Melting - Sean Ashcroft Page 0,39

how much space they took up. I’d figured out without him having to tell me that they’d been his wife’s.

Hayden using them did something weird to my heart, but I ignored it in favor of taking the spoon he offered me.

This was bound to be good.

I scooped up a spoonful and put the whole thing in my mouth, eagerly anticipating cool refreshment.

My brain took a second to catch up to what I was actually tasting.

Don’t spit it out, I thought frantically. Don’t spit it out, you’ll insult him.

Why was it salty? Not salted caramel salty, but salty-salty, and with a kind of…

I didn’t know enough about food to describe what I was tasting, so I swallowed it and tried not to gag at the final, sudden hit of sweetness on the back of my tongue.

Hayden was looking at me, clearly eager for feedback.

For a split second I thought maybe this was a prank, maybe it was like making me run back home in a post-orgasm haze and throw myself into the shower so his dad wouldn’t realize what we’d been doing when he called me for breakfast.

But it wasn’t. Hayden’s face was so earnest, waiting for me to tell him I loved it.

I would’ve done anything for one of Mr. Lewis’s interruptions right now.

As I struggled to come up with something—anything—to say about it, Hayden’s face fell.

“You hate it,” he said.

I couldn’t lie to him.

“What, umm. What… is it?” I asked, unsure I wanted to know the answer.

“Blue cheese and honey,” Hayden responded.

“Why?”

Why probably wasn’t the best thing I could’ve said, but the combination in ice cream just wouldn’t register in my brain.

That did explain why it was that weird blue-green color.

“Umm.” Hayden rubbed the back of his neck. “I had this caramelized fish sauce with burnt butter and vanilla ice cream a while back, and it was incredible, and I was thinking, y’know, I could use things along the same lines to get that same… kind of… taste?”

I offered Hayden the spoon. “Maybe I don’t have the palate for it?” I offered, desperate to soothe his wounded ego.

Hayden had been kicked in the guts enough times in his life. Even if I didn’t mean it, I didn’t want to be yet another person letting him down.

He hesitated, then took the spoon and tried a tiny bit of the ice cream, wrinkling his nose as he tasted it.

“No,” he said, taking the bowl away. “That’s disgusting.”

“It was a good idea,” I said, though I didn’t really believe it.

“Bullshit, but thank you,” Hayden said, peering into the ice cream machine. “Glad this second batch is safer. It doesn’t exactly challenge the palate, but peanut butter and chocolate is Dad’s favorite.”

“I’m not sure ice cream needs to be challenging,” I said.

Hayden looked at me like I’d just said something profound, opened his mouth, then closed it again without saying anything.

He tapped on the ice cream machine, peering in through the window at the top.

I got up for a glass of water, checked to see the coast was clear, and squeezed his ass on the way back around the counter, making him squeak.

“Still think you’re hot,” I laughed. “Just so we’re clear.”

18

Hayden

Right before Wes dragged me to the local ice cream parlor, I should have realized the mistake I was making.

The mistake where I now had to watch him lick drips of vanilla ice cream off his fingers, in public, with children present.

I hadn’t remembered anything about fourth of July celebrations in Otter Bay, but apparently ice cream was a tradition, if the quarter-mile line was anything to go by. I couldn’t remember there even being an ice cream parlor here when I’d been a kid.

“You okay?” Wes asked, mid-lick, peering at me with a dot of ice cream on his nose.

I was really glad I’d worn my other jeans today. Wes was apparently the only man in the world who could make cargo shorts look sexy.

It wasn’t so much the cargo shorts I was looking at, which might’ve helped.

“You’re… I… there’s…” I waved at his nose, but he looked at me like I’d lost the plot.

Maybe I had, because the next thing I knew I was licking the ice cream off the tip of his nose.

Wes blinked at me, mouth hanging open, more ice cream dripping down over his hands.

Who knew his favorite flavor was going to be vanilla?

Just like mine.

People treated vanilla like it was boring, but a good vanilla ice cream had a lot going for it, both on its