Honestly, Milo expected it to take a minute for him to settle. He was so excited for a bed tomorrow, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to even sleep tonight. But the second he got comfortable, Rowan’s heat warming him up, he found his eyelids drooping.
Turned out getting a new boyfriend was exhausting. Who’da thunk?
Notes:
AJ: Milo. Milo, seriously, you jump the man twelve hours after meeting him?
Milo: I was tragically born without a restraint button.
AJ: Clearly.
4
Rowan
The early morning air felt crisp, the ground covered in dew, so neither of them were happy to leave their bedrolls, but needs must. Rowan fried up some bacon and eggs for a quick breakfast, Milo once again did the dishes, and they were back on the road within an hour.
Rowan traveled alongside the cart, Stan easily keeping pace, and he kept stealing glances at the mage driving. Milo had been quite cheerful this morning, despite the cold, whistlinga different tune from yesterday. Whenever he caught Rowan looking, he’d return the look with a bone-melting smile. This man—his boyfriend?—was absolutely incorrigible.
Last night, when Milo had asked to date, he’d surprised the hell out of Rowan. Thanks to people’s typically negative first impressions of him, Rowan was normally the pursuer. If he met someone he was attracted to enough, he’d start lavishing the person with gifts to win them over. He wasn’t good at charm or flattery, so gifts often helped soften a person’s perspective of him. He also liked spoiling loved ones, granted, so it felt natural to give gifts to potential lovers. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but he’d never in his life been the one pursued.
He kinda liked it.
It was so refreshing to know the person he was dating actively wanted him, too. It settled him, somehow. He didn’t feel the need to bend himself into knots trying to please the man. Granted, Milo was ridiculously easy to please to begin with. Rowan’s only real concern: Would this relationship actually work long term? Would Milo become frustrated when he found himself the one usually carrying the conversation? Would he accuse Rowan of being emotionally distant, like every other man or woman Rowan had tried to date?
He liked to think he learned from his mistakes, but Rowan by nature just wasn’t very emotive. Even when he pushed himself, the action came off as awkward and unnatural.
He would hate for Milo to reach the same conclusion as all of his exes and decide Rowan wasn’t worth the hassle, but he wasn’t sure how to combat what felt like an inevitable conclusion.
Well, Milo loved to talk, so maybe this wouldn’t be a deal-breaker for him? The thought brought up something else bothering him. Milo’s little hints here and there suggested people—and not even just exes—tended to be rude or outrightdismissive to him. Yes, he talked a lot, but that wasn’t any excuse to treat someone terribly. How sad was it that one of the strongest reasons the little mage liked him was that Rowan wasn’t mean?
If Rowan ever met one of those people, he’d punch them dead in the face without hesitation.
Rowan one hundred percent hadn’t expected to bring a boyfriend home, and he mentally girded his loins. His family was going to getsomuch mileage out of this. Being the youngest sibling, they teased him mercilessly to begin with, but this? When he hadn’t even attempted a hookup in three years? Yeah, they weren’t going to let this go anytime soon.
Another glance at Milo and his mouth curved up in an unwitting smile. No matter how bad the teasing, Milo was worth it. Look at him sitting there, whistling a jaunty tune, happy as a clam. His platinum blond hair shone under the morning light. It was likely a trick of the light making it seem as if Milo glowed from within, but the impression was there. Maybe it was more due to his happy nature. Hopefully his attitude stuck even after he reached Gravegarde and realized how challenging life could get at the fortress.
In truth, Rowan had intended to give him a rundown of daily life on the trip north. He still needed to, really, he just hadn’t wanted to overwhelm Milo after their conversation yesterday.
“Milo?”
“Yeah, honey-bear?”
Honey-bear? He’d ignore the endearment. Otherwise he’d get sucked into Milo’s pace. Milo could sidetrack a conversation without even trying. “Aside from renewing the ward and healing, if you’re up to it, there is a specific set of tasks you need to do once we arrive.”
“Oooh, lay it on me. What?”
“We have different outlooks—eight watchtowers that are scattered around the duchy. There’s set sigils for communication in each tower, but for some reason, they keep cutting in and out. We can’t always get them to work properly. It’s gotten bad enough we now have signal flags as a backup.”
Milo’s expression turned to one of concern. “Uh. Those don’t work so well in bad weather, though? The flags, I mean. I would think you can’t really see those in a storm.”
“Hence having the sigils installed.” Rowan blew out a weary breath. “In truth, the last four, maybe five? I think it’s five mages who were up here and didn’t last long enough to deal with the sigils. Not that the ones before them were any better.”
“Didn’t last long? Why?”
“Well, some of them came up in fall, replacing another who’d quit early, and the idea of wintering in such a place scared them. They left before the first real snow could hit. Some of them couldn’t handle my family. We’re loud”—at least, his siblings were—“and giants. I’m average height for my family.”
Milo’s eyes nearly popped right out of their sockets. “This I gotta see, as you arenotsmall by any measurement.”
