“Marco’s pants,” Liam qualified, “although they’re a little loose around the waist.Chuck’s suit jacket—which fits me great, but I suspect it was tailored to fit him quite tightly.And Hunter’s plain blue dress shirt, which is perhaps the best fit of all.”
“Nice,” Josh said.“I’m sorry.I should have had you bring a suit from the apartment.”
“I didn’t bring any suits to the apartment,” Liam told him, searching through Josh’s wardrobe for something dressy but not over the top.“Danny emailed me that Kadjic would positively be there, and I thought, ‘I absolutely can’t let him do this without me.’I took two trains and three connections from Paris to Chicago and got there just in time.”
“Wow,” Josh murmured, accepting a tie from him that he hadn’t particularly liked until Liam put it in his hand.“You do know how to make a romantic entrance.”
“It paid off,” Liam said dryly, fetching a sleek black dress shirt that reallywouldlook good with that sapphire-blue tie.
“I’m glad you think so,” Josh said, taking the shirt.“Icandress myself, you know.”
“I know,” Liam said.“This is part of me being proprietary and possessive.Give me a few months and I’ll get this shit under control.”
“You know that for certain?”Josh asked, taking the clothes to lay out on the bed.
“It’s a guess,” Liam admitted.“I’ve never been in love before.”
“Oh.”Suddenly all Josh could do was stare at the clothes on the bed, thinking that Liam could produce a lime-green-and-magenta paisley jacket and he’d put it on after a revelation like that.
“Don’t let it panic you,” he murmured directly in Josh’s ear while holding out a slim-fitting pair of black slacks.“I got all my panic out on the yacht in January.You didn’t see because you slept through most of it.All I could do was look at you and think, ‘If anything happens to him, my heart will stop beating.That’s terrifying.’So yes.I’ve come to grips with that.This is the next phase is all.”
Josh shivered.“You think I don’t have my own panic attacks about you?”he asked, thinking about how badly he’d wanted Liam to take their information/gaming drills seriously.
“I got that feeling when you tried to get me to play video games to strengthen my thief skills,” Liam said, voice dry.He picked up the tie, which was suddenly dazzling.“Don’t worry, boy—lad….”
Josh kissed him, enjoying the banter, the closeness, and the physical permissions they’d given each other during lovemaking the night before and that morning.They’d fallen in love ages ago, but consummation was so, so sweet.
“Josh,” Liam finished fuzzily, looking pleased.“Why do you object so much to ‘boy’?”
“Because I’m the baby,” Josh said, smiling but not happy about it.It was a unique position of privilege and pressure.“I want you to think of me as grown.”
Liam gave a low, filthy chuckle.“I think we’ve covered that,” he said, and Josh bussed him on the chin and then ducked, because they could be arguing about this forever, and it was time to get dressed.
THE DININGroom table had been somewhat reconfigured in the last six months.For as long as Josh could remember, it backed up to a long bench against a wall, and six to eight people could slide in on the booth-style seating on that side while the rest gathered in chairs on the other side of the banquet table or at the ends.Until Danny’s reintegration into their lives, Felix and Julia rarely had a full table, so they’d mostly dropped the wings, kept the extra chairs in storage, and entertained four to six people at a time.
That didn’t work so much for the family as it was, so they’d moved the table out to the middle of the room, kept it sturdy, and replaced the booth-style seating with individual chairs—also sturdy.They weren’t entertaining guests in tuxedos sampling wine anymore—they were dining with family, with big, strong, solid men and women who disliked tiny, delicate furniture.
While Marco reported the staff found the new configuration easier to serve, the result for those sitting down was mostly the same, with the exception of being able to excuse one’s self to the restroom with much more ease if you were sitting on what had once been the wall side of the table.
Josh liked the changes, almost unilaterally.He and Grace and sometimes Stirling and Molly had done a lot of homework at the old table, munching snacks Phyllis had provided with little more than a hair tousle and a “You’re welcome—don’t spoil dinner.”Well, not homework, really.The four of them had finished that at school.This was more… side-quest work.But they’d been together, and they’d been working toward a goal, and their presence had helped erase some of the silence and loneliness left by Danny’s absence.
Josh had a lot of fond memories of Felix and Julia being out on the town, doing something important for the company, and of coming to sit by Danny as he researched or plotted or simply educated himself on something he hadn’t known before.All three parents had given him a thirst for knowledge, but Danny had given him adelightin it.
Josh loved that the table had changed to accommodate so many people who delighted in the same things he did.
It was only halfway full as he and Liam approached, but he noticed that Grace—instead of sitting to Hunter’s right, which would have left two seats open—had chosen his left, which meant Josh had to sit between him and Carl.
“Nice,” Josh told him, tugging on a straight lock of black-and-(this week)-pink hair.
“What?”Grace asked, batting his tawny eyes ingenuously.
“Ignore him,” Carl said.“He’s being a jealous prick, we’ve already told him so, and Michael has threatened him with not being able to babysit the next time his children come over.”
“A blatant lie,” Grace said primly.“Those kids love me, and he wouldn’t deprive them of the pleasure.”
“As long as you foot the bill for the repairs again,” Michael said mildly, which was only fair.
“Hey, we fixed your plumbing problem,” Grace said.
