“Are you good?”he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Josh let out a sound between a gasp and a cackle.“My God, yes,” he said, finally relaxing on the coverlet.“But I’m gonna need a minute—”
“Take all the minutes you want,” Liam said, feeling stupid.“I, uh… I’ve got to go… uhm, clean myself up.”
Josh lifted himself up on his good elbow.“Really?”
Liam squeezed his eyes shut.“I am so embarrassed.”
Josh’s hand had clenched in Liam’s curls and then released, and now he clenched again, tugging upward.“Don’t you dare clean a thing,” he said softly.“Come kiss me and we can start again.Comeeverywhere.You have no idea how turned on I am.”
Liam was going to take him up on it, but then he saw Josh’s half-closed eyes, and he caught a half-hidden twitch of pain from the pressure they’d put on his shoulder.
“Nice try,” he said, giving Josh a chaste kiss on the lips.“I’ll be right back with a washcloth, some clean skivvies, and my dignity.”And the tablet of painkiller Josh had neglected to take before he’d gotten into the shower.
In ten minutes, after a scowl from Josh at the painkiller and some shifting of clothing, they were back in bed, this time under the covers, about to press play on the movie again.Except this time, Liam stuck his arm out and invited Josh to lay his head on Liam’s shoulder, because by God, they’d earned the intimacy by now.
Josh did, snuggling in against him in the bed, making unconscious little puppy grunting sounds that were incredibly at odds with his usual natural elegance.
“What?”he grumbled as Liam smiled gently down at him.
“Nothing,” Liam murmured, kissing him on the top of the head.“Just… can we tell the world now?No skywriting, but can I be your stupid Interpol boyfriend—”
“How did you know what Grace called you?”Josh asked dryly.
“It’s like I’m psychic,” Liam returned in kind.“And you can be….”Six months he’d waited for Josh to invite him back into his life, and now that he’d shouldered his way in, disregarding all the many, many reasons he should have let the boy be, he only had one wish.
“Yours,” Josh murmured.“I’m yours.Just… remember.The hard stuff is in front of us.I-I mean, I was keeping my distance because I wanted to get better, yes, but I haven’t forgotten—and you shouldn’t either—that my family just spent almost two months pissing off a very dangerous mobster.On purpose.You tookmeseriously about giving me space, and I’m takingyouseriously about now being our sticking point.We’ve done the thing.We’ve got more hashing out to do, but we’re stuck.So much to worry about, but you and I are sticking.It’s a promise.”
Liam whispered, “I promise,” and used the remote to kill the lights.Before his eyes had adjusted to the dark, Josh’s breathing was in that familiar pattern, the one Liam had learned on the yacht.He was sleeping, and it was Liam’s job to guard him.
But first he watched the rest of the movie, because it really was charming, and Liam figured he was a bad guy now.
Bad Guys
JOSH WOKEup around 5:00 a.m., wondering at first if it was because he had to use the bathroom.
Then—like Danny had taught him when he’d been a child—he’d counted the people breathing in the room.Danny had spent some of his own childhood in less-than-optimal foster homes and much of his adolescence hustling sugar daddies on the Jersey Shore.Knowing who was breathing in the room you’d been asleep in was an important skill.
Liam, check.His own breath, check.
Breeze from a window that shouldn’t have been able to be opened?
Check.
And there it was.
“Grace,” he mumbled, eyes still closed, “if you are watching me sleep, that’s creepy as fuck.”
“Maybe I’m a voyeur,” Grace said, absolutely unrepentant.“Maybe I was hoping to see hot sex and now I’m disappointed.”
“You were surfing porn at fourteen,” Josh said.“It was gross and disturbing then, and I don’t even want to think about what you’re watching now.”
“Like I have time to watch porn,” Grace muttered.“I have dancedtwo showssince we started planning this gig.I ambusy, and now I am worrying about your weenie ass again.”
Josh yawned, sat up, and held his fingers to his lips, casting a glance at Liam, who was lying on his back, one hand on his middle, the other out against the white cotton sheets.He looked vulnerable there, and Josh was reluctant to leave his side, but Grace wouldn’t let them sleep if Josh didn’t give him some reassurance.
Josh was still wearing his briefs, which Liam had helped him into earlier, and as he walked into the front room/kitchen part of the apartment, he grabbed a black hoodie from on top of the dresser near the door and one-handedly slipped it over his head, then wiggled his good hand out, leaving the other sleeve and shoulder flapping over his immobilized shoulder.
