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“No, it doesn’t. He made us look perfect.”
“But you are perfect,” Loïc protested, frowning.
Valor gestured as though to say, ‘see, I told you.’
I rolled my eyes at him.
“It’s too intimate,” Loïc said, reading my expression.
“If it was up to me, I’d say to leave it and close the door if we have company.”
“We would never be able to let the baby into this room,” Valor pointed out. “That would be inappropriate.”
“You Americans aresuch prudes,” Loïc teased.
Valor looked like he wanted to argue. He opened and shut his mouth a few times before finally saying, “If I’m a prude, why would I let you sleep with my wife?”
“Compared to what she reads, sharing her with me is tame.”
Valor’s gaze swung to me, and a hot blush crept up my neck. He’d never shown much interest in what I was reading, other than to occasionally tease me about it and say it was cute I was such a romantic. I’d never bothered to explain.
Aside from the built-in bookcases, the only other thing in the room was a mattress on the floor. A bottom sheet was stretched over it, with a scratchy-looking wool blanket folded at the foot. Beside it were a small lamp with no shade, and a haphazard stack of books.
“So where do you watch us from?” Valor asked. “Where’s your command center?”
What was he talking about?
Loïc reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone, showing it to Valor then putting it away again. “There’s no need to have a command center or control room in this day and age.”
What?
“And here I thought you rarely carried your phone.”
“It’s the only reason why I started carrying it—that and calling the two of you at all hours of the night.” He shrugged. “I don’t record, so I miss a lot. You also get a few days of privacy every time I lose my phone. Don’t worry—the monitoring app is password protected, and it lets me remove permission from those phones when they go missing.”
“You’ve been watching us? With cameras?” I demanded, waiting for one of them to say it was a joke. They both looked at me in disbelief. “I thought you just came by in person to watch us. I didn’t know you were using cameras, too.”
Loïc frowned. “What was I supposed to do? The two of you were so busy living on different continents that you didn’t even stop to think about what it was doing to me. To be with one of you, I had to be away from the other. Sometimes, it feels like I’m in a committed relationship with the TSA. I’m so relieved we’ll all be together now.” He feigned exhaustion. “Look at poor Loïc! He’s absolutely haggard from all of the trials the two of you have put him through.”
He didn’t need to encourage me to look at him—it was one of my favorite things to do, along with looking at Valor—and at the two of them together. Loïc’s outlandish outfit of the day included a tailcoat and Hessian boots. His hair was tied back at his nape, and his knee britches were immaculate, even though he’d played with the children all morning. He looked like he was on his way to ruin an entire ballroom of debutantes. I’d follow him into a dark garden without a chaperone, any time.
“You’ve been very patient with us,” I assured him.
“It helps that you’re both worth it,” he said almost shyly.
Fuck, I loved this weird man.
“Who is the person you have painted over your doorways?” I asked, pointing at the face over the bedroom door. I’d noticed different portraits of the same person carefully and painstakingly painted over almost each doorway we’d gone through, even in the rooms that were otherwise still blank.
“Is that Goth Jesus?” Valor squinted at the painting.
Loïc regarded the picture over his bedroom door and smiled affectionately. “That’s Jack.”
“Is Jack a real person?” Valor asked carefully.
“Yes, Jack is real.”
“Why is he painted over your doorways?”
