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She leaned over the other side of the bar and propped her square chin in her palm. This put her about a foot from Geoffrey’s face. “My people? Do tell.”
He waved toward the living room where a smiling Sven had taken the baby and settled onto the couch. “The tall, beautiful people who are apparently churned out of the north like sun babies.”
She snorted. “Oh, I like you. I think I’ll keep you.”
“Mine,” Sven said from the living room. He didn’t raise his voice—probably so he didn’t startle the sweet baby he’d unwrapped and now held up to his face. But he didn’t need to. The possession in that tone came through loud and clear. Before he cooed at the baby. Actually cooed.
Geoffrey’s legs wobbled and he quickly sat on a barstool. When he looked back at Alida, it was to find a shrewd narrowing of the eyes trained on him. Yep. She was reading him like a book. And those words were Yes, I want to be his pocket love-slave and stay tucked against his heart always. But his gaze was drawn back to Sven and the tiny blond creature currently cooing back at him.
“Oh God,” he said under his breath.
When Alida snorted again, he knew he’d still been too loud. “I thought so,” she murmured as she leaned closer. With those legs, she could probably reach all the way across. He wondered how tall her husband was and if he was doomed to stand in the land of giants. He glanced back at Sven who had now stretched out on the soft-looking brown sofa and sat the baby on his chest. Okay, maybe not doomed…
He turned to find Alida still staring at him. “You are just his type.”
“Not according to him,” Geoffrey answered. “It’s taken me months to get him to even look at me.”
She shook her head. “Nah. He looked. He told me.”
Shock punched him in the chest. It came wrapped around a hard ball of hope. “He did?”
“Mmhhmm,” she hummed, chin still in her hand. Her hair was so long and so silky looking, it pooled onto the black granite. “Sexy little blond with quick hands. That you?”
Eyes wide, he glanced back at Sven to find him cuddling the child. Oh, he was so, so fucked. He quickly faced Alida. “Yeah, that would be me. If you weren’t related to him, you’d have trouble keeping your hands off, too.”
She laughed and straightened up. “Oh Geoffrey, we are going to be good friends. Want a beer? I know my brother won’t drink on the job so I won’t bother to ask him.”
He nodded and as he watched her pad to the refrigerator and grab two beers and a water bottle out of the cabinet for Sven, he found himself hoping they would. She had an easy-going freshness to her that drew him in. He was comfortable here with her and from the looks of her brother, so was he. Geoffrey wanted this. He had a family in Finn and had always felt the two of them were enough, but Finn was out in the world, making his own way. Though he still technically lived with Geoffrey, he was gone more than at home now and Geoffrey had always loved the warmth of family around him.
It was one of the reasons he’d been so drawn to Lucas Vallois and his friends. Deep down, he yearned for that. For real connections—not the ones he had with the people he hung out with online and in clubs. Was that desire what pulled him so strongly to Sven? Was it more for the end to his loneliness than it was true caring and need? He turned his head and watched as Sven laid the baby down on his chest and closed his eyes.
Nope.
He was fucking in love with the big guy and he, of course, came to that realization while the man was cuddling a small human to his big, manly chest.
Geoffrey Ralse had officially embraced cliché.
Oh, who was he kidding? Blond, twink, smart-assed, and loved to bottom. He was practically the epitome of cliché. And he didn’t give a shit.
And falling for Sven like this put him over into full-on Hollywood character mode. Now the question was…did this movie have a wonderful rom-com ending or had he inadvertently stumbled into a teary drama where the wonderfully lovable gay lead perished in a horrid, untimely death?
“Do you and Sven usually hang out on Saturdays?” Geoffrey asked, forcing his mind to a more pleasant topic.
“Nope. We usually have dinner on Wednesdays after he’s run his errands and played Frisbee golf.” Her smile softened a bit, becoming edged with a little sadness. “He called and said that you were having a rough time. Thought you could use a change of scenery. A cute baby.”
