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“I mean it, Zan.”
“Dammit, when did you get to the point that you could read minds?”
“I don’t need to. You’re predictable.”
Well. Not much Zander could say to that.
Zander peeked cautiously into Max’s room, slithering one eye around the door. He didn’t hear Max in here, but he wanted to make sure before he went in. Nope, coast was clear.
He quickly zipped over to the closet, opening it and riffling through clothes. He was just getting an idea of sizes. Zander could guess, but he wanted to be accurate. No matter what Max said, most of his clothes were worn out, which simply wouldn’t do. His Max was incredibly cute. It was Zander’s job to put him in the best clothes possible to showcase the cuteness.
It was a duty, really.
All right, sizes figured out. Zander quickly left the room before he could get caught, already making mental notes of which tailor to call up to order things. The tailor would prefer actual measurements, of course, but if Zander tried to do that, Max would catch on. The tailor would just have to be flexible.
Speaking of, where was his Max? It had been quiet for the past hour. After they returned home from the hospital, Max had said something about homework to be done, and Zander had a contract to review before Monday, so they’d split ways in the living room. Was he still working on his homework?
Zander came down the stairs, spying something on the couch, although he couldn’t see much more than a shoulder from this angle. He came all the way down and around, getting a better view of the couch, and immediately took ten points of HP damage.
On the couch, sound asleep, was Max. But he’d snagged Zander’s hoodie from somewhere, and the sight of him snuggled into it made Zander clutch his heart and stagger. Oh god, the cuteness. The cuteness was overwhelming. Was it possible to die from cuteness?
No, wait, he had to take a picture of this first. Zander had his phone out of his pocket in record time. He wasn’t content to take one picture, no, no. That would be sacrilege. He took fifteen in quick succession, grinning the whole time.
Zander was torn between getting Max to do this more often—because it was fucking adorable—and having respect for his heart. He was dangerously close to a heart attack as it was. Maybe once a week. Yeah, he could survive this once a week.
A hundred or so pictures later, his phone rang. Swearing mentally, Zander moved with vampiric speed into the next room, answering as he moved to keep the ringtone from waking his Max.
“Ronan, why the hell are you calling me?” Zander demanded when he was safely in his home office.
“Uh, I can’t?”
“You almost woke up Max, dammit.”
“Ahh, that’s the issue. Well, if you bothered to check your messages, maybe I wouldn’t have to call, genius.”
Zander pulled the phone away from his ear to check. Oh, he had several texts. Oops. “All right, fine, to answer—I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you’ll be at the race tomorrow, or you don’t know if Max will go with you?”
“Both. It depends on him. If he’s willing to go, I’ll take him. If he’s not willing, I’ll stay here with him.”
“He still shaken about last night, then?”
“Look, this stays in the family, all right? I prefer no one else know about this but me, you, and Fernando.” Zander was still mad just remembering the succinct version of the story he heard this morning. “Short version is, Max was almost killed by a Glutton five years ago.”
Ronan let out a vile curse.
“He finally told me that this morning. Last night just dredged up all the bad memories and right now, I don’t want to leave him alone for long periods.”
“That is completely understandable. I’d feel the same in your shoes. All right, then just let me know later after you talk it over with him. Chase was pestering me about Max coming, but I’ll tell him it hasn’t been decided yet. Wait, does Chase know about this?”
“No, I don’t think he does.”
“Okay. I’ll let Max decide whether to tell him or not.”
Zander agreed with this plan one hundred percent. “Probably for the best. I think Chase would just roll with it, but it’s Max’s call.”
“One more thing. Fernando has the ring ready for Max. I just picked up Chase’s. Even if you don’t see him at the race, make sure to swing by the house and grab it before Max goes back to school on Monday.”
