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“Is Dawn alright?” Jamie asked, helping Aled to tidy, then getting out of bed with him and fetching his overnight bag.
Aled glanced to him, then said, “Tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of the day our parents died.”
“Oh, Aled, I’m so sorry,” Jamie said. “You should be with Dawn and Jeremy.”
“What more can I do?” Aled said with a tight, hopeless shrug. “I will be there with them tomorrow. We’ll mark the day together. But we can’t continue to let the day bring our lives to a stop every year for the rest of our lives.”
“Of course,” Jamie said.
He left it there as the two of them headed into the bathroom and Jamie turned on the shower for him. It would have been nice to shower together, and maybe to let it lead somewhere else, but Aled always felt like time was of the essence when Dawn was teetering on the edge.
“Why don’t you bring her to help set up for the supper tonight?” Jamie suggested later, as Aled dressed and packed up his things to go. “Having something to distract her and being around other students, not to mention people she already feels safe with, could help her cope.”
Aled smiled, then kissed Jamie’s lips before hoisting his overnight bag onto his shoulder. “That’s an excellent idea,” he said. “You’re a smart one, boy. You should do something with psychology when you grow up.”
Jamie laughed, and Aled had to drop his bag again so that he could give Jamie a long, sultry kiss goodbye. It was getting harder and harder to leave Jamie behind these days. No one could classify what they had together as a cute fling or as infatuation anymore. Something deeper was definitely growing there, and Aled loved it.
Dawn was in reasonable condition once Aled arrived home. Partially because Jeremy had decided to spend the night, since he, too, was feeling a little glum with the anniversary coming up. The three of them enjoyed a low-key family breakfast together before Aled told them about the set-up for the supper and invited Dawn to come with him.
A few hours later, Aled and Dawn arrived at the event hall on the university’s campus, ready to help.
“Are you certain you’re going to be alright here?” Aled asked Dawn as they headed across the vast hall to what looked like the student volunteers in charge of the set-up.
The room was noisy with the sound of a group of guys taking round tables off a series of rolling carriers, folding their legs down, and setting them up. Another group of students was unloading chairs to go around the tables. Aled had been part of similar set-up operations a dozen times before, in his previous school and at other functions, and the noise could definitely be enough to trigger Dawn.
But Dawn nodded, clearly trying to be brave, and gave Aled a smile. “I know those two,” she said, gesturing to two of the young women on one side of the room who looked to be sorting through tablecloths and other linens.
“Do you want to go help them?” he asked.
Dawn nodded again, then lifted to her toes to kiss Aled’s cheek before dashing off to join her friends.
Aled was relieved that Dawn had friends. He liked to see her smile and the easy way that she introduced herself to the tablecloth group and settled in to work with them.
“She looks like she’s okay,” Jamie said, surprising Aled a little, as he walked up beside him.
Aled turned to him with a smile that was probably too warm for the current situation. He tried to even out his expression as Jamie came to a stop beside him, close, but not so close as to raise anyone’s suspicions, and said, “She says she knows them, so yeah, I think she’ll be okay for now.”
“How was it when you got home this morning?” Jamie asked.
Aled turned to face him fully. He couldn’t help but smile when Jamie was around. He was still in the early, salad days of love, when everything felt bright and perfect, and completely unrealistic. But he didn’t care. He was happy.
“She was okay,” he said, starting across the room with Jamie to the woman who looked to be in charge, just in case she, or anyone else, was observing them and might catch on. “Jeremy was there, and they were both happy when I got there.”
“You’re a good brother,” Jamie said, clapping a hand on Aled’s shoulder.
Aled’s face heated a little too much at the touch. They really shouldn’t have been touching each other at all when they were around other people at the university. In fact, Aled caught one of the guys setting up tables looking at the two of them with a curious, pinched expression.
Something definitely wasn’t right about it, but he tried to ignore it.
“Oh, Professor Croft, you’re here, good,” the woman in charge said in relief. She broke away from the rest of her crew and marched over to Jamie. “How do you want the tables arranged? There’s some debate about how close together they should be and how much free space should be around the edges of the room.”
“The donors are the sort that would appreciate a bit of space,” Jamie said, stepping right in and taking charge. “So no closer than six feet apart.”
Aled had a hard time concealing his grin as Jamie directed the student volunteers. It felt so unlike him to be the one in control. But that was his own experience and relationship talking. And as they’d discussed before, Jamie was only a sub in the bedroom.
That didn’t stop Aled from teasing him with a quick, “I wonder what they’d say if they’d seen you stretched and hanging from that hook above your bed while I—” He deliberately cut his sentence off and wiggled his eyebrows instead.
Jamie blushed deliciously and sent Aled a quelling look. “In the bedroom, out of the bedroom,” he said, handing Aled a short stack of chairs from one of the dollies lined up against the wall. He then surprised Aled a bit by losing his flirty look and saying, “Anything else is too risky. For both of us.”
