“I should have peeked through the peephole first,” Jax insisted. “I just, never in a million years did I think I’d find you, of all people, standing there on my doorstep.”

“Why not?” Cody wondered aloud. “I mean, why not me? Of all people?”

“Not sure.” Jax was never anything less than blunt in his replies. “You just, always seemed so shy and awkward at the store.”

“Only around you,” Cody revealed, somewhat defensively. “It’s just, my whole shift is spent working up to that thirty-second interaction we have every day when I ring you up and take your money. I guess I choke every time. I dunno…”

“Same here.” Jax wriggled, all sinews and tendons in the waning afternoon sunlight that bathed him like a candle’s glow. “But seeing you there on my front stoop yesterday, eyes wide and lips parted, staring at my junk, outside the store, and in the bright sunshine, I started thinking about you a… different way.”

“How different?”

“As real. As an actual person. A civilian, not just an employee. And more importantly, as someone I’d like to… get to know better.”

Above all the innuendo, all the talk about bunny ears and junk and boners, this confession thrilled Cody the most of all. “I’d like that too, Jax. Honestly, these last two days have been a little overwhelming where you’re concerned.”

Jax nodded, then shook his head. “I don’t want it to be like that, Cody. I don’t want to overwhelm you, or even pressure you into doing anything you don’t actually want to do. All I want, all I really want? Is to help you experience a few more things than you have so far.”

“Like what?”

Jax gave him a “come on, my guy” eye roll. “Do I have to say them out loud?”

“Yeah, actually. I’m not just shy I’m… pretty dumb, too.”

“Dumb like a fox, maybe,” Jax blurted, wagging a playful finger as the air in the room warmed with more than just waning sunlight and fresh-brewed espresso. “You and your Shy Guy act, sitting there like you don’t want this as much as I do right now.”

Cody finally felt calm enough to give a little sheepish grin. “Want… what?”

“To see what it feels like, Cody,” Jax insisted, standing quietly from his creaky wicker chair as Cody’s hungry, nervous eyes devoured every inch of him. “To see what it looks like, with another man.”

Cody sat, fingers gripping the arms of his chair, nodding quietly. “You’d do that, Jax? For me?”

“With you, Cody,” Jax insisted, reaching down with both hands to help Cody stand. “If you’ll let me, if you’d like to, if you trust me enough, I’d like to be your… first.”

“Today?” Cody croaked, peering slightly up into Jax’s cool hazel eyes.

Jax merely shook his head. “No, baby,” he cooed, as if Cody had already given an answer and they were both ready to move on to sexy talk. “Not today. Not all at once. I’d like us to take our time. That… that would be a first for me too, actually.”

“Really?”

“Sure, Cody. I’m no slut. Just the opposite. But I’ve never been with someone like you before. Someone I care for enough to take things slow. Would you… would you like that?”

Cody felt the blush rise to his cheeks, hot and obvious beneath a fresh layer of flop sweat. “I may be shy, Jax. I may even be a virgin, but I know what it means when someone asks you up for a drink after dinner.”