13. Levi
CHAPTER 13
Levi
P orto Cervo, Monday, August 25th
I could have kissed him.
The offer had been right there, in the tilt of his head and the way he watched me—waiting, hopeful. And I’d tucked tail and run, the past fogging up my mind.
In the clear light of a new morning, it felt unnecessarily dramatic. This didn’t have to be complicated. We could simply exist in this moment and let it breathe, stop worrying about a future we didn’t have. I wanted him, and he wanted me. Good enough.
I dabbed toothpaste on my tongue and grabbed the tube so he could do the same because somehow, he’d always felt self-conscious about that. Sleep-crusted eyes and flat bed hair, all fine, but morning breath made him hold back as though I expected to wake up to Cassian Monroe when I’d only ever loved Cass.
Sunshine cast quiet stripes along the hallway when I tiptoed across and slipped into his room. A thin line of daylight sliced around the edges of the heavy curtains, just enough to make him out—sprawled beneath a top sheet that had tangled around his hips, one bare leg extended. Even on the bus, he’d often slept naked, claiming that clothes were a cotton-polyester blend form of oppression. ‘If my nipples offend you, blame societal conditioning.’
‘It’s your junk waving in front of my face that offends me,’ Jace had grumbled while I tried hard to act indifferent.
I stepped closer, the mattress dipping under my knee. Nerves were a dull hum under my ribs. “Cass?”
He stirred, eyes fluttering open, and rolled onto his back. A silent beat passed as we stared at each other in the half-dark, awareness washing across his face. “Mornin’,” he said, voice a soft rasp.
I shifted towards him, felt like I was running hot and cold at once, a slight morning draft wafting across my skin. Overdressed in just my clingy boxer briefs. When I skimmed a palm over his bare stomach, his muscles tensed slightly, a hint of sleepy surprise as he kept watching me.
“Is this okay?” I asked, stilling. It hadn’t even occurred to me that it might not be.
“Of course.” His lashes swooped down in a slow, sweet blink. “Levi, I?—”
“Nothing heavy,” I cut in, oddly unsettled for no real reason. I smiled and splayed my fingers a bit wider on his torso, my thumb catching on his sternum. “Just this. Easy, yeah?”
His attention flickered away, then he nodded, his lopsided grin tilting at an angle. “Yeah, sure. Easy.”
Easy. No expectations, no promises.
I uncurled the fingers of my other hand from around the toothpaste and nudged it towards him. “Here, got you something. In case you’re still a little weirdo about morning breath.”
He huffed a chuckle. “It’s called being considerate, Levi.”
“I think it’d be very considerate if you kissed me.”
“I can do that.” He snicked the tube open and squeezed some onto his finger, then popped it into his mouth. When he caught me watching, he hollowed his cheeks and sucked, all exaggeration, humour gleaming in his eyes.
“Sexy,” I commented, stretching out next to him. The sheets slid as I moved, his body solid and familiar beside me, most of his face in shadow. He let his finger slip free, the air between us fresh and minty. His thigh bumped mine.
“I believe you mentioned kissing?” he asked.
“I believe I did.” I leaned in, nose brushing his cheek as I let my fingertips drift lower, over the firm plane of his stomach, to the prickly line of hair that dipped below the sheet. He pressed his smile against the corner of my lips, and I turned my head, caught his mouth in a proper kiss. It tasted like waking up late after a show, in a hotel room somewhere in the world. Like ‘good morning,’ like ‘I love you.’ Like coming home—the gentle nip of his teeth on my bottom lip and his quiet hum, barely louder than a sigh.
Easy.
I pulled back slightly, aiming for a smirk, and tugged the sheet down to his knees. He didn’t resist, lifting up to make it easier, watching me with an intensity that felt a little too big for the hush of the morning, the distant creak of a settling beam that framed the moment. Faint light and shadow turned the curves of his body into something real and immediate, untouched by the world’s stage lights.
“Pretty boy,” I whispered, and maybe it was too much, the words unfiltered, but it was true.
He exhaled a warm, husky laugh. “I’m a man now, you know.”
“Really?” I brushed the side of my hand along his cock, already half-hard. “I’m gonna need to see some paperwork.”
“It’s all in the stubble.” His breath hitched. “Also, you’re overdressed. Let me see you.”
My cheeks warmed at that. It made no sense—he’d traced every inch of me with his hands and mouth, and I still knew his body by heart. But it felt too intimate in this morning bubble we’d created. I breathed out, then hooked a thumb under the waistband of my boxer briefs and pushed them down. He lay still, studying me with hooded eyes.
“You with me?” I asked.
He glanced up, smiling. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“Cheesy.” I moulded myself against him, chest to chest, and slipped one leg between his. Our cocks brushed. We both stilled, riding out the sparks of that simple contact. He’d always done that for me—one touch, one look, and I was ready to go. No one else had even come close, and I wondered if it was still the same for him now that he had others to compare me to.
It didn’t matter .
To silence the chatter in my head, I cradled his dick—no preamble, just a familiar hold, thumb pressing against the knot at the crown’s base. His choked-off sound was a chord, a masterpiece.
“Jesus, Lee,” he mumbled, syllables blurred around the corners, and I thought about making the obvious joke. Then he reached out, fingers skimming down my hip before they curled around me in a mirror of my grip. My mind went bright and champagne-fizzy.
We moved slowly at first, barely rocking our wrists, knuckles bumping. It felt like a conversation, questions and answers, the velvety thrum of his pulse under my palm. I watched the way his lashes shivered with each slow stroke. His lower lip was caught between his teeth, eyes like the night, all his focus on me.
You were my downfall.
The thought burst into rainbow glitter when he twisted his hand, my hips snapping forward. Not quite there yet but toeing the edge, distant awareness of movement somewhere outside this room, nowhere that mattered because this, here, was everything. I kissed the shell of his ear, hand moving faster now, fuelled by stubborn resolve to make him fall first.
“Lee,” he said and stopped, turned his head to press our open mouths together, shared air more than a kiss. Slick slide of our hands. We angled ourselves better, the deliberate twist of his hand matching the slow build of tension in my thighs and stomach. I licked a murmured curse from his lips. Heat coiled in my gut, and he was trembling faintly, free hand clutching my shoulder in a grip that might leave a five-fingered bruise.
“Close?” I asked, and he gave a jerky nod.
“Yeah, just…” A crack in his voice, lashes charcoal smudges against his cheeks. “Fuck, Lee. I?—”
I leaned in and licked the soft wash of vowels from his mouth. He parted his lips with a quiet groan, and my eyes closed, hips giving a tiny jerk into his fist. Beautiful shadows snagged in my mind. I came with my forehead pressed to his, felt the hot pulse of his release over my hand just seconds later.
Breathing together, tension melting away like the ebb of a wave.
Reality filtered in around the cracks. A bird chirped outside the window in gentle mockery of our moment, the kettle whistling in the kitchen. I’d have to sneak back in a minute—shower, find coffee, pretend that nothing had changed between Cass and me. My mum liked to worry, and even though she loved him, she’d been all careful questions and quiet concern when I’d mentioned I’d help plant some rumours. No need to stir up trouble over nothing when this was... just a bit of fun. Yeah.
“Good way to start the day,” I murmured.
“ Excellent way to start the day.” Cass’s voice was low and satisfied, and I smiled at him.
“Let’s count it as a morning workout, shall we?”
“Fair.”
I reached for the box of tissues on the bedside table and wiped us off, fumbling a little in the half-light. Once I was done, I tossed the crumpled balls over the side of the bed. Cass caught my hand to kiss the knuckles. Didn’t mean a thing. It couldn’t .
“All right,” I said lightly, pulling away. “I better get going before Emmy decides to wake me. You up for a hike today? And maybe another round of this tonight.”
“Sounds good. Yes to both.” He sat up as I slipped off the bed, watching me step back into my boxer briefs and then pad towards the door. I shot him a smile.
“See you in a bit.”
“See you,” he echoed, voice strangely quiet. There was a brightness in his eyes, though, and it told me that we’d be okay. No big deal. Probably just a bit of adjustment needed as we settled into this temporary half-something-or-other arrangement.
Light and easy. All I needed was a moment alone to gather myself, will down the queasy flutter in my stomach, and then it would be fine.
* * *
Sardinia, Monday, August 25th
We set out early enough that the sun didn’t yet hit us with all its brutal force—Emily, Cass, and I, while my parents had opted for a relaxed morning in the villa. I drove, with Emily in the back seat playing some stupid game on my phone because she’d huffed and puffed about doing a hike. Yes, thanks, I was the kind of parent whose good intentions about electronics use collapsed in the face of adversity. Cass navigated from the passenger seat with instructions like “right, no, there should be a left turn coming up in a— there —no, right turn, right , I meant right !”
Somehow, we still made it to a makeshift parking lot, dust and pebbles crunching underfoot, where we met up with Frank. Hats tugged down over our eyebrows, oversized sunglasses shielding half of our faces, Cass and I started on the trail, Emily following with all the cheer of someone heading off to their own execution, while Frank trailed further behind. Five minutes later, Emily was hopping from rock to rock, arms swinging and braid mostly undone, grin wide. Kids .
Cass cast me a sidelong look, one corner of his mouth quirking up. “Bit of a drama queen, isn’t she?”
“She’s seven, Cass.” I smiled back. “She gets upset over a cupcake that has less frosting than her friend’s, and over how some American cartoon character says ‘zee’ instead of ‘zed.’”
“Perfectly reasonable.” He lowered his cap when other hikers approached, his jawline shadowed. Good thing that this late in the summer holiday season, the crowds had dwindled to a trickle. Whenever we passed someone, we uttered a greeting but kept our faces turned away, faking fascination with some shrubbery by the wayside.
My gaze kept sliding to him—how he reached up to adjust his hat, and the movement exposed a sliver of his stomach, how his shorts clung to his gorgeous arse. A week ago, I could have blamed it on pent-up frustration after not getting laid in a while, or on all those years I’d spent without him. But now? Yeah, not so much.
Just a bit of fun.
The path wound downwards, curving between pale stone walls and scraggly brush. Emily led the way until we reached the gorge and took a careful walk around the rocks. She pointed at cliffs, insisting they looked like faces if you squinted just right, before she and Cass got distracted by a small lizard sunning itself. They crouched at a polite distance, heads tucked close and whispering between themselves, while I stood back with a half-smile. It was… nice.
After a while, we headed back to the car. A few times, I saw someone glance at us, a flicker of “wait, is that—?” but we were quick to move along. Just a single dad, his kid, and his friend enjoying a day out. Nothing to see here.
On the drive back, we stopped at a small turnout overlooking the sea. The sky was a gentle blue, the water a deeper, hazier shade, and Cass took out his phone to snap photos of Emily and me making silly faces, our arms around each other.
“Want one that’s a little more serious?” he asked. “For the Christmas cards or whatever.”
Emily scrunched up her nose while I gave him my best glower, perfected in hundreds of photoshoots— ‘Tilt your chin down a little, that’s it, that’s the angle.’ It made Cass laugh, and I lost the brooding expression, tripped up by the slant of sunlight across his cheekbones.
I tipped my chin towards his phone. “Want me to take a picture of you?”
He shook his head, already slipping it back into his pocket. “Nah, I’m good.”
Damn. I’d have loved to capture him like this: grin lazy and shoulders relaxed, real and beautiful and nothing like that last year in the band, when every glance between us had cut to the bone. But maybe he wanted a time-out from the cameras, which—yeah, fair enough.
By early afternoon, we were back at the villa. After some bread, cheese, and salad that Emily made sure everyone ate in equal amounts, we changed into swimwear and gathered around the pool. A sun sail provided some shade. Cass had just stretched out on his back, eyes closed, when Emily cannonballed in and soaked his chest.
He sat up with a squawk. “Hey! What’s this—a palace revolt?”
She shrieked, giggling, when he jumped in and they started splashing each other, limbs flailing. My gaze snagged on the curve of his shoulders. For God’s sake , I needed to stop acting like some hormone-stricken teenager.
I grabbed my phone and took a quick photo of them, both laughing as she tried to dunk him with her small hands and he pretended to go under. They looked happy. Both of them. The thought made my chest ache a little, and I tucked my phone away without even bothering to check how the picture had come out.
Cass disappeared into the garden some time after that, carrying his guitar that had been delivered earlier. A gentle twang drifted over soon after. The notes were tentative, like he was still searching for the shape of the tune. Once, I would have joined him to offer a lyric or two, make it a playful competition about who could find the cheesiest rhymes because it helped him relax, until we eventually settled into an earnest give and take. Half the songs on our last album had started like that, with us—before we broke each other and then the band.
Maybe I should listen to what he’d done without me.
Instead, I checked my emails to make sure nothing important had come in, and then put the phone away because I’d promised Emily this would be a proper holiday. My mum, Emily, and I wasted some time with a board game we found in a cupboard—some dodgy imitation of a known brand with pieces that didn’t quite fit their slots. “I’m bored ,” Emily declared after about five minutes of this, like it hadn’t been her idea.
“What would you rather do, then?” my mum asked.
After a bit of negotiation—no, it was too early for a movie and no, she couldn’t have my phone again to keep feeding candy to a green blob with big eyes and an overbite—she decided that drawing a picture of the sea was an acceptable proposal and went off in search of her crayons. Ah, the joys of child management.
As soon as Emily was gone, my mum leaned back in her chair, her warm gaze taking me in. “Honey,” she began, and I raised a hand.
“Please don’t.”
She sighed and picked up a fallen game piece with a dent in it, turning it over in her hand, while my dad was hiding behind his newspaper. Emotions made him uncomfortable, but he tended to hang around in case he could make himself useful—drill a hole, fix a lawnmower, that sort of thing. “I’m not telling you what to do,” Mum said just as the music stopped for a moment. “You’re old enough to make your own decisions—Lord knows you’ve seen more of the world than your dad and I ever will.”
“Mum,” I said, much more gentle. I knew she’d struggled with how fast I’d had to grow up, how neither she nor dad had been able to protect me from the brutal side of fame—vicious rumours printed next to an unflattering photo, being told exactly how to dress and look for a candid backstage shot, gasping for air in a crowd of paparazzi, camera flashes so bright I saw stars, bodyguards forming a human barrier just so we could get to the car door.
Doing this now, with Cass? I was choosing to walk into an echo of that. His fans had grown up some, but the media was still just as volatile.
But years ago, I’d asked him to do this. Now that he was ready, I didn’t want him to be alone. I wanted… I wanted to be there with him, even if it couldn’t fix our past.
“He’s a lovely boy,” my mum said after a beat, just as Cass’s gentle strumming resumed. “You know we’ve always adored him, don’t you?”
I exhaled and let my gaze drift to the view of the garden, the sea a glint of blue peeking through. “I know, yeah.”
“Good, yes.” Another pause. “It’s just that the first time… You took it so hard, darling. We were so worried about you.”
Fuck.
“Mum.” I shook my head, lungs gripped by an iron fist that pressed them into a sad little clump. “This isn’t like that. It’d be so much harder if he had to come out on his own, that’s why I’m helping. He’s still… I still care about him, always will. But we’re not back together.”
She studied me for a long moment, face shadowed. “You invited him here.”
“I invited Mason, too.”
“But Cass isn’t Mason, is he?” Her thoughtful tone didn’t exactly demand a response, the question followed by a rustle of my dad’s paper as he peered at me quickly, then back down at his sports reporting.
‘Cass isn’t Mason, is he?’
I listened to the quiet progression of notes floating on the breeze, thought about Cass’s skin and the curve of his smile, the quiet rasp of his voice in the morning.
“No,” I told my mum. “He’s not. But he also isn’t the same person he was five years ago. And neither am I.”
“I know, honey.” She shook her head, greying hair whispering along her shoulders, eyes bright. “I don’t think we tell you enough, but we are so proud of the person you’ve become.”
Words lodged themselves in my throat, like breathing around a shard of glass. I swallowed, and swallowed again. “Thank you, Mum. Means a lot.”
She reached across the table to squeeze my hand, letting go only when Emily returned with her crayons and a stack of drawing paper that might, in fact, be documents I’d intended to review. I inhaled and let go of the tension in my neck and shoulders, Cass’s music a soft ache that brushed my skin.
I’d be fine. Yes, my mum liked to worry. But I knew what this was, and so did he.