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forced to view the mostly bare walls and consider them the way a stranger might. He wasn’t much of a decorator if he didn’t count the pillows and blankets he bought by the ton.
    Clearing his throat, he took the bag Cory had carried up and went into his kitchen. He had two perishable items and one was ice cream, which, he’d be happy to tell Judith, was for the pie. The other was frozen pie crusts, in case he messed up the ones he was going to make from scratch.
    He would probably mess up the ones he made from scratch.
    When he turned from the freezer, Cory was by his couch, considering either the mug of now-cold tea or the closed laptop and pile of blankets. “Is this where you write?”
    Genuine, paralyzing shock was the only thing that kept Vincent from tripping over his own feet and falling onto his face. “You know about that? How?”
    He hadn’t said anything. He didn’t even write under his own name. Admittedly, Vincent Green wasn’t the most secretive penname, but he didn’t have his picture on his books or anything.
    “You aren’t the only fabulous soul in the building,” Cory reminded him sweetly. The complex had been listed as “gay friendly” after all, which was one of the reasons Vincent, and probably Cory as well, had chosen to live here. But that still didn’t explain how Cory knew what he did. Vincent stood motionless at the start of the living room, and Cory took pity on him. “You went to a convention or something a while ago. Ricky worked it as a bisexual booth babe—Ricky is bi, by the way. You aren’t going to be one of those gays who act like that makes them less than us, or treat him like he has a disease because he’s touched a woman, are you? Because I don’t have time for those kinds of people.”
    “I… he recognized me from that?” Vincent hadn’t even had a booth or done a reading. “And… no! No.”
    “Good.” Some of the ferocity left Cory’s expression, shifting to something more curious. “Because Ricky read your books after that, and he seemed to think, from what was in them, that you might be of a similar persuasion.”
    “He’s read my books?” Vincent addressed the most alarming issue, then scratched nervously at his beard when the rest of the implied question hit him. “Oh.” He swallowed and studied Cory carefully. “I… dated girls, a long time ago. It was nice. But not, uh…. for me. But Lando, the book character, is a little more…. Yes. Or he was, at the beginning. Lately, well, that doesn’t matter right now. I suppose you could say he is, but leaning more toward men.” Fans had asked him this about Lando too, but Vincent was much better at answering questions when he had a computer to hide behind.
    “Hmm.” Cory’s gaze was heavy, as if he was looking at Vincent and seeing Lando, although he hadn’t said he’d read the books. Before Vincent could work up the courage to ask if he had, Cory took a deep breath. “He also said there was sex in your stories.” He paused there, as if he hadn’t read them but that alone was enough to make him want to, and Vincent had the vision of him reading those scenes and liking them, and wanting to do what was in them.
    Vincent didn’t look anything like his fictional hero, and he hadn’t done many of the things he had Lando do, but he felt heat spread through his chest and down his spine. There were scenes of daring semi-public sex, and bondage beyond the simple things he’d tried, and, in one of his favorite scenes, Lando had let someone who looked a lot like the bar owner fuck him on the couch in his office. That scene really should have clued Vincent in to that building romantic arc sooner than this.
    Vincent glanced from Cory to his couch and thought of how Cory moved, thoughtful and confident, graceful, and how he might be with Vincent beneath him. He breathed harder. Then he went back into the kitchen to keep himself hidden behind the counter.
    “You did!” Cory stepped closer. “I hear