AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” Jericho said. “It’s purely for aesthetic reasons.”
“You sleep in them?” Peyton asked. “You’re wearing the same colour as yesterday.”
“Occasionally. Not this time. I just grabbed the wrong colour when I woke up,” Jericho admitted. “I’ve done it thousands of times, and I don’t use a mirror anymore to get them in or out.”
A chameleon. Will had no idea how he kept it all straight in his head. He’d be lost trying to be anything other than himself. A foreign concept.
“Show us,” Sebastian demanded. “Take them out.”
Jericho hesitated.
“We don’t want a mask, Jericho,” Quinn said. “We want you. All of you. Therealyou.”
Jericho glanced between them, his throat working as he stared.
Will thought he was going to deny them. Which was his right. He didn’t have to give them anything that he didn’t want to.
But Will would be lying if he said he didn’t want to see Jericho’s real eyes as well. Wanted to be let in more than Jericho let anyone else in. How long had it been since a lover had seen the real him? Will wanted them to be that for him.
Jericho nodded briefly. He pulled a small black case from the inside of his jacket and flipped it open. Two small round cases were sitting inside it. He twisted each of them off to reveal a clear liquid inside them. He reached up to his face, his movements hesitant. It felt like centuries, when it was merely seconds, for Jericho to slide them out and place each one in the round containers. He kept his head down, eyes out of their sight as he put the lids back on, closed the case, and put it back into his jacket.
When he eventually looked up, Will’s breath caught.
Brown. He had brown eyes too. The same as Will.
Will had always thought his eyes were boring, a dull comparison to the blues and greens of the world—that was before he even brought Quinn’s unique grey into the mix—and yet, looking at Jericho’s dark gaze, he could see the utter beauty in them.
He was stunning. Will didn’t know if it was because it was Jericho without any curtains between them but seeing him with his natural eye colour somehow made every other feature come to life.
Sebastian cupped Jericho’s cheek and turned his face, studying him. He ran his thumb softly under one eye. “Don’t hide those from us,” he murmured before pulling Jericho closer and kissing him so softly that a tremor ran through Will as he witnessed it.
“I like the brown,” Peyton said. “It suits you better.”
“Thanks, I was born with it.”
“How lucky for us,” Quinn said, a smile playing on his lips. “Thank you for showing us.”
Jericho fiddled with his fork, even though his bowl was empty. “They’re just eyes,” he mumbled.
It was more than that. Jericho had opened up another door for them. He could try to act as blasé as he wanted; Will knew how hard that must have been and the level of trust that he was giving them. He would do his best to earn it.
“Thank you for dinner, Will,” Sebastian said. Will admired his ass in his slacks as he got up and rinsed his bowl, leaving it next to the sink to be washed later. “I have some work to do,” he said. “I won’t be more than a few hours.”
“Oh.” That was disappointing. Will had been looking forward to spending the night together. Maybe a movie, or some of the PS5 and Nintendo Switch games that he’d brought with him from home—along with the consoles since Sebastian didn’t have either of them. A quiet night. They hadn’t had much of that since they’d met. Yesterday had been quiet, though, so Will supposed that he was just being greedy now. He was capable of entertaining himself. Or maybe it was time to go home. The last thing he wanted to do was overstay his welcome.
Sebastian met Will’s gaze, and he softened. “I could get my laptop and sit in the lounge?”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” Sebastian said. “Let me change into something more comfortable, and I’ll get my laptop and come down.”
Will couldn’t have kept the smile off his face if he’d tried. Which he didn’t. That kind of compromise was something he could live with. He didn’t want to interfere with the way that Sebastian lived his life. He just wanted to find a space to fit around it.
“Guess you’re on dish duty with me,” Quinn told Jericho.
Jericho’s gaze was loaded, with a hint of hesitation still in the dark brown. He relaxed and smiled. Maybe the first smile that Will had seen on him that didn’t have anything attached to it. There was no arrogance, or slyness, or anything else hidden. It was a pure, carefree smile that made Will’s heart skip a beat.
“I think I can handle that,” Jericho finally said.
