Chapter 32
Artemis
Xavier wanders into the kitchen looking like sex and sin, his hair is damp and somehow still crushed on one side.
His shirt is rumpled, lips a little swollen from this morning’s disastrous restraint before he hopped in the shower while I dialled into a meeting.
He blinks at me like he’s not sure I’m real.
Which is fair. I barely believe it myself. Is it possible to change overnight? Because I feel kind of changed.
“Morning again.” His murmured voice is scratchy-soft.
I grunt something that could be a greeting and nudge the plate I’ve massacred into existence toward him. He wanted bacon and toast. And, well. I tried. Apollo is the chef among us.
Me? Well… The eggs are overcooked. The bacon is a goddamn crime scene. I should have let him come downstairs to make breakfast. I couldn’t help dragging him back to bed for a blowjob that left him so sticky and covered in our cum that he needed a shower.
But the toast? It’s perfect. And the coffee?
Exactly how he takes it—because I pay attention, even when I shouldn’t.
Or, more accurately, because my younger brother has taken it upon himself to text me every detail he knows about this man at periodic intervals. It’s equal parts annoying and helpful.
Xavier sits, wraps his hands around the mug, and peers up at me with a smile that could end wars between nations. He has no fucking idea how gorgeous he is. “You cooked?”
“I narrowly missed having to call 9-1-1.” I correct him with a smile. “Mostly supervised the fire hazards.”
He laughs, and something hard inside my ribs goes stupid. He takes a bite of the bacon, winces, and eats it anyway.
“You didn’t have to do all this.” He sweeps a hand at the food. “Based on the acrid smell in the air you probably shouldn’t have.” He grins at me. “I could have done it after my shower.”
“Just admit that you’d have starved without me.” Who knew I had it in me to be funny? It’s not something I’m known for. The cold, detached, stoic ice prince who lives in the shadows while his siblings play in the sunlight.
He huffs. “I can not burn bacon.” He winks at me. “You could have made cereal.”
I soak in his smile like a man who knows he shouldn’t touch the flame but reaches for it anyway.
“You good if I do some schoolwork?”
I nod. I have plenty I could be doing. This is one of the most important weeks of the merger.
Lining everything up behind the scenes feels more and more like an impossible task to accomplish.
What the fuck was I thinking? Trying to spin all these plates is an exercise of arrogance and futility.
And yet, it’s just another challenge I’ll rise to, because it’s who and what I am.
Xavier clears the dishes, then spreads textbooks across the table. I pretend to work at the kitchen island, but my eyes keep drifting. The way he mutters to himself while reading. The way he taps a pencil against his knee. The way he pushes his glasses up with the back of his hand when they slide.
He’s not even wearing his reading glasses today, but the movement is pre-programmed it seems. I’m losing my mind. And not getting anything done that I’m supposed to.
He groans at something on the page. “I swear this professor hates me.”
“He does.” I don’t look up.
Xavier startles. “You weren’t even listening.”
“I was.” I flip over a page I didn’t read. “You’re very loud when you study quietly.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Come and explain this then.”
I expect him to hold the book up. Instead, he pats the seat cushion beside him. It’s an invitation. But it’s close, too dangerous. And still, I go because I can’t help myself. I stand behind him, leaning over to point at a paragraph.
He smells like my pillow and whatever detergent he uses. His shoulder brushes my stomach, but he doesn’t move away. Then, seemingly without thinking, he leans back into me, like he’s been doing it for years. My body goes taut. His goes soft.
I feel every slow breath he takes like he’s syncing to me, like my heartbeat is something he can hear.
We work through what he’s asking, because apparently reading it out loud to him three times over makes it stick in his brain and is way more important than the pages of merger bullshit I’m supposed to be working on.
“Thanks.”
I clear my throat and step back. “You’re welcome.” Is this possible? Could something real work between us? Between school, and work, and my charity commitments, and hockey, and the inevitable drama that follows our family names… could I have maybe my cake and eat it too?
His cheeks pinken. Mine probably do too, because apparently, I’m a man who blushes now. Funny and blushing, my family won’t know me.
Lunch is leftovers. He rants about a class, waving his fork like a weapon. I listen, hanging on every word, and when a piece of hair falls into his eyes, I brush it back without thinking.
His breath catches. My hand stays exactly where it is. Eventually, I drop it and shove a piece of sandwich into my mouth to cover the panic.
Smooth, Artemis. Really smooth.
Xavier stares at me for a long beat, wheels turning behind his eyes. I both hate and love when he thinks around me. I want to climb into his brain and get to know every thought that crosses his mind.
“You know…” He puts his pen down and levels me with a stare filled with insecurity and questions. “You don’t have to stay here all day. I know you’re busy.”
I arch a brow. “And leave you unsupervised?”
“You think I’m going to go through all your secret drawers?”
“I think you’re likely to fall down the stairs to your death.”
He grunts. “I’m not a toddler.”
“You tripped over your own shoes this morning.”
“That was an accident.” He jabs his pen at me.
“Which is exactly what toddlers say.”
He throws a napkin at me. I catch it without looking. He goes pink in the cheeks again. And just like that, pink might be my new favorite color.
A little while later, he shuts his laptop and stretches, the hem of his shirt rising just enough to ruin my sanity a little bit more.
“Wolves have a game tomorrow.” His voice is casual, but his tone is a smidge too careful, too cautious, it sets off a warning bell somewhere in the back of my brain.
My pulse punches upward. It’s cute he thinks I haven’t studied his game schedule. I know he came to watch one of my games, but I’m not sure I’m there yet. That’s… a lot of people, a potentially very public display of affection. I school my face into something neutral. “A game.”
He nods, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He’s nervous, hopeful, clearly trying not to be in the way he’s sitting, arm slung over the back of the chair next to him like he’s totally at ease.
“You want me there?”
He shrugs. He looks to be trying for nonchalant and failing miserably. “It’s always nice having someone to look for in the stands.”
It hits me somewhere low. I take a slow breath, my rational mind leaving my body on the exhale. “I can come.”
His smile ignites, jumping straight to full wattage. This man is pure sunlight. It slams into me like a body check against the boards. “Yeah?”
“If I’m free,” I add, because I’m a coward and a fool. I’m absolutely, positively not free. I have four thousand different things to do tomorrow, but I can’t extinguish the hope in his eyes when it was me that put it there.
He rolls his eyes, but the smile stays. “Right. If you’re free.”
I look at him, really look, and there it is again, a tug in my chest that feels suspiciously like surrender. “Text me the time.” I know the time. It’s the same time every hockey game ever starts.
He arches a brow, calling me out. “Because hockey is infamous for that changing start time.”
I roll my eyes at him now. “Sometimes it changes depending on the day.” The argument feels flimsy on my tongue.
But for a moment—a long, risky moment—it feels like the floor between us has tipped. Like we’re teetering on the edge of something neither of us can take back. Something I’m not sure I’d stop even if I could. “I’ll make sure I’m there.”