“The train is a mess at night, and I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”Sami picked up his dress shirt and pushed his arms through the sleeves.
Which part of Baz pouring his heart out and crying in his arms had made him think he was imposing?
“You aren’t!I want you here.”
Sami paused with one leg in his boxers.“Really?”
“Really.Stay.Please.”
Baz reached his hands toward him, begged him to come back into their cozy nest.Sami stood as still as a statue as he regarded them.
Did he not want to?Had Baz said too much, had he freaked Sami out with the size of his baggage?
A smile softened Sami’s face.He dropped his boxers and took Baz’s hand.Thank god.
Baz pushed the shirt off his shoulders because that wasn’t allowed tonight and kissed him just because he could.He lifted the comforter, and Sami, without hesitation, returned to his rightful place in Baz’s arms.
Baz kissed his forehead, his neck, his shoulder.
“Thank you,” he whispered, and got treated to the brush of Sami’s lips once more.He could get used to this.
Sami hadn’t lied about keeping him up all night if he stayed over, though Baz had anticipated a sexier reason than Sami being a restless sleeper who tossed and turned and kicked in his sleep, only stilling when Baz restrained him in his embrace, though never for long.Good thing Baz wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.His restless mind kept circling back to what Sami had said about Jack.
The memory he had held onto all these years as proof of Jack’s rottenness didn’t let him go—the one when Jack had found them in their mother’s closet and destroyed Eevee’s moment of gender euphoria with his rage.He had forgotten that it was incomplete.
The closet, the whole bedroom, had been untouched since Mom’s death until they snuck in; Jack had spent his nights on the couch.Between the screaming and shouting, he had sniffed the shirt Eevee had worn, tears glistening on his cheek.A choked-up sob had followed them up the stairs to Eevee’s room where they had plotted their escape.
It didn’t mean anything—after all, Jack had never apologized for how he reacted.Instead, he had pretended it didn’t happen and turned to religion.He had never coped well with change.
So to lose his wife and then be confronted with the queerness of his daughter, something he knew nothing about, catching her going through his dead wife’s clothes that he hadn’t dared to disturb…
That didn’t make it better.But was it irredeemable?
Chapter twenty
Theearthysmellofgrass after a night of rain enriched the air.Breakfast on the living room balcony, the bigger one of the two, had been Sami’s idea since it—allegedly—was the only inviting part of Baz’s apartment.Baz objected to the statement.Sami clearly had a great time in his bedroom too.Even Sami couldn’t argue with that, but that didn’t stop him from finding other hangups.
The crunch of teeth biting into plain, almost-burned toast was cut short by Sami’s chuckle, way too amused that bread was the only food in Baz’s kitchen cabinets.How could Baz have known he’d have a guest to feed in the morning?Besides, coffee and toast had served him perfectly well as breakfast for five years now—another fact Sami deemed hilarious.
“Why would you choose to live like this?Why spend all your money on a fancy apartment and expensive suits you freak out about when they get dirty if that means you can’t afford groceries?”
Rude.Bazcouldafford groceries.They simply were a pointless investment.No one cared what he ate at home, they cared if he could afford to pick up the tab at a networking dinner in a fancy restaurant.Plain toast in the morning didn’t harm him, but running around in subpar suits like Sami did would cause him a rash at best and hinder his promotion at worst.
“If I’m gonna be a partner by the time I’m thirty, I have to look the part.What you wear, where you live, matters.”
He could swear that was Aya’s voice that had just come out of his mouth.Maybe he should risk showing up in a cheap suit once, that might break the ice between them.Or she might give up on him altogether… His throat thickened.He wouldn’t risk that.Still, he missed her.
“All right, Elle Woods,” Sami huffed.“Existing just to be seen sounds exhausting.”
“It will be worth it when I’ve made it.”
“Hm.”Sami planted his feet on Baz’s lap and sank deeper into the lounge chair.“Remind me why that is your goal?”
“Why shouldn’t it be?I can do it, therefore I should.”
Sami cocked one eyebrow.His pervasive stare went through Baz like an X-ray.
Fine.
