Chapter Thirty-Five
Adonis slid back into the well—a mini disaster that shook the church’s foundations—and disappeared that way while Connor fell in step with Nick.
They followed Kit outside, and Nick breathed in deep, glad for fresh air to replace the smell of iron and blood.
Mini trotted past them, taking off down a now deserted street with a tail flick in Kit’s direction.
Nick watched him go, satisfied that the young kit seemed in good form, no worse for wear after his dip into the well.
“I’m a mess,” Nick said.
“This way.” Kit walked one street over, where three large buildings dominated the entire street.
He produced a key for the nearest one and led them through a main hall to a large, luxurious bathroom.
The stone floors were all tilted very slightly towards the centre of the room, which held a shining silver drain, and the bath and shower had pipes leading to them from the ceiling.
Nick drifted to the shower.
Kit turned the dials to start the water flow, and Nick, fully clothed, stepped under the spray.
Kit cast a look between Nick and where Connor slowly walked the perimeter of the room, an anxious tic in his cheek.
“I will bring you clothes.” Kit took two steps towards the door, only to hesitate and look once more towards Connor.
He redirected, grabbed the privacy screen arranged next to the bath and set it up between Nick and Connor, carefully separating them with an intricately woven latticework of dark wood, populated with pale pink blossoms.
“That,” Nick said, “is my brother.”
“All the more reason for the screen,” Connor said wryly.
He dragged over a chair and set it a few feet from the screen.
He sat, and Nick could just make out his shape through the divide, nothing more.
“I don’t want to see anything below the belt.
I’d either have to bleach my eyes or let Adonis drown you. ”
Nick snorted.
Kit’s shoulders tensed. His tail lashed, hand creeping towards the sword in his belt. Nick reached out, catching his attention, but not his hand. “He’s joking,” Nick said. “He can’t hurt me. Our dad would never forgive him.”
Kit studied Nick’s expression at length. He moved his hand away from the hilt of his sword and nodded. “I will return soon,” he said.
Kit left, and Nick turned his attention back to the shower. The water came from a metal head in several small jets, only slightly warm, but the pressure was decent. Nick began the slow process of removing his clothes, hissing through his teeth as he lifted his arms to peel off his shirt.
“I can hurt you, but I won’t,” Connor said.
Nick got the shirt off, panting. “Thanks for clarifying.”
“Don’t be a dickhead. It’s not that I won’t hurt you because Trevor would be upset; it’s that I won’t hurt you because I don’t want to.
Alright?” Connor’s voice was level. Calm.
But. Nick peered through the screen at his shape.
He wasn’t relaxing into the chair; he was right on the edge, feet planted firmly on the ground, hands joined tightly on his lap.
And Nick, even though Connor had been largely unreadable to him from the moment they met, sensed his upset. There was just something in the levelness of his voice that tipped Nick off, though whatever it was, he was picking up on it subconsciously.
Nick almost said ‘right, right’ and dismissed it. But that would have been avoiding Connor again. Hiding from actually opening up to him or allowing the possibility of connecting beyond the ‘getting along’ they’d done for the past year.
“I didn’t know that,” Nick admitted. He put his head under the spray of water, closing his eyes and letting it wash away the violence of the night. “I was horrible to you. I’ve never even apologised.”
“You weren’t horrible.”
“Don’t lie.”
The chair creaked as Connor shifted his weight. “I understand why, Nick. And I think you were the only one to actually treat me normally, given the situation. And the second the charges against me were proven false, you never treated me badly again.”
Nick unclasped his trousers and kicked them aside to join the shirt. The water stung where two of his piercings had shifted. He might have to take them out. “I knew before then,” Nick told him.
Connor didn’t say anything.
Nick found a tub of soap flakes on a shelf and took a handful, washing himself.
His chest was tender, and the gash on his arm went deep, but he was certain the bone-deep tiredness came from Desre and the aftereffects of her magic.
The emotional plateau came from scooping out his guts in Kit’s accepting embrace.
“I forgive you,” Connor said.
Don’t run away, he told himself. Nick shut his eyes. “I hate that Laurence copies you.”
Connor snorted. “I know.”
“Since you’ve joined the family, I haven’t got to be his big brother.”
Connor didn’t snort this time. The air between them grew heavy just as the water from the spout went from warm to hot.
Nick leaned into the flow, breathing in wisps of steam.
“And with us… Obviously, I know it’s not going to be the way it is with Laurence, but I don’t know what to do with you.
” A shaky, upset breath fizzled out of him.
“I think we get along,” Connor said after a hesitant pause.
“We do.” The same way Nick ‘got along’ with his professors and fellow students in college. “Shouldn’t I get more than that from you, though?” he asked.
A minute passed.
“You do,” Connor said quietly. Nick blinked the water from his eyes, peering through the latticework at Connor’s bent form.
“I told you at Vi’s party that you were bothering me, remember?
Because I couldn’t feel where you were? Everyone I’m close to, I have been able to find for months now, except for you, and that has been annoying the hell out of me…
but it wasn’t me doing the blocking. I’m not like them, Nick.
I’m never going to have that innate goodness –”
“That is such bullshit, yes you do.”
“Listen to me.” Connor’s voice was firm. “As far as I can tell, Laurence and Trevor are reincarnated angels. And I’m sorry if you feel like I’m robbing you of Laurence, but I won’t give either of them up for anything.”
“I don’t want you to!” Nick erupted. “I want you to have them. Jesus, that isn’t what I’m trying to get at all.”
“What are you getting at?”
Nick gritted his teeth but forced himself to talk. “Text when you’re home.”
“Okay,” Connor agreed, a confused note in his voice.
“Stop having Sam pick you up books from the college library and ask me to do it.”
“…But you only let me take out five on your card.”
“Five is enough! I need to be able to take out college books too, you know?”
Connor’s agreement was reluctant. “Fine.”
“Does it bother you if I eat non-vegetarian in front of you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“It doesn’t bother me in the slightest,” Connor insisted. “I can tell Laurence to cook for you too.” It was something Laurence had stopped doing almost entirely when Connor joined the family, favouring learning every vegetarian or pescatarian meal he could to make for Connor instead.
Nick snorted. “Dad’s a chef, do you think I can’t cook for myself?” He blinked a few times, his insides feeling light. Would a conversation always have been this easy? If Nick had found the courage for one, months ago? “If Laurence goes to college next year, I want to help him move into the dorms.”
“I’ll make sure I’m busy that week.”
Helping Laurence move into a new apartment or flat for college was something Nick had envisioned since Laurence first started talking about art school at ten years old.
Him, Trevor and Laurence would drive out wherever it was together, help carry boxes, check out the flat, suss out his new roommates…
Nick would make sure he was available for the first few weekends in case Laurence needed a safety blanket for nights out until he had made new friends.
“You should be there,” Nick said. “Just make sure me and Dad get the invite too.”
“I will. Anything else?”
“Don’t get kidnapped ever again.”
As if it were something Connor could control, he promised, “I won’t.”
Nick’s soul softened around the edges. Connor hadn’t pushed back on a single point; had he been waiting for Nick to bridge the gap between them?
“Where is everyone?” he asked.
The door creaked open as Kit re-entered the room, clothes and a tub of healing salve bundled under his arm.
“Trevor and Laurence are a day down the river on my yacht.” Connor’s head turned.
He was peering through the screen at Kit, who stared back, tail lashing.
Nick twisted to read Kit’s expression, and his movement dragged Kit’s attention back to him.
He indicated the salve and Nick’s back. He stepped out of the spray so Kit could lather it on.
Kit didn’t take off his gloves, but from the way his tail twitched in Connor’s direction, Nick knew that had more to do with Connor making him uneasy than a sudden unwillingness to touch Nick.
“I’m guessing Dad hasn’t slept.”
“Nobody has.”
“I was hoping you’d bring Laurence back first.”
Connor scoffed as Kit caught Nick’s arm between his hands and peered at the damaged skin.
“As if. He’d have convinced Bee and Dew to bring him right back to look for you himself, and then I’d be tracking him down too. Although that would be far easier than finding you has been.”
“You can still sense me, can’t you?”
“Yeah.”
Kit handed Nick a towel and watched as he gingerly dried himself, then stepped in to help Nick dress when it was clear moving pained him.
“So why’s he looking at you naked?”