Melting - Sean Ashcroft Page 0,7

in the cool, dark marble of the worktops.

My fingers traced idle patterns on the surface, imagination running wild as I thought about how much space I’d have to temper chocolate here.

Did Dad know that? Were these marble tops for me, because he knew I used them, or did they just go with the decor?

Which came first—the taste in interior decoration, or the only son?

I got my phone out, remembering it was still in flight mode, and flicked it back to normal to find a text from Marissa.

Marissa: tell me when you get there safe

Hayden: Got there safe.

I hesitated, and then sent a second text.

Hayden: Dad has a boy toy with the most perfect ass I’ve ever seen

I wanted to think I couldn’t believe it, but I absolutely could. I wasn’t even surprised he hadn’t mentioned it.

If I thought about it long enough, I’d convince myself that he had a different beautiful creature running around naked in his house every week.

Which was fine. He was allowed. Mom had been gone for ten years. He didn’t have to be lonely for the rest of his life.

Marissa: really?

Hayden: Really, but I haven’t seen a lot of asses, so maybe I’m not qualified to judge.

Marissa: no, I mean, your dad has a boy toy?

Hayden: You say it like this would be unusual for my dad

And it wasn’t, not really. Or at least, not out of character. I wasn’t aware of him dating someone quite this young before, but people were drawn to him. He had this incredible charisma. People loved being around him.

No one would’ve left after ten minutes of a date with him. He was enthralling.

Marissa: do we have to use the term boy toy?

Hayden: You’d prefer I called him what? A sugar baby?

Marissa: point.

Marissa: Sugar, Baby would be a cute name for a patisserie, though

I snorted.

Marissa had been talking about branching out, opening up a more traditional patisserie than Pleasure, my ice cream bar. There wasn’t enough space on the premises for much else, definitely not the full kitchen and bank of ovens she’d need for baking on the scale she was talking about, but I knew she’d been scouting locations.

I wanted her to succeed—she was a damned good manager, and with a good chef beside her she could absolutely do it—but I was scared of losing her, too.

I’d been pushing her away for over a year, and I was just now realizing how much damage I might’ve done.

Giving her a break from me was probably a good thing.

Hayden: It’s definitely not the worst one you’ve come up with

My phone rang just as I was about to put it down and nearly startled me into dropping it.

“Hello?” I asked, answering without checking the caller ID.

“Hey, Hay.”

My blood ran cold.

“Aaron,” I said, stomach already twisting up into knots.

What did he want?

“How’s things?”

I had to take a breath to stop myself from snapping at him to cut the shit and tell me what he wanted. Or to stop myself saying I don’t hear from you for a year and you’re asking me how things are?

“Oh, y’know, mostly the same as always.”

“That’s good! I saw a rave review for Pleasure the other day, made me think of you.”

If he was about to ask for a second chance, I’d…

Well. I wasn’t sure what I’d do. Did I have a lot of other options?

Who else would even want me now? Aaron had been The One.

Or at least, I’d been convinced he was. So convinced I’d let the entire rest of my life pass me by, too wrapped up in him for friends of my own. It’d all been about him. His friends, his tastes, his relationship, like I wasn’t really involved as long as I made him feel good.

I could see that now, but at the time I’d loved all the attention from a man I’d thought was older and wiser.

“Guess I didn’t catch it,” I said, pretending the paper it’d been in wasn’t still sitting on my kitchen counter.

“Well, I’ll see if I can dig up my copy for you. Anyway, uh… this is awkward, but…”

You don’t say, I didn’t say.

“How attached are you to that couch in the living room?”

What?

“Not… particularly?” I said. It was a couch. It’d been Aaron’s choice—

Oh.

Right.

“You want the couch,” I said, forcing myself not to sigh.

“Do you mind?” he asked, wheedling like a six-year-old.

And he was the one I’d had to grow up for.

“It’s just that I just moved into a new place and it’s the perfect scale for the