Saying he and Peter broke up made it all sound so civil, like they’d amicably decided to part ways over drinks one day. Which, in a way, was true. Spencer had heard from a friend that Peter had left a bar with another man… after spending most of the night with his tongue down the man’s throat.
Wanting to give his boyfriend the benefit of the doubt, Spencer had brought the topic up calmly. Then he spent twenty minutes at a little table in the coffee shop around the corner from his house, mute with shock, mug of cooling liquid between both palms, while Peter cheerfully admitted to sleeping around and then explained the things lacking in their eighteen-month relationship. All of which, according to Peter, sat squarely on Spencer’s shoulders. Then Peter said they should keep in touch, brushed some crumbs off his pants, got up from his seat, and walked out the door.
Given those details, Spencer would classify the ending of his last relationship as an unequivocal dumping rather than a breakup. But he didn’t want to sound pathetic, so he swallowed down that clarification and instead tried to look affronted as he said, “My house is just over eighteen hundred square feet. That’s not little for a historic neighborhood.”
“Fine,” Maria said with a roll of her eyes. “I’ll let this go.”
Spencer sighed in relief. “Thank you.”
“For now,” she added, boring her dark-eyed gaze into him. “I’ll let it go for now. But at some point you’re going to have to get back on that horse.”
Maria meant well, Spencer realized, but she didn’t understand. He was thirty-eight, which was considered past his prime on the bar circuit, not that he’d ever felt comfortable in bars. At five foot nine and barely shy of one hundred sixty pounds, he was average height and average weight. Add in brown eyes and brown hair, with a little bit of gray around the temples, and Spencer knew he wasn’t somebody who turned heads when he walked down the street. And, as his ex had helpfully pointed out, if by some miracle he managed to get a guy to notice him, he was far too dull to keep the guy’s attention for long.
“I’ve never ridden a horse,” he mumbled, trying once again to deflect.
“I haven’t either,” Maria said thoughtfully. “Though I have a feeling Thom Bramfield is hung like one, so if all goes as planned, I’ll be saying giddyup and bouncing away this weekend.”
“Oh Lord.” Spencer cringed and shook his head. “I so did not need that visual.”
“My girls are completely lost on you,” Maria said as she cupped and squeezed her breasts. Then she shrugged and said, “Oh, well. I’ve got plenty of admirers.”
“You’re a member of Mensa,” Spencer said. “You can’t say things like that!”
Maria took a deep breath and looked at him sympathetically. “Sure I can. There’s nothing that says being intelligent precludes being sexy or fun or quirky or anything else. I can excel at statistical theories, make crass jokes, and look fabulous. All at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.” She got up, straightened her skirt, then looked meaningfully at Spencer and said, “Nobody can put me in a box except myself.” She waltzed over to the door, turned the knob, and looked back over her shoulder. “The same is true for you, Spencer,” she said, and then she walked out of the room.
EMILIO SANCHEZ saw the blinds on the second floor office of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas math building flick shut and knew the sexy man with chinos in every shade of brown and a lifetime supply of sweater-vests was no longer watching them. He had first seen the professor two weeks earlier, when his brother called him in to take a look at the electrical panel in the building they were adding on to. When he’d answered Raul’s call that day, he had expected to stop by for a few minutes and figure out the best way to move the existing panel, which was currently located on an exterior wall that would soon become interior. But then he’d locked gazes with that man and all his plans changed.
Brown eyes with specks of gold were what he noticed first. Unfortunately, he didn’t get a chance to look for long before the man lowered his gaze as a red heat traveled up his neck to his cheeks. Then he scurried into the building.
Shy. The stranger was shy. And Emilio thought it was utterly charming. So he’d found a reason to stay on at the construction site, hoping he’d be able to meet the intriguing stranger.
“Yo, bro, you sure you want to stick around here?” Raul asked, diverting Emilio’s attention from the now empty window. “We won’t need to start the wiring for another few weeks, and I can get one of the carpenters over to work on the framing.”