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Oliver looks down at his younger self laughing beside the torn edge. “What did you do with the other half?”
“I brought home the part that belonged here.”
He looks at me for a long time.
Jamie’s gaze moves between us.
Oliver picks up the photograph. His thumb passes once over his own laughing face before he turns it over as though there might be something written on the back. “She’ll come back.”
“Probably.”
Jamie is staring at me now instead of Oliver. “You fucked me because of him?”
Oliver’s attention snaps to Jamie.
I set my coffee down. “I fucked you because you asked correctly.”
Jamie holds my eyes. I reach across the table and take his chin. He resists for half a second before letting me turn his face toward mine.
I brush my thumb beneath the dark green at the corner of his eye. “You were a very good boy last night.”
His expression softens.
Across the table, Oliver is staring at him. Jamie flushes.
I sit back and pick up my coffee.
Oliver isn’t looking at me anymore.
I take a bite of my breakfast while they sit across from each other trying to decide what that means.
They can take as long as they need.
Neither of them is going anywhere.
CHAPTER 22
Oliver
Heather takes us upstairs after breakfast.
Jamie realizes where we’re going before I do. His attention shifts from Heather to me when she passes his door and keeps walking toward mine. Whatever embarrassment followed him from the breakfast table disappears.
Heather unlocks my door and lets Jamie go in first.
He takes his time looking around. Last night, he was a voice somewhere down the hall. Now he’s standing in the middle of my room, studying the shelves and the wardrobe before his attention settles on the bed. There’s satisfaction in the way he looks at it.
Heather closes the door behind us. She has a poetry collection tucked beneath one arm. When she crosses the room, Jamie moves out of her way without being told. She sets the book on the bed before taking hold of the reading chair and dragging it away from the window.
I watch her position it beside the bed. The room has been mine for less than two days, and even that description is too generous.
“Sit, Oliver.”
I sit.
Heather adjusts the chair after I’m already in it, turning me toward the bed before pushing me closer. My knee nearly touches the mattress when she’s satisfied.
Jamie watches the entire process.
