losing the magic. He had a better night lounging on the sofa with Sebastion’s hands in his hair and Ivy laying on his feet and the two of them laughing at her awful dog farts while Chef Ramsey yelled at kitchen newbies in the background.
It was a simpler life than he ever expected to lead, but he didn’t mind it.
And it might have stayed that way if Alexander hadn’t been on the other end of that wrong text.
Not that he was a potential hook-up. He was seeing someone, and Luca had long-since learned his lesson not to get involved with young grad students in the middle of relationship hell. But Alexander was under his skin a bit—and Sebastion’s too. He just didn’t know what to make of his feelings and where they were heading.
There were no new chats, so he sent a heart-smiley, then tucked his phone into his desk and fired up his computer. He gave his camera a couple of test shots to make sure the angle was good, then he sat back and hit record.
“Good afternoon, class. I hope you were able to get all the reading done on your own, because this is going to be a long lecture, and all of this”—he leaned in toward the screen and gave them his most obnoxious smile he could manage—“and I mean all of this, is going to be on the final.”
The worst part about the online lectures wasn’t giving them. He did miss the feedback he got from being in class, but he didn’t miss the know-it-all shithead frat boys who thought they were going to be on CSI interrupting him every two minutes with bullshit they learned on YouTube. No, the worst part was the editing. Was re-watching himself and cringing and using his software to snip out every little grunt and whine Ivy made in her sleep.
It didn’t take long though, and just as he hit upload to the virtual classroom, he heard the sound of the garage opening. He was on his feet with Ivy at his heels as he hurried down the hall and skidded into the kitchen. He leaned on the counter in an attempt to look casual when Sebastion walked through the door, and his husband rolled his eyes and set the bags on the table.
“Come give me a kiss,” he ordered, but Luca knew the words weren’t for him, confirmed when Sebastion dropped to his knees and ruffled their dog’s fur. Ivy was some sort of mix that had a heavy dose of Goldendoodle because she had the curls, but her markings were closer to a beagle’s.
She was also anxious from having been abused and abandoned, and she was one of the reasons they hadn’t traveled in the last couple years. She couldn’t take the car trips, but she also couldn’t take being boarded. Not that he minded—not anymore. He loved his little home and his mess of a dog, and his husband who smiled at him with eyes squinting behind his old-man, wire-framed glasses.
“Is it my turn yet?” he asked, trying to make himself sound bored.
Sebastion winced at the popping sound his knees made as he rose, but he ignored it after that as he got his hands around Luca’s waist and leaned up with parted lips. Luca wasted no time fisting the back of his button-up that smelled like the weird drops he used to dilate eyes, and he used his other hand to tilt Sebastion’s face up by the chin before kissing him long and thorough.
“I’m so excited for tacos,” he murmured.
Sebastion nipped his lip a little too hard and grinned viciously when Luca sucked in a breath. “I found the pink frosted things that look like shells,” he said as he took a step back, “so I picked up an extra bag of those.”
Luca shoved past him, greedily digging through the bags until he came up with the sweet breads. He’d grown up around the corner from a Mexican bakery, and the woman who owned it had four kids of her own, so she never minded keeping an eye on Luca and his brother whenever their parents had to work late.
He’d learned to speak Spanish with her with all the fluency of an eight-year-old, and he’d mastered his first recipes standing at her side with an array of fresh vegetables spread out over a counter, waiting to be chopped. And it was moments like these that he missed that little neighborhood. That he missed being young