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“Night,” he murmured, eyes fluttering closed.
“Goodnight.” I kissed his forehead and closed my eyes, my heart aching as I waited for sleep to take me.
Chapter Sixteen
Soren
Morning came quickly, too quickly for my liking. We got up and dressed in the previous day’s clothes in a hurry, and it wasn’t long until Levi was rushing home to change for work, leaving me alone in the building with only my thoughts for company. As I went about my morning, showering quickly in the apartment bathroom, thoughts of the night before swirled around in my mind. It felt different somehow than our previous encounters, for lack of a better term. We’d had many nights together in the past few months but when Levi had hauled me onto his lap and I’d asked him to fuck me, something deep down in me knew there was no turning back.
When he’d left that morning, I’d wanted nothing more than a goodbye kiss, which was a type of casual, tender affection we had avoided. We’d never explicitly agreed to any changes in our relationship and I had no idea how Levi felt about what had been happening between us. Something had changed for me, though.
I chewed on my bottom lip while I paced the small apartment, moving the furniture back into place and tidying up as if it mattered. I’d been telling myself for months that we were just business partners who sometimes fooled around. Nothing has to change, right? I knew that was a lie, though. It had already changed and I had to decipher how I felt about it.
Once the apartment was sufficiently tidy, I made my way downstairs to the office and continued my marketing work, getting ready for opening day. The weather outside was gloomy and gray, reflecting my mood. I hoped the day of the grand opening would be sunny and warm, or at least comfortable. Virginia Octobers were unpredictable, as I was learning.
I flipped through papers and stared at the designs I’d worked up, but my brain would not focus. All I could think about was Levi, the way we’d been together the night before. My body ached, both from the sex and sleeping on the tiny couch, but that wasn’t what dominated my thoughts. Instead, it was the ache in my chest, the tender sensation of being tugged toward something I didn’t understand, that distracted me from my work.
After a while, I gave up on work and picked up my phone, dialing Hugo. I knew my brother would have something useful to say, if he answered. It was a workday, after all. To my relief, it only rang once before he picked up.
“Hey there. How’s the theater?”
I exhaled, my chest still tight. “It’s great. Almost ready. We’re just waiting on occupancy permits now.” I hesitated before continuing. “That’s not why I’m calling, though.”
“No? What’s going on then?”
I cleared my throat, not sure how to ask what I wanted to know. Finally, I decided to dive in. “How did you know you were gay?”
Hugo spluttered and choked out a laugh. “I’m sorry, what? Did you just—”
“Yeah. I did.”
He was silent for a moment before speaking softly. “Is everything okay with you and Levi?”
“I have a confession.” How was I going to tell him I’d lied?
“Bigger than the one where you brought a man home and announced you weren’t straight after all?”
I laughed weakly. “Sort of. Levi and I… our relationship… it’s not real.”
“You’re going to have to back up a little, because I’m completely lost.”
“We met right before the wedding. I needed help—expertise and money—to get the Radiance restored. Levi needed someone to marry him so he could get an inheritance—a big one. We agreed it would be a great business deal. Strictly platonic.”
“Let me guess, you’re not so strictly platonic anymore?”
I bit my lip again, not sure how much I wanted to tell my brother about my sex life. “Not anymore, no.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
I shrugged, despite the fact that he couldn’t see me. “I don’t know.”
“Do you like him?”
I looked at my hands, splayed on my desk, remembering how Levi had felt under my fingertips, his strong muscles flexing and pulling as he’d taken me. “Physically or emotionally?”
“Both.”
Another memory flooded back to me, the way Levi had teased me while I was painting, the way we ended up chasing each other all around the theater, ending in a breathless tumble to the floor and a kiss. “I do like him. Physically and emotionally.”
