Melting - Sean Ashcroft Page 0,35

I cupped his jaw and pressed a soft, sweet kiss to his lips.

He stared at me open-mouthed when I pulled back, as shocked as I was nervous.

I didn’t kiss in public. I wasn’t used to it.

But Wes was mine, dammit, and I knew Seth didn’t really want him anyway, but that wasn’t the point.

I’d just needed to kiss him.

“Figured it was time I gave you that back,” I said, remembering that final kiss from last night.

“Oh my god,” Seth whispered beside him. “Oh my god, why didn’t you tell me?” he asked as I turned to follow Mark to the other end of the street.

“I thought it was a secret,” Wes said as we walked away, still sounding dazed.

Warm tingles danced in the pit of my stomach as Mark and I stepped back out into the full sunshine.

I took out my phone to message Wes.

Hayden: It doesn’t have to be a secret in front of your friends. We can talk about dad later.

“Seth likes you,” Mark said as we wandered down the street.

He was Aaron’s age, but he didn’t remind me of Aaron at all.

“I like Seth,” I said in response, because it was true. I did like Seth. And Andre. I was glad I’d met them.

“I know,” Mark said. “He’s not to everyone’s taste, and I know that, but I like seeing him make friends. I like seeing him happy.”

“You love him,” I said. Even if Wes hadn’t been positive that was true, I could see it with my own two eyes. Mark radiated love for Seth.

“More than anything,” Mark said, pausing at one of the shopfronts and holding the door open for me.

As soon as I stepped inside, the distinct smell of an antique dealer hit me. I’d missed the sign on the way in, but I’d know that smell anywhere.

Dad had dragged a bored twelve-year-old Hayden into so many of these up and down the coast on weekends that I’d never forget it. I hadn’t set foot in one since, but the familiarity was surprisingly comforting.

I missed going on road trips with my dad. Maybe he’d have time to do that this week, if I planned it out.

“Mark!” the proprietor—a woman in her 30s with a pair of huge horn-rimmed glasses and the brightest purple lipstick I’d ever seen—called to him from the back of the store. “And you brought a different one!” she enthused.

“This is Hayden,” Mark said.

“You could’ve warned me he was pretty,” she responded, clicking over to us in short heels as purple as her lipstick.

I liked her already.

“Call me Caroline, and come with me,” she said, offering her hand.

I took it, and as soon as her fingers curled around mine a wave of comfort and familiarity and warmth did, too.

I hadn’t held anyone’s hand in…

In…

I couldn’t remember. Aaron hadn’t been the hand-holding type. I’d spent our whole relationship telling myself that was fine, because I wasn’t either, but that was a lie.

Would Wes let me hold his hand?

Maybe. Maybe I could ask.

Caroline dragged me through to the back of the shop, avoiding the piled up bric-a-brac, racks of clothes that smelled strongly of lavender, and weaving our way around the bigger pieces at the back.

A pitch black hippo figure carved out of some kind of stone caught my eye on the way past. I’d promised myself I’d pick something up for Marissa, and that was perfect. Small enough for carry-on luggage, unique enough to be a worthy souvenir for a friend who’d supported me through all the hardest years of my life.

“Mark says you’re some kind of big-shot New York chef who makes ice cream,” Caroline said, grabbing the corner of a tarp on the floor. “I was telling him this was about to go to the big storeroom in the sky.”

She whipped the tarp off in a cloud of ancient dust to reveal a hand-turned ice cream maker. Wooden bucket, steel mechanism, aged and worn but not cracked, with a big paper label that’d seen better days.

I could still make out the name Fre-zee-zee on it, and BEST ON EARTH along the bottom.

The days before advertising standards and subtlety were wild.

“This must be…”

“A little more than a hundred years old,” Caroline supplied. “Or eight quarts, whatever you were estimating.”

“Eight quarts,” I said, though the over a hundred years old thing was arguably more impressive. A commercial machine made more at a time, but this was by hand.

“It’s yours if you can carry it out,” she said. “Otherwise it’s going to old junk