Finn is lying closest to the fire, Gideon’s head on his chest and his fingers sunk deeply into his hair. He’d not turned Gideon away when he had pulled him close and rearranged their limbs to his liking without a word.
Luca is unusually wiggly, lying with his forehead between Gideon’s shoulder blades.
It’s making it hard for Leo to slip into sleep.
“Luc, do you have ants in your pants?”
“No pants,” Luca murmurs.
“Yeah, yeah. What has you so wiggly?”
It could be anything from too long without a spanking, or an unsung melody burning through his brain, to having to pee and not wanting to brave the cool cottage away from the fire.
“Something is digging into me, and not in a fun way. What if there really is a pea under these mattresses?”
Grayson and Finn had laid the pile three-deep once they realized everyone would be cuddled up close in a small area. It keeps them off the cold stone floors and closer to where the fire’s heat rises to warm them.
Chuckling, Leo rubs his forehead in the center of Luca’s spine. Gideon chuckles too.
“Are you serious right now? What makes you think that?”
“Did you notice there weren’t any in the stew?”
Huh, there weren’t, and now Leo can feel what he hopes is an imaginary—but still very hard—peadig into his hip.
“Dammit, Luca.”
17
Fate is Woven (Finn)
Perhaps Luca was right when he and Leo were arguing about there being some magical “pea” under the mattresses last night—because Finn’s back hurts.
Well, his everything hurts—mostly his heart and head.
The former from bearing witness to yesterday’s heart-to-heart between Gideon and Nix, and the latter from…the same, actually.
Emotions are hard, and hard emotions are harder.
No one enjoyed seeing Gideon off-kilter (again), because as much as the pack says Luca is the mood-maker, Gideon and Jay set the tone for everything else.
There was no doubt yesterday had been a shit-show of epic proportions—and Finn’s anxiety had flooded back in full force.
And here he was, without his fluffy white sweater-slash-security-blanket.
Fuck, how he hates that the first thing that comes to mind when this feeling rides him is that Nix-scented garment.
But he’d persevered.
He hadn’t barged into the surgical suite, demanding to do the work himself.
Nope—no matter that the work was already done when he got there.
He’d settled for looking at the MAR (Medical Administration Record), dissecting every pharmaceutical intervention and procedure.
He couldn’t find any flaw. The medical team had done exactly what he would have done.
It still hadn’t gotten that anxious feeling to abate.
