? Or we could…”

  I didn’t get a chance to finish my offer to ‘practice’ some more, because he wrapped his arms around me. I held him, willing him to be happy and calm. His breath fanned my ear as he asked, “You really wouldn’t mind?”

  I wasn’t sure what he was asking, but none of the possibilities was something I’d object to. So I told him, “Of course not.”

  “Cuddling isn’t really part of the Fake Boyfriend job description,” he said, pulling back to meet my eyes. “I mean… nobody’s actually around to impress with our boyfriendiness.”

  “Maybe one of them is a werewolf, and it would help if we smelled like each other,” I suggested coyly and took his hand, leading him the few feet to the bed. And then I ruined any cute-sexy innuendo by continuing to babble, “Of course, they’d probably be able to tell if we’d had sex recently, so we’d have to-”

  “I don’t think anyone’s a werewolf or has super-senses,” he said with a small smile.

  We both stepped out of our shoes and I lay down on the bed, giving his arm a tug until he fell down beside me. David immediately snuggled up to my side and lay his head on my shoulder. I wrapped my arm around him and used the other arm to rub his soothingly. After a moment, he released a heavy sigh. “Thank you. It’s been a long time since I’ve cuddled.”

  “Me too,” I admitted. I’d almost forgotten how good it felt to have another person curl up like this with me. Sure, my friends and I shared hugs or sat close together on the sofa. But one-night-stands weren’t usually interested in anything more than sex. Even with Tonya… well, we had lost that innate closeness after I caught her cheating that first time. Even though I’d done my best to forgive her, the trust wasn’t there anymore.

  I kissed David’s head and he said, “If I’m not careful, I might fall asleep like this.”

  “Well, we have two options. We could talk, and we can share stories about growing up or you can tell me about whomever I might meet or we can work some more on our boyfriend story. You know, inside jokes, stuff like that… Or I can just set the alarm on my phone.”

  “Let’s do both. We can chat, not lose track of time, and we’ll be okay even if we fall asleep.”

  So we did.

  “Daaaaaviiiiid,” Hunter sang to me quietly, somewhere in the middle of our conversation about childhood pets. “Wake up, sleeping beauty.”

  “Mmm… not asleep,” I said as I tilted my head up to see him grinning at me.

  “You were asleep for like half an hour,” he said.

  “Nope, we were still talking. I just blinked my eyes verrrrry slowly.”

  “Okay, but that last one was an extremely long, snorey blink,” he said with a wink. “As comfy as this is, I think it’s time for us to get ready for the wedding. And maybe you can help me decide what to do with my hair?”

  “Brush it?” I asked.

  “You know what I mean!” he whined. “Up or down? Does it need some kind of product?”

  I shrugged. I’d never had anything but short hair, which inevitably required product because of that one annoying cowlick in the back. “Sorry, I’m not one of those gays that can makeover a man or woman at a glance.”

  As I said that, Hunter�
�s phone chimed and he glanced at it. “Perfect timing. Julian says I better not wear a hipster man-bun, even though I brought a sophisticated leather thong to tie around it. Do you hate my manbuns too?”

  “Your buns look fabulous, but I personally prefer your hair down. Why don’t you decide once we’re dressed?” I said and angled my head to blatantly stare at his ass in an attempt to avoid telling him that I’ve had far too many daydreams about Hunter’s shoulder-length hair fanned over my chest as he slowly kissed his way down my body.

  “If I wear it down, I’ll only be able to brush it. I had to take three showers this morning after failed attempts to use mousse,” he joked while I stuck my head in the closet to unzip our garment bags. “Umm… David? Someone seems to have slid a mysterious package under the door, addressed to both of us. What do you want to bet it’s from Brooke?”

  “I can’t imagine it being from anyone else.” I joined Hunter to sit at the foot of the bed and he tore the large envelope open to reveal two beautiful floral-patterned ties and a note. They coordinated with each other, our suits, and included the bright pink of her attendants. They were perfect and we made identical hums of appreciation. I unfolded the note and read it aloud:

  David,

  I know you both have your own sense of style, but it would make me very happy if you’d wear these ties anyway. I had your sister deliver this package, so I hope you two were having loud, athletic sex or standing around half-naked when she arrived.

  Love you,

  Brooke.

  Hunter was giggling by the time I got to the last sentence.

  “What a missed opportunity!” I said. “If she’d warned us, we could have jumped up and down on the bed making crazy noises and then we wouldn’t have to stage a P.D.D.H. for her to stumble upon.”

  Sure, I was selfishly looking forward to making out with him, but I was still concerned that we’d go too far and make the rest of the weekend awkward and uncomfortable. As if reading my mind, Hunter said, “Overhearing it isn’t the same as seeing it. And there will be opportunities tonight and tomorrow morning to be loud.”