I tried to hide the quiver in my knees when the word “fuck” dropped from his lips. “That’s honestly not a bad way to look at it,” I said, cheeks still warm but the embarrassment fading away, being replaced by something else. A growing spark inside my core, catching on my nerves and shooting through every inch of my body.

Jake shrugged, leaned back so that he was perched on the arm of his couch. “It took me a little bit of time to get there, though. It’s hard when you come out and people either think, ‘oh, he’ll be fully gay soon’ or ‘he’ll be back to being straight’ as if being bi is just a stopover point and not a full-ass identity. And honestly, hearing that all the time started making me doubt myself, which is pretty wild since I’d always been confident and headstrong about who I was.”

“As if coming out wasn’t already complicated enough.”

“Pfft, you’re right about that.” Jake licked his lips again and smiled, his eyes pinned to mine, his head slightly craned so that I could see the gentle rise and fall of his pulse.

“Alright, so are we continuing with the tour of my TARDIS?”

“Let’s do it, Doctor.”

He gave me a wink and turned, leaving me and my goofy cheek-to-cheek smile staring at his back, wondering what kind of magic this man must have had to be making me smile on such a shitty, messed-up night.

Maybe it’s not magic. Maybe it’s his sonic screwdriver…

6

JAKE PEREZ

The house tour ended with us in my kitchen, floating around the island and chatting about what kind of food we loved.

“Definitely ropa vieja,” I said, grabbing a bottle of pinot grigio from the fridge and setting it on the counter with a clink.

“What’s that?” Noah asked.

“It’s a Cuban dish my grandma would make all the time. It’s basically shredded beef soaked in a tomato sauce with tons of peppers and onions and other good stuff. It translates to ‘old clothes,’ which always gave me a kick when I was a kid. I loved asking for a dish of old clothes.”

“It sounds delicious,” Noah said, his eyes glittering under my kitchen lights. I wasn’t entirely sure how he managed to do that under such drab lighting, but I certainly didn’t mind. Looking at him was like looking at a rare crystal inside a museum, always shifting and glowing differently depending on which angle you looked at it from.

“What about you? What’s something you can eat every day?”

“Besides ass?”

That got a surprised snort out of me.

“Sorry, sorry,” Noah said. “It’s getting late, and my brain is malfunctioning.”

I was about to tell him something along the lines of “dinner being served,” but he cut me off, a strawberry-pink blush coloring his cheeks.