Jace

"McDonald's? Really, Jace?"

Jason Spade looked up at his business partner, old frat buddy, and best friend, trying to keep his face impassive. "I like McDonald's."

Quent Jackson was looking good today--dark hair cut to part on the side, neatly trimmed goatee framing almost ridiculously full lips. Of course, Quent looked good every day. Quent had even looked good when they were both college freshmen, rooming together, before the goatee or the expensively cut hair or the natty suits, and even before the acne had cleared up. Something about Quentin's brown eyes and open smile had always looked good to Jace. It was why he'd maneuvered their room assignments in college and asked Quent to partner with him in their day trading company. It wasn't because Quentin was a shark--he was good enough at his job, and he certainly held his own--but because Quentin was a mammal. A warm-blooded, friendly, sweet-tempered fox who could get his own dinner but who knew how to curl up in a nest.

When they'd roomed together in college, he'd always made their dorm room home.

"We usually eat sushi," Quent was saying now with a lift of his naturally skeptical eyebrow. Quent didn't seem to believe the obvious things--or the things Jace thought should be obvious--and that bothered Jace.

Right now, it was bothering him a lot.

"Sometimes," Jace grunted, not wanting to put it into words, "sometimes, french fries are better than sushi."

"So I got McDonald's for the french fries?" Again, that skeptical eyebrow.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

Jace swallowed. Damn Quentin. Damn him for needing words.

"French fries are like blow jobs," he said shortly, and he had to give it to Quent. He didn't blush or anything. His eyes got big, and he paused with a ketchup-smothered fry on the way to his mouth, but he didn't blush.

But his swallow was audible. "Elaborate."

Jace scowled. "Sometimes, the meal is the burger and the french fries are a prelude, right?"

"Gotcha."

"Sometimes, you eat the fries, and they're good, but what you really want is the meat, right?"

"Gotcha."

"But sometimes...." Jace took a deep breath and then brought a crackling, crisp, salty, slick, tangy little stick of heaven to his mouth and chewed, closing his eyes and letting the fry slide down his gullet, almost shuddering in ecstasy. "Sometimes, the fry alone is all you need. It's the whole meal, first course, last course, beginning to end. Sometimes, the french fry is all you need and all you ever fucking want."

Quent grinned at him, looking pleased by the analogy. "Well, Jace, I'll think about that the next time I'm getting a blow job!"

Jace tried not to sigh.

Quentin grinned. He liked the idea. But he didn't blush.

"Well, it's not going happen tonight," Jace said, the thought almost consoling him. "Tonight, we've got racquetball."

Quent rolled his eyes. "Another chance for you to kick my ass in something. Fabulous."

"I do my best."

Yup. Jace was going to have to wait for the blush.