"Zero."
"Fine."
Then Zero, lower, his voice gone to the place it goes when he means something he hates that he means: "You look devastating, baby. Don't have too good a time. I'll get jealous."
"I'll come home."
"You'd better."
He kisses Max—once, on the mouth, brief, dark, possessive—and steps back. Hands up. The showman's bow.
"He's all yours, Atlas."
Max is laughing still. Color in his cheeks. The bond between us is humming so loud I can feel it in my back teeth.
I push off the wall, cross the foyer. I take his hand and lead Max to the car.
I open his door for him like a real gentleman should. He folds himself into the passenger seat without comment. I close the door. Walk around to my side. Slide in.
The bond isstillhumming.
I don't say anything for the first few minutes of the drive. Neither does he. The road unspools under the headlights and I let myself sit in what just happened. The shape of it. My brothers loving on him in the foyer. The fact that I let them. The fact that Ilikedit.
The restaurant is forty minutes outside the city.
Not a place anyone I do business with would go. Small. Old. A converted carriage house with eight tables and a wine list four pages thick and a maître d' named Henrik who has known me since I was twenty-three and asks no questions when I make reservations under names that aren't mine. He keeps a private dining room on the second floor. I called Tuesday. He said yes before I finished the sentence.
Max stays quiet in the passenger seat. Then looks at me at a stoplight.
"You're not going to tell me where we're going?"
"Henrik's."
"...what's Henrik's?"
"Dinner."
He smiles and my heart melts. "Atlas…"
"Mm?"
"That isn't an answer."
I let the corner of my mouth move.
"Dinner. With you. In a room with a door I can close. Acceptable?"
He's silent for a beat.
"...yeah," he says. Soft. "Acceptable."
The light turns. We drive.
His hand drifts across the center console.
I take it.
His fingers are cool. Slim. He laces them through mine and squeezes once, and I feel the squeeze in places I have no business feeling a hand-hold.
