Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

Hugo lowered his hand back to the bed, and the grief Wallace felt over it
was enormous. “You make me question things. Why it has to be this way. My
place in this world. You make me want things I can’t have.”
“Hugo.” He cracked right down the middle.
“I wish things were different,” Hugo whispered. “I wish you were alive
and found your way here. It could be a day like any other. Maybe the sun is
shining. Maybe it’s raining. I’m behind the counter. The door opens. I look
up. You walk in. You’re frowning, because you don’t know what the hell
you’re doing in a tea shop in the middle of nowhere.”
Wallace snorted. “That sounds about right.”
“Maybe you’re passing through,” Hugo continued. “You’re lost, and you
need help finding your way. Or maybe you’re here to stay. You come up to the
counter. I say hello, and welcome you to Charon’s Crossing.”
“I tell you I’ve never had tea before. You look outraged.”
Hugo grinned ruefully. “Maybe not outraged.”
“Yeah, yeah. Keep telling yourself that. You would be so irritated. But
you’d also be patient.”
“I’d ask you what flavors you like.”
“Peppermint. I like peppermint.”
“Then I have just the tea for you. Trust me, it’s good. What brings you
here?”
“I don’t know,” Wallace said, caught in a fantasy where everything was
beautiful and nothing hurt. He’d been here before in secret. But now it was
out in the open, and he never wanted it to end. “I saw the sign near the road
and took a chance.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for taking a chance.”
Wallace struggled against closing his eyes. He didn’t want to lose this
moment. He forced himself to memorize every inch of Hugo’s face, the curl
of his lips, the stubble he’d missed on his jaw when shaving earlier. “You’d
make the tea. Put it into a little pot and set it on a tray. I’d be sitting at the
table near the window.”
“I’d bring the tray out to you,” Hugo said. “There’d be a second cup,
because I want you to ask me to sit down with you.”
“I do.”