21. LUCAS
LUCAS
Six months later...
I turned over in bed, propping my head on my elbow and studying Max as he slept. He was always so beautiful asleep; the lines on his face smoothed out and the tension he held in his expression was gone. Unable to help myself, I reached out and lightly traced the line of his nose.
Max wrinkled his nose at the sensation and his eyes drifted open. “Hey, baby.”
I smiled. “Hey. Morning.”
“Is it?” He looked out the window. “It’s still dark out.”
“It’s the middle of the winter, Max. Of course it’s dark out.” I moved my hand to cup his cheek. “It’ll be light soon. You want some breakfast?”
He snuggled into me, throwing an arm over my midsection and his stump over my thighs. “Cuddles first.”
Who was I to say no to that? I loved when Max got touchy-feely. It always felt like a special treat. I grinned into his hair and put my arm around him. “Whatever you want.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” he mumbled into my armpit. “Next time we have a fight, I’m gonna say ‘But Luc, you told me I could have whatever I wanted!’.”
“You’re such a con artist.” I squeezed his shoulder and pulled my arm away. “Come on, up. It’s time to get the day started.”
“Whyyyy?” he moaned, not moving.
“Well, for one thing, you have to work in two hours and if you want time for breakfast and to shower with me…”
“I’m up!” He sat up quickly and grabbed for his chair. “Shower or breakfast first?”
“Shower,” I decided.
“Good thing I didn’t grab my leg,” he grumbled, but stood up and walked into the bathroom. When I followed him in, he was already sitting on the closed toilet, checking his stump for any damage, as he did every morning.
We both stripped off our underwear swiftly, dropping it in the hamper, and I leaned over to start the shower.
Sometimes there was as much of Max’s laundry in my basket as my own when I went to wash it; we spent most of our time at my place, since we could have loud sex there without worrying about having Evelyn, Margie, and Eli assign us a score out of ten afterward.
And yes, that had happened, multiple times. We averaged an 8.9.
I helped Max into the shower and onto the shower seat—I’d bought a nice one made of teak to replace the cheap plastic one we’d started with—and stepped in behind him. “Mmm,” I moaned as the hot water hit my back. “God, I love this shower.”
“Me too,” Max agreed, scooting his bench forward and elbowing me out of the way so he could get some water for himself. “So much nicer than my shared bathroom at home.”
I tried not to wince at the way he called Evelyn’s house home.
I didn’t want that to be his home anymore; to be honest, I’d never wanted it to be his home, but I knew it had been the right thing to do to let him have his own space and some time away from me to stand on his own.
I was done with that now, though; by the time we both started work this morning—yes, I’d managed to snag a regular day shift as of about two months ago—I intended to get a commitment out of him to move back in with me.
Or, hell, I’d move in with him, sex-scoring notwithstanding. I just wanted to live with Max.
Which brought me to the next order of business. “Max?”
“Hmm?” he asked, rubbing shampoo into his hair and not opening his eyes.
“You spend a lot of time here.”
“Yup,” he agreed easily, then cracked one eye open, wiping away some stray suds before they could fall into it and looking at me apprehensively. “Why, is it too much? Did you want me to spend more time at home?”
“No!” I said quickly. That was the opposite of the message I wanted him to take away from this conversation. “No, not at all. I was actually kinda thinking...that is…”
He closed his eye again and leaned forward to rinse his hair. I took that opportunity to shove an agitated hand through my own hair, wincing when it caught on a snarl. Why was I so nervous about this? It wasn’t like we hadn’t lived together before!
“You were thinking what?” he prompted as he straightened back up and opened his eyes. “Spit it out before the water gets cold and you end up finishing while freezing, babe.” He handed me the shampoo, and I added some to my own hair.
He and I both knew my water heater was better than that; we’d taken half-hour showers and more sometimes and not run the heater dry.
But this was his way of telling me to get on with it before he lost patience, so I did as he asked and spit it out while my eyes were closed: “I was thinking that maybe...I mean you do spend a lot of time here, after all, and we know we make good roommates, so I was wondering if maybe you were—would be—interested in, um...moving back in?” And I scrubbed my head, hard, as he sat there silently for what felt like forever.
Finally, I blurted, “Or maybe I could move in with you at Evelyn’s?
I know her house is more accessible, and—”
“You want me to move back in?” he broke in. “Like, permanently?”
I tipped my head back and rinsed, studiously not looking at him.
“Only if you want to. I mean, I want you to. And I was hoping you’d want to.
Because I love you and I want to spend as much time together as we can, and whenever you go back to your place I get kinda depressed. I hate sleeping in the bed here alone.”
When I opened my eyes again, he was gaping at me. He snapped his mouth shut after a few seconds of us staring silently at each other, and said, “You get depressed?”
That was his takeaway from this? I grunted in frustration. “That’s not important. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that I like it when you’re here, and I want you to be here—or me to be there—more because that makes me happy.”
“Luc…”
He was going to say no, I could tell. He wanted to keep his own space. I prepared myself to wave off my disappointment, to act as though it was no big deal. Not looking at him, I picked up the soap and went to work on my body, acting as though it required all my focus.
“Luc.” He shoved up to a standing position, balancing on his good leg against the wall, and took my chin in his hand, forcing my head up and my eyes to his.
I automatically took hold of his elbow in case he slipped.
“I miss you, too, when I’m not here. I just want you to be sure.
To want it because you want to share with me rather than because you’re generally lonely or depressed. ”
I nodded vigorously. “I want you, Max, I swear. Just you. All the time. I love you so much.”
His eyes softened and he smiled. “Then yes. I’ll move in with you. And here feels more like home than Evelyn's, even with her accessibility. So I vote here. When?”
I shrugged. “How much notice do you need to give Evelyn?”
“I think she’d appreciate 30 days, but she wouldn’t mind if I was out earlier as long as I gave her the last month’s rent.
Oh, speaking of rent: you’re going to let me pay it here, right?
I am not doing the freeloader thing again, and so help me, if you start with the ‘Oh Max, I’m fine without you having to chip in’ shit you’ll be sleeping on the couch when I move in.
” He plopped back down on the bench emphatically.
I noticed that he didn’t say he wouldn’t move in, just that I’d be on the couch.
It pleased me unduly. “I promise you can pay rent,” I agreed easily.
There was no reason to refuse; it wasn’t like I wouldn’t like a little extra money in my pocket every month, and with Max’s new promotion to one step above the bug-wrangler position they’d initially hired him for—they’d eventually actually changed their remote-working policy just to suit his recovery—he was making enough that I didn’t feel too bad accepting his money.
Maybe before too long, we could afford to move to a more accessible place of our own. That was something to start saving for.
“Good.” He slid a hand down my chest to my hip. “Then I think I can move in pretty much whenever. Gotta get rid of my furniture, though. Damn, after all that work putting it together, too. I wonder if Eli or Margie would want some of it.”
That was the least of my concerns. I was going to have my Max with me, 24/7. Ok, well, not literally 24/7, given work and reality in general, but we’d be going to bed in the same place every night and that was enough for me to be happy. I cupped his face in my hand and smiled. “Whatever you want.”
A slow smirk spread over his face, and his hand drifted forward from my hip to my still-soft cock. “What if I want this?”
I laughed breathlessly as I started to harden under his hand. “You can have that any time you want and you know it, Max.”
He gave me a stroke with his hand, then leaned forward to place a chaste kiss on the tip before flicking his tongue out playfully against my crown.
I pressed my back against the wall and scooted my hip closer to him so he could still reach me. “Damn, Max,” I moaned as he leaned forward and enveloped me in his hot mouth. “You’re so good at that.”
He gave me a few strong suckles, then pulled his lips back and grinned up at me.
“I appreciate your positive review. Would you say I rate five stars?” Before I could answer, he’d gone back to work on my cock, striping his tongue up and down my length.
The contrast of the hot water, his warm mouth, and the cool air raised goosebumps on my skin.
“Five stars,” I gasped after taking a few seconds to remember how to speak English. “Five stars and a huge tip.”
“Hmm,” he vocalized around me. Then, pulling away again, he pumped me with his hand while he said, “It is pretty big, thanks for noticing.”