An electric shiver went through Rory, the best kind of anticipation, and geez, he had to cut this off beforehewas the one who got untoward in a church. “So Harry’s getting us a morning ride?” he asked, quickly changing the subject.
“He said he’d handle it. He’s very steady, you know, very kind.”
“Yeah, he’s swell,” Rory said sincerely.
Arthur sighed, so softly Rory wouldn’t have caught it if Arthur hadn’t been pressed against his back.
He frowned. “Hey,” he said gently. “I just told you about my mom. If you want to talk about your brother, I can listen.”
“It’s more that I want to talk about you,” Arthur admitted, as his arm stayed around Rory like an anchor. “You know you don’t have to be afraid of my family?”
Rory froze. “I’m not—”
“You’ve been avoiding Harry as much as you can. I didn’t know if maybe it was the—ah—money thing,” he said, sounding very awkward, “because I’ll admit, he and Celeste are not subtle.”
Rory hunched a bit. “It’s complicated,” he said guiltily. He’d never meant to upset Arthur.
But Arthur just squeezed him reassuringly tighter. “You don’t have to like him—”
“I like him,” Rory interrupted. “A lot. I wish I’d had a dad like him.”
Arthur groaned. “Thank you, Theodore, thank you for that. I did not actually need a reminder that you’re young enough my brother could be your father.”
Rory rolled his eyes. “I’m notyoung, Ace. And I’ve been on my own for years. You’re being overprotective again.”
“Maybe. But I couldn’t protect you from sleeping in the basement.”
Arthur’s voice had grown quieter. Rory furrowed his brow. “Basement’s fine. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Everything.” Arthur’s face brushed the back of Rory’s neck in the quickest caress. He already had stubble going, electric against Rory’s skin. “I know it would have been too risky for me to insist you sleep in better quarters. But I never meant for you to think you can’t even speak to my family.”
Arthur sounded genuinely bothered. Rory swallowed. “You didn’t.”
“Didn’t I? The first night you and I spoke on the phone, you told me you never wanted to hear my fu—my name again. I have just as much money as Harry and I didn’t scare you at all then. Why would you be nervous now?”
Rory bit his lip, staring into the dark, the wall only inches from his face. “Because that night on the phone with you, I was mad, and I didn’t have anything to lose,” he said, uncomfortably honest. “It didn’t matter that when I open my big mouth, most people don’t like me.”
“That’s not—”
“How’d it go, the first time we met?”
Arthur fell silent.
“I yelled at you and I ran my mouth, then I told a buncha lies, and you didn’t like me,” Rory said quietly. “Harry’s your brother. You care about your family, and that matters to me because I care about—look,” he said hastily instead. “I just don’t want to mess it all up with him too, all right?”
But behind him, Arthur shook his head. “I didn’t dislike you.”
“Yeah, you did—”
“I thought you were cute.”
Rory blinked and tried to glance over his shoulder at Arthur. “Cute?”
“Very. And I thought you were a little shit, but I wasn’t wrong about that either.”
“Language.”But a grudging smile tugged at Rory’s lips.
Arthur touched his cheek to Rory’s hair. “I’m simply saying that if you think you could ever upset me or put me off by being yourself, regardless of the company, then you don’t know me at all.”
