AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, that’s horrible.” Mum shook her head. “How can you take issue with who your child loves?”
Eric blinked against the abrupt tightness in his chest. He reached out to touch his mum’s arm. “Yeah, exactly.”
The smile she sent him was warm, if a little uncertain. “You know we never—your dad and I. We may not be the most vocal people, but we never cared whether it’s a girl or a boy you bring home. As long as they make you happy, we will love them.”
He swallowed thickly. “Thank you, Mum.”
Instead of a response, she touched his shoulder with a gloved hand.
“I can’t believe you told her,” Adrian said later that day, after a joint workout in the gym that had ended with a locked door and a couple of towels in need of a wash. Eric figured he could blame Adrian, and not just because the gym mat under him was ridiculously comfortable.
“Well, she asked. In a sense.” Eric draped an arm around Adrian’s middle to keep him close, skin slowly cooling. “And I never thought she’d have a problem as such, just that it might be awkward.”
“On that note—things not being awkward, that is…”
“What did Olivia do?”
Adrian laughed, so verybright, and Eric thought of a song his dad had always loved.‘I’m gonna stand on a mountaintop and tell the news that you take my breath away’, Eva Cassidy’s ethereal voice infusing the words with haunting intensity. It wasn’t how Eric would have put it—he liked his lyrics more subtle than that.‘Hiding in an endless room for interpretation’was what Lucas had jokingly called it. Maybe it was part of why Eric and Max had meshed so well when they’d collaborated—because even when they put themselves out there by means of a song, they kept their guard up.
So no, it wasn’t how Eric would have put it. But the sentiment resonated.
“She asked if I could hook her up with a sexually flexible former colleague,” Adrian said, and Eric needed a moment to remember they were talking about Olivia. “Since relationships suck, and she’s done with them.”
Funny how Eric could relate. “Well, she is my sister.”
Adrian studied Eric for a quiet beat, then smiled. “Can I get my line for the day?”
Eric smiled back. “That’s hardly fair when you just fucked my brains out.”
“Try.” A challenge.
Fine, if that was how Adrian wanted to play it, Eric wasn’t above testing him. “Show me how you do that trick—the one that makes me scream.”
Adrian scoffed. “That’s not your line.”
Ah, so he’d recognised it. “Name the song, then.”
“I’ve no fucking idea.” Adrian angled himself close for a nip at Eric’s jaw. “But I know it’s not yours.”
“The Cure,” Eric said. “Just Like Heaven.”
Adrian gave a little shrug and continued his somewhat distracting exploration of Eric’s jawline. It was lucky that on a sunny afternoon like this, no hotel guests were likely to venture down to the basement gym.
“Okay—one, there’s no way you don’t know that song.” Eric turned his head for better access and hummed a few bars that made Adrian nod, nose dragging along Eric’s throat.
“Oh, yeah. I think I do know that one.”
“So you did recognise the lyrics?”
“No. I just knew they weren’t yours.”
Eric clasped Adrian’s biceps, feeling the shift of muscle under his fingers. “How?”
“They’re too obvious.”
“Wow, okay. I would not call The Cure obvious. That’s … no.”
Adrian’s chuckle feathered over Eric’s collarbone. “Did I accidentally insult your heroes? I can make it up to you.”
