“Exactly,” Josh said, and they passed under the archway to the train platform.Josh’s ankles wobbled on the raised bumps alerting pedestrians of directions and platforms, and Liam pulled him a little closer.
“So, should we—”
“Here’s our platform,” Josh interrupted, like he knew what Liam was going to say.
“I guess not,” Liam muttered.God, this sucked.He’d never realized that taking on the care and feeding of a lover meant taking over from a perfectly competent group of parents who had already proven they’d go to hell and back for their son.
“Please,” Josh said as they came to a halt, waiting for the train that would take them to a hotel in Bavaria where their luggage had already been sent.
Liam sighed.“We get some rest before the next one, right, boy-o?”
And Josh must have been tired because he let this slide.
“It’ll take a week for the others to get into place,” he said.“But we need to do some sightseeing in the meantime.”
“Sightseeing I can handle,” Liam told him.“But steady bedtimes and solid food will make me a very happy zookeeper in the meantime.”
“Fair,” Josh said.“Besides—Michael really hasn’t seen anything outside the US besides the Caribbean so far.If we’re going to be smuggling him around the world, we should show him and Carl a nice time this go-round.”
Liam allowed himself to be distracted.“It’s funny that he’s the one with the big scary passport—of the lot of you, he’s theleastinclined to break the law.”
Josh didn’t have time to agree.The TGV/ICE came to a halt just then, and they jumped on, Liam shouldering his way through a dense crowd that was off-putting to a lot of Americans, before spotting two seats facing forward and dragging Josh into the one next to him.
Josh sank gratefully, leaning immediately against Liam as the rest of the car filled up.
“You doing okay, boy—”
“Fuck,” Josh muttered, and Liam’s tongue froze and then his heart and lungs and then his stomach and then his balls.
A small stream of crimson dripped from Josh’s nose as he dug frantically through his pockets for a microfiber cloth to sop the flow.
BY THEtime they pulled into the station in Bavaria, Liam was thoroughly wrung out, not from the gig but from worry.In spite of Josh’s reassurance that he needed to take his iron pills and get some sleep, Liam couldn’t help but remember the entire year previous, when the state of Josh’s health had stood like a cinder block between them.
He reached for his phone a dozen times to tell Danny and Felix that it was time to pull out, to get another point operator for the scheme, because Josh wasn’t ready yet.
He didn’t, though, because Josh would probably accept and forgive a romantic betrayal a lot easier than a betrayal of a secret to his family.The one thing Liam had learned in the past year was that this family’s currency wasn’t in cash, gold, or diamonds—it was in trust.
Josh trusted him right now, but Liam had to figure out how to get him to trust that Liam would work with his family or not at all.
Liam summoned a rideshare in spite of the short, maybe four block distance to the hotel, and in no time at all the two of them were bathed, changed, and Josh, at least, was ensconced on the couch, a throw wrapped around his shoulders while he ate a hearty soup.
“Good?”Liam asked, coming out of the bathroom and toweling his hair.
“It’s not hasenpfeffer,” Josh said dryly.
Liam gave him a blank stare.
“You know, hasenpfeffer?Rabbit stew?Didn’t you ever watch Bugs Bunny cartoons?”
Liam snorted.“No, and you shouldn’t have either.Those didn’t always age well.”
“Politics, schmolitics,” Josh chided.“If you don’t think a rabbit in a dress is funny, we’ve got nothing in common.”
“I’ll give you that,” Liam said, flopping down on the couch next to him.“When do our guests arrive?”
Josh took another bite of soup, giving Liam a sideways glance that said he wasn’t feeling great, and if Liam hadn’t been there pushing things, he would have shoved the bowl aside.
Liam gave him a stern glare, and he sighed.
