“Oh you know, all of us winter sports guys tend to gravitate together. I bet you do it in Vail, too.” Hawk was tracing patterns on the table with his fingers.
“I do. I mean I hang out with the same guys. Travis. Miko. Jamie. You know, snowboarders, but I get it.”
Those gray eyes cut to his sideways, sort of like little slices of silver. “Is it okay that I introduced you as my boyfriend?”
He reached over to grab Hawk’s hand, squeezing because he wanted to make sure Hawk was paying attention to him. This was serious. “Fuck, yes. It is more than okay. It makes me want to take you home and do very bad things to you. I was gonna ask you today about what we planned to call this.”
“And this is a good thing to call it?”
Caleb nodded, squeezing again. “Is this what you want?”
“Yeah, baby, it’s what I want.”
“Then I’m all in.” Caleb let go and picked up his fork. “Now let’s work on this salad thing.”
The soundof a text tone woke him up and Hawk reached across his body to slap at the nightstand, trying to grab his phone and silence it to make sure it didn’t bother Caleb. When he grabbed it and glanced at the screen, though, it wasn’t his phone going off.
Caleb moaned, one arm flung across his eyes, the other groping for his phone. “What the fuck?”
“Ugh.” Hawk grunted, rubbing his belly where Caleb had dug in with an elbow for a second before he managed to figure out which direction he was going. “I’m going to make some coffee.”
“Mm-hmm.” Caleb opened his phone screen and started scrolling. Hawk padded naked to the kitchen to put one of those Nespresso pods in and fill the water in the machine.
While he waited for the first cup to brew, he went to turn the heater up, because damn he should’ve put on his robe.
In fact, he would go do that now, and he headed to thebedroom to grab it. Peering at Caleb, “Hey, baby, do you want Columbia or Kona this morning?”
Caleb was scowling at his phone, and Hawk had never seen him do that before. So he went and tapped the toes of Caleb’s good foot. “What’s up?”
Caleb tossed his phone aside. “My parents want to come to visit me in Vail.”
Hawk raised his eyebrows. “I thought you didn’t get see much of each other really.”
“It’s more like they don’t really give a shit, so I have to wonder what they want. I’ve been on my own for a long time.” Caleb glanced up, meeting his gaze before rolling up to a sitting position, which made all sorts of muscles move beautifully under his skin. “And I would like pumpkin spice today, I think.”
“Oh, adventurous.” He pulled his robe on, which made Caleb pout.
“No fair covering all that up.”
“What are you going to do about your folks?” Hawk tossed Caleb a sweatshirt and some sweatpants from the pile on the chair next to the door.
“Tell them no. I’m not in Vail.” Caleb scooted to the edge of the bed and grabbed his crutches. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom. I’ll meet you after, huh?”
“Got it.” Hawk would stop by the bathroom in the hall on the way out.
He whipped together some omelets and made toast. By the time they sat down to eat, Caleb was smiling again.
“You okay, baby?”
“Yeah, yeah, I just, that was a surprise seeing their message today. You know, they never texted or called after I got hurt.” Caleb bit into the toast and chewing meditatively, he thought.
“Do they do that? Do they pop up when you least expect it?” Hawk couldn’t imagine having a non-relationship with hisparents. They were not “we see each other all the time” people but they were sure close.
“They do sometimes. Not very often. Maybe three times over the last ten years. But it’s always messy.” Caleb tried the omelet, nibbling a tiny bite. “Hey, this is really good,” he said.
“What can I say? Omelets I can do.” He’d had to learn basic healthy cooking for himself for those times when he forgot to order meals from nutritionists while he was playing. Omelets could be done a million different ways and were always protein and veg heavy.
“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” Caleb asked.