The next two weeks with Will were something close to perfect. It was like we were playing house, but on vacation. We didn’t have to work, we didn’t have schedules. It was relaxing, yet invigorating.
I’d never felt so stress-free.
We’d spend our nights making out and making love, our days taking Missy for walks, drinking coffee at a little café I’d found to be suitable, and we’d swim in the afternoons and then make dinner.
Like I said, it was perfect.
It was the second week that Will said he’d like to take a look at colleges in Boston. We were sitting at the café tables out on the sidewalk with Missy at our feet. It kind of came out of nowhere, but he just shrugged. “I really like it here. I need a change from Hartford, and I thought since you have good friends here…”
It was though he was unsure if I was interested. I took his hand and looked him in the eye. “Will, wherever you want to go, I will go too,” I told him seriously. “I have nothing in Hartford but you.”
“What about your mom?” he asked. “And your job?”
“My job?” I asked. “Hubbard can kiss my ass. I have enough money saved so I don’t have to work for a while, and my mom? Well, she’d kick my ass if I let you move here without me.”
He smiled. “That’s true. She would.”
“Will, I would move here with you,” I said again. “We don’t have to live together if you think it’s too soon, or we can share an apartment, but have separate rooms, if you’d prefer. I know we haven’t been together for long, but I can’t imagine at least not being in the same city as you.”
Will threw his head back and laughed. “God, Mark, what’s the point?” he asked. “If we both moved here and into different places, we’d be wasting rent money. One place would be empty every night. We’d spend every night together anyway.”
“True,” I agreed. “So the same apartment, separate rooms?”
“Well, we can get an apartment with two bedrooms, but I’ll be sleeping in your room,” he said matter-of-factly.
I grinned at him. “Really?” I asked. “We’re really going to do this?”
Will nodded and laughed. “I think we are.” He finished his coffee. “I’ll need to look around to see which colleges I like and talk semesters with the dean. I’ll need to find a part-time job because if it’s long term, I’ll need some kind of income. So there’s still some things we need to work out.”
“And places to live,” I added. “And I guess I should try and figure out what the hell I want to do with my life.” I sighed. “My aspirations of finding some rich sugar daddy are over now, you know, considering I’m with you.”
Will chuckled. “Unless you can find a sugar daddy who wants two boys.”
“Hell no,” I said. “No one else is touching you.”
He smiled warmly, somewhat mischievously. “Just as freakin’ well, too.”
I sighed, excited to start looking for somewhere to live. “Did you want another coffee to go?” I asked. “We could go back to the house and start looking for somewhere to live. They have some of those muffins you like here. Want me to grab some?”
“Okay,” he said with a smile.
I walked inside, placed my order with the guy behind the counter, and struck up a conversation that would change my life.
It started with a simple, “What brings you to Weymouth?”
He was an older guy, maybe late forties, and he seemed pleasant enough, so I told him, “Moving to the area.”
“It’s a nice spot,” he said with a smile as he frothed the milk.
“What’s employment like around here?” I asked, genuinely interested.
“There’s always work, just depends on what you’re prepared to do.”
“Fair enough,” I said. Then I joked and said, “You’re not hiring, are you?”
He grinned. “I’m not hiring. I’m selling.”
“Selling what?”
He looked around the café. “This place.”
“Really?”
“Don’t want to,” he said with a shrug. “Divorce,” he added, as though that was explanation enough. “You know the saying about a woman scorned?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’d reckon it was first said by a man who got divorced.”
I chuckled. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” Then I asked, “Just out of curiosity, how much are you asking for this business? Do you rent the premises, or do you own it? I think there’s a lot to be said about small coffee shops. I say this to my boyfriend all the time,” I said, giving a pointed to nod to Will, who was now standing, waiting outside with Missy. “The franchises and large corporations squeeze out the small guy, and with that, take the charm and personalization, the honesty, of a place like this.”
The man slowly put the jug of milk he was holding on the counter and smiled at me. “Son, please tell me you’re financial enough to buy me out,” he said with a seriousness that excited me. “I have worked my ass off for this place for that very reason. I refused to bow to the likes of any of those large franchise types. A coffee shop is a place where customers are known by name, not a number.”
“Yes,” I cried. “Like Cheers. A place where everyone knows your name!”
The man laughed warmly. “Yes, like Cheers.” He held out his hand. “My name is Len Salinas.”
I shook his hand and smiled. “Mark Gattison.”
“Well, Mark, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He handed me the coffees. Appearing unsure what else he should say, he said, “Is there anything else I can get for you?”
“Yes, I’ll take two of those chocolate and raspberry muffins,” I said. “And full financials for the last two years, your business proposal, and anything else my accountant might think is useful.”
The next week was busy with college interviews for Will, looking for somewhere to live, and phone calls with my mother’s accountant and lawyer.
Apparently the little café was a viable business, and yes, Len was selling up as part of a divorce settlement. He said if his ex-wife was to get half, he’d prefer to sell it at a reduced price so she got next to nothing, and he’d prefer to sell it to someone who had the same opinions of overfranchised, underpersonalized coffee magnates.
I told Will I’d found him his part-time job, with any hours he needed, with an awesome boss. He could go to school and study, then work at the café when he needed to.
It was a win-win scenario.
Actually, it was all pretty fucking perfect.
And by the time Carter and Isaac got back from their honeymoon, we’d found a place to live. It was an apartment with a short walk to the café, not too far a walk to Carter and Isaac’s, and not far from the bus stop if Will wanted to bus it to school.
We’d organized movers to pack up my place and to clear out the storage unit Will had rented for his stuff. We argued a little about whose stuff went where, and he didn’t really want the paintings we’d done at Oak Hill up on the wall. We argued, but the frames now took place of pride in the living room—much to Will’s dismay—but all in all the whole moving process was fairly painless.
I still couldn’t get enough of him. Nor he of me, apparently.
We made love every chance we got, most nights, all night. Mornings, afternoons, it didn’t matter. One afternoon, we were in bed, both of us sweaty and sated, and I laughed. “Remember when you said ‘once we started having sex, we wouldn’t stop’?”
Will grinned. “Yeah.”
“I don’t ever wanna stop.”
He rolled over on his side. “Do you think this is all happening too fast?”
A cold stab of dread speared me. “What?”
He smiled and put his hand to my face. “No, not us, silly. I mean this whole thing. Moving to Boston, you buying the café, me going to college. It all just happened within a matter of weeks.”
“I don’t think it was too quick,” I told him honestly. “I think it was fate.”
“I didn’t think you believed in fate.”
I kissed him. “I do now.”
Will shook his head and rolled onto his back. “You’re such a sap.”
“I know!” I cried. “And it’s all your fault. I was quite happily miserable until you came along and blindsided me with this whole love thing.”
Will laughed, a deep throaty sound. “Sure it’s actually love and not a stomach flu or a head cold?”
I pushed his arm. “That’s not funny. I thought I was dying.”
Will laughed again. “You were so clueless.” Then he rolled back onto his side to face me once more and sighed. “What time are you meeting Len at the café tomorrow?”
“Eight.”
Will had enrolled for the spring semester at Boston University, so we had a few weeks until he started. I was officially taking over as proprietor of the café this week, and Len had kindly offered to help train me before I just walked in as the owner without a clue. I’d consumed a ton of coffee over the years from a hundred different cafés, but I’d never worked in one.
He was going to introduce me to the staff, show me how to do the ordering, how to open the store, how to close it. And I couldn’t fucking wait.
I had big plans for this café.
It was good timing that Will had a few weeks off before school started, so he could help me and learn the ropes himself.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked.
“I need to finish unpacking the last of the boxes in the spare room, and then I have to call your mom,” he said. “She’s coming here for Christmas, you know. I told her we’d be busy with the café, but she’s determined.”
“She’s always determined.”
Will smiled. “She and Ted have booked accommodation already, so there’s no getting out of it.”
“I learned a long time ago not to argue with her.”
He raised one disbelieving eyebrow at me. “You argue with her all the time.”
“It’s my job,” I said. “I’m her son.”
“Her second-favorite son,” Will corrected me. “She loves me more.”
“That’s understandable,” I told him. “You’re very lovable.”
He leaned in and smile-kissed me. Then he traced his fingers along my forehead and down my cheek. “It all kind of starts tomorrow, doesn’t it?”
“What does?”
“Real life,” he said softly. “The café, then school. We’re going to be so busy from here on out. I’ve really loved having these weeks with you—no work, no responsibilities.”
I leaned over and kissed him. “Yes, we’ll be busy, and there will be days when we don’t see each other. But we’ll make it work. Will, this is the beginning for us.”
“You’re so confident,” he whispered. “How are you so sure?”
“When it comes to you, I have no doubt,” I told him, not caring how cheesy it sounded. “You’re my one true thing.”