having missed most of the sentence. “Sorry, what?”
Biting his lip, Lorenzo shook his head. “You look like you’re thinking too hard,” he repeated.
Wilder shrugged. “It’s nothing bad. I’ve just never really done this before. You know, the whole domestic, cooking dinner sort of thing.”
“Not even with…” Lorenzo said, then paled and looked away as the rest of his sentence trailed off into a dull murmur.
His words were so muffled, Wilder was mostly guessing, so he reached out and touched his chin. “Bad ear day, so I really need you to face me. But I think I caught most of that, and no, not even with my ex.”
Lorenzo set the wooden spoon he’d been using to brown sausage down, and he propped his hip against the counter and switched to sign. ‘Was it always terrible?’
Wilder shook his head, feeling soothed by his language on Lorenzo’s hands. It was so much easier to talk about it that way. ‘No. It was good at first—but not great. Not the way it should have been. It was just less violent. And there were good moments. I tried to leave him once, and he promised to change, and there were about three months that I thought he meant it.’
‘Sorry,’ Lorenzo said. He turned to stir the meat again before looking back. ‘I wish it hadn’t cost you so much to get out.’
‘The price was worth it,’ Wilder said, and he believed that with every ounce of his being. He wouldn’t trade a single second of his scars—inside or out—for his freedom and for the distance between him and his past. ‘But even in the good months, it was never this good.’
‘It’s not really a high bar,’ Lorenzo told him, and Wilder laughed.
‘No, but the one you set is.’ Wilder hesitated saying any of this, because it had been a week—just a week since the man stumbled into his life, begging for pity but offering so much more in return. Wilder shuddered to think about how he had almost not gone outside when he saw him on the bench that day. He had almost not bothered. That thought alone threatened to choke him, and he set his knife down and put both hands at Lorenzo’s waist. “Thank you.”
Lorenzo’s brows lifted, eyes going wide, but he didn’t ask what for. He just leaned in to kiss him. “Come on,” he murmured, trailing his lips to speak against the shell of his hear. “Let’s get this cooked so we can get your booth set up. I’m looking forward to this date night.”
Wilder stole a last kiss, then stepped back to tip the zucchini into the pan next to the meat. “Selling cupcakes isn’t much of a date.”
“It is to me.” And the absolute and simplistic honesty of his words were enough to make Wilder feel like he’d finally gotten something right.
“Oh, shit. Oh, holy shit.”
Wilder turned his head in a half panic at the sound of Theo’s voice rising above the crowd as he clambered over the table and into the booth. ‘What’s wrong?’ he signed, pulling him close.
‘You,’ Theo signed, then bit his lip and leaned in so Wilder would be able to hear him over the crowd. “You’re in love!”
Wilder blinked, then took a step back. ‘No.’
Rolling his eyes, Theo turned and motioned across the way where Lorenzo was currently in deep discussion with both Sonia and Birdie at the blacksmith stand. Wilder knew Birdie had given him shit, but whatever happened in the two hours Lorenzo had wandered the Market, it seemed like things were fine now. In fact, Birdie was grinning at him and pushing something into his hands.
Wilder had been watching them—and admiring Lorenzo’s lithe form, he couldn’t deny that. And he had also been feeling a lot of things deep in his gut—soft and a little scary, but so damn good. And yet… the idea of being in love? This soon?
“You can’t lie to me. I am your self-appointed platonic soulmate, and it’s my job to notice these things,” Theo said, slinging an arm around Wilder’s waist and speaking close to his ear. “You are in love with him.”
His pulse raced—he could feel it against the inside of his throat and thrumming in his ears. It had never felt like this before, not before Scott and not with him either. And he realized he had no true baseline for what a healthy relationship was like. But still…
Love?
“Don’t panic,” Theo said firmly, turning Wilder to face him. “Breathe and then take that man