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“Yeah.” He tries to fight it, but a smile breaks through. “Yeah. Worth it.”
“Then that’s what matters.”
His smile morphs into a smirk before he warns me, “It won’t be easy for you either, you know.”
"I don't need easy,” I say immediately. “I just need him.”
“Wow,” Keats mumbles, his body still perfectly unmoving and relaxed and his mask still in place, making it seem like he’s talking in his sleep. “Someone stitch that on a motherfucking pillow.”
“Hey.” I toss a half-empty bottle of water at him, satisfied when it bounces hard off his chest and makes him jolt upright. “Stop eavesdropping.”
He lifts his eye mask just enough to squint at us. “I’m sorry. It was just so unbelievably cheesy and lovely at the same time. Can you throw up in your mouth while also enjoying it? Is that a kink?”
“He’s just jealous he doesn’t have a lover,” Maison defends, not looking up from his cookbook. I lean forward to read the title. It’s about French cuisine. I feel as if maybe he should have started with Cooking for Dummies or something first. “Maybe we should make a side trip and get Keats laid. What’s your preference, Keats?”
“You don’t have a lover either,” Travis says incredulously. “Or have you fallen in love with cooking?”
I kick Travis, giving him a look. “Who the fuck cooks in the house, you idiot?”
“Well, unless we’re very unlucky and Ace tries, it’s Nol-” he stops, his face flickering through a sequence of expressions that are incredibly entertaining to watch. “Oh. Oh. Oh, wow.” He turns fully in his chair, like a child up on his knees staring at the stranger on the bus. “You and Nolan?”
“No,” Maison says rather defensively. “No, not me and Nolan. I - I enjoy his… company. And his cooking. And, well, him. I enjoy him. Quite a bit. He does this thing where he - I mean, it’s none of your business, but he’s - but we aren’t - we can’t possibly be - he is - uh…”
“Well, that was informative,” Keats mumbles, letting his face mask fall back over his eyes and reclining again. “Thank you so much for enlightening me on why having a lover is so great.”
“You don’t want a lover, Keats?” Travis asks, apparently fully embracing his role of curious child now.
Keats sighs heavily, folding his hands over his stomach. “I would worship at the feet of Bryce Jacobson every day for the rest of my existence if he allowed it.”
Travis, Maison, and I just stare at him. And stare. And stare. Maybe we even gape. That might be the more accurate verb.
We fucking gape at him.
Bryce Jacobson?
Our Bryce Jacobson?
Has Keats even… met him?
When in the world did Keats meet Bryce?
“Stop before your brains explode,” Keats orders. “And stop fucking talking. I’m tired.”
“Sorry,” we all mumble in unison, still too in shock to really argue.
Maison returns his attention to his cookbook.
Travis eyes the toothpick he threw away, but doesn’t reach for it.
Keats releases a soft snore.
And then I remember - and I groan, softly of course, so as not to disturb the others. But Travis hears it, raising an eyebrow at me and leaning forward to whisper, “What’s wrong?”
“I still have to find a way to tell Casey about my daddy kink. I think I can have a relationship without it, but he deserves to know the desire exists before jumping in, doesn’t he?"
"Oh.” Travis smirks, reaching for his phone and tapping the screen a few times before turning it toward me. “I wouldn't worry too much about that."
I look down to see a text I definitely did not want to see, tearing my eyes away quickly before I can read anything else about what Carter is fantasizing about doing to Travis. I also skip Travis's reply. And just as I'm about to ask him if he's fucking with me by showing me their sexts, I see it two messages below - the word daddy.
