Dressed in boxers and T-shirts, they sat at Dom’s table and ate their weight in chilli, rice, and sourdough bread from the shop.
With plates wiped clean with the remaining bread, Henry sat back in his chair and groaned. “That was so good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Patting his belly, Henry frowned down at it. “I’m so full, you might have to roll me home.” With his hair messy from earlier and a satisfied sleepy look on his face, Henry was the picture of contentment, and Dom knew in that moment that he didn’t want Henry to go back to his own villa.
“You could stay.”
Henry’s hand stilled on his belly, and he glanced up sharply. “With you?”
“Well, there’s nobody else here.”
“I know that,” he said carefully. “I meant, with you in your bed?” He met Dom’s gaze, and Dom struggled to read his expression. Hesitance, maybe hopefulness?
“Yes, with me. In my bed.” Strangers or not, the idea of sleeping with Henry all night, with maybe a repeat performance in the morning, was all kinds of appealing. Why wouldn’t it be?
Henry stared back at him, mouth opening, then closing.
“If you’d rather go home, then I totally understand.” Dom followed it up with a smile of his own to show that he meant it. Just because he wanted to spend the night together didn’t mean Henry felt the same. And that was okay, too.
After a too-long beat of silence, when Dom had just about convinced himself that Henry was about to say no, that soft smile returned. “Yeah. I’d love to stay.” Then he frowned. “I don’t have anything with me though.”
Now he’d agreed to stay the night, no way was Dom letting a little thing like night-time necessities get in the way of it. “You can borrow my stuff to shower with. And if you want something to sleep in, I’m sure I can find something to fit you.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth and grimaced. “What about a toothbrush?”
Got that covered too.
“I brought my electric one and a pack of new heads. You can use one of those.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You seem to have thought of everything.”
“I just really want you to stay the night.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
Henry grinned this time, maybe at the hopefulness Dom knew was written all over his face. “Yeah. I don’t really want to go back to my empty villa when I could be here with you.”
His words made Dom’s heart stutter and his belly swoop.
Stop it,he chided.It’s one night together. A bit of company for us both, nothing more.
After clearing away their mess from dinner, they settled on the sofa. Dom turned on the TV, more for background noise than anything else. The brochure for all the park activities sat on the coffee table in front of them and Henry reached for it, smoothing his hand over the front cover.
“I suppose you’ve done nearly everything in here at some point, huh?”
Dom shrugged. “I’ve done a lot of them, but roller skating is not for me.”
Henry laughed and flicked through to the picture of kids in roller skates going round a makeshift rink. “Oh I think you’d fit right in.”
“Mhmm.” Dom nudged his shoulder and skimmed through the pages until he came to the aerial walkway. “This is more my sort of thing.” He pointed to the other tree-high activities and tapped the picture. “Or this.”
Henry shuddered, then peered closer at the photo. “They let kids do it?”
Dom chuckled. “Yeah. You have to be eight, I think. Under twelves need to go with an adult.”
