Chapter 5
FIVE
The day Joshua checked his Twitter mentions was the day he washed up at Leo’s flat. At seven in the morning.
When Leo opened the door, vision hazy with sleep, Joshua brandished a paper bag like a peace offering. Blinking rapidly, Leo shook his head. The apparition persisted, so, yeah, all right. There was a prince on his doorstep. A prince with red eyes and a paper bag clutched to his chest.
Okay.
Except what?
Some of Leo’s sleepiness evaporated. “Joshua?” he asked. The name came out softer than he’d intended. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t… Mo and Tristan aren’t in London, and I needed to—just. I tried to call, and when you didn’t answer, Tristan helped me get your address from Nate.
Sorry. I hope that’s okay.” Following the verbal equivalent of a nosedive, Joshua tried for a smile that turned out wrong and twisted, close to a grimace.
For someone who must have been trained to smile through anything, it was a remarkably poor performance.
Cold dread pooled in Leo’s stomach. “What’s wrong?”
“I just—that thing you said? About how it’s not a flaw?” Joshua lowered the bag, avoiding Leo’s eyes. “Like, there are all these comments, on, like, online, and—I think I need to hear that right now?” He hiccupped, then his face crumpled and he burst into tears.
Oh God, oh God, oh shit.
Tugging Joshua into the flat, Leo kicked the door shut and did his best to wrap himself all around the other man.
His chest ached with the need for air, only there didn’t seem to be enough in the room, not enough in the flat or in the world.
All he could do was hold on until Joshua sagged into him, making Leo stumble into the wall with their combined weight.
Joshua’s cheek was damp where it rested against Leo’s temple.
“You’re all right,” Leo whispered. What a lie. What a lie. “You will be. This is just a temporary glitch, okay?”
He wasn’t sure he believed it himself, but the tension in Joshua’s muscles lessened, one arm coming up around Leo’s back. Leo felt his own anxiety recede just a little.
“I just don’t want them to hate me.” Joshua sounded small and lost, and bloody hell, Leo wanted to punch everyone who’d dared to hurt him.
He could totally do it too, make Nate track down the people behind the comments and then travel the country on a quest for revenge, show up at people’s doors with some choice words, an ugly grin and a wooden bat.
Or maybe a fly swat, but it would get his message across.
It wouldn’t accomplish anything. It wouldn’t bring a genuine smile to Joshua’s face right this very moment.
“Babe.” Quickly, Leo pushed past a flare of discomfort at letting that endearment slip. “People couldn’t hate you if they tried. Trust me. I mean, I tried, and now look at me.”
Joshua gave a hoarse laugh that got stuck in his throat. “Maybe you just didn’t try very hard.”
“Excuse you, I was president of a club called 10 Things I Hate About Joshua.”
“Really?” Joshua lifted his head to look at Leo, eyes wet, but brighter now, a very distant spark of amusement in them.
“No,” Leo grumbled. “I am not obsessed, thank you very much.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Then again, was it a lie if teenage-Leo would have been much more likely to preside over a group called 10 Things I Want to Do to Joshua’s Body?
Jesus, he’d been ridiculous, wrapped up in an illusion of his own construction.
In a way, he’d been every bit as blind in his demonstrative dislike for Joshua upon meeting him again.
It hadn’t been about Joshua at all. How could it have been, when they’d been strangers to each other?
They weren’t strangers anymore.
Okay, fuck. This wasn’t helping.
“What’s in this thing?” Leo asked, drawing back to peer at the bag still clutched in Joshua’s left hand.
“Oh.” Joshua flushed. “Fairy cakes? I didn’t want to come empty-handed.”
“You could have,” Leo told him. “But I’ll take them just the same. You want some tea with those? Because I sure as hell do.”
Taking a step back, Joshua wiped at his eyes before he nodded, his smile still watery, but much more convincing than before.
He cast a curious look around, and Leo realised that this was Joshua’s first time seeing how Leo lived, a glimpse into his life that went beyond what little Leo had been willing to share.
Shoes were piled up in one corner of the corridor, and through the doorway into the kitchen, Leo spotted dirty dishes and an empty pizza box.
He also realised that he was wearing Superman boxers and a ratty T-shirt that sported a large hole under his left arm.
Jesus, he hadn’t stopped to consider what it meant, letting Joshua into his flat—nothing had mattered but Joshua himself, fraught and fragile on Leo’s doorstep. Leo refused to examine his reaction too closely.
“Sorry I didn’t clean up,” he said. “Or put on my best suit. Would have, if you’d called ahead.”
Joshua rubbed a hand over his nape. “Sorry for, like, barging in.”
“It’s absolutely fine,” Leo told him. “Anytime, Joshua.”
He wondered if Joshua realised just how true it was. Hopefully not.
They had breakfast on the balcony, tea warming them against the chilly morning breeze.
While Joshua was perched on a rickety chair, Leo sat on a pillow on the floor even though Joshua had offered to switch places.
“I’m no brute,” Leo had told him. “I won’t let my guests sit on the floor just because I never got around to buying a second chair. ”
He could tell that Joshua was curious, was probably wondering just how lonely Leo’s life had to be when one chair was enough for him. But in the end, all Joshua said was, “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Not making this into a royal thing, but into a guest thing.”
“Well.” Leo took a small sip of his tea and swallowed it down before he continued.
“See, it’s a bit hard to remember the royal thing when Her Majesty the Queen is regal and elegant, and you’re really kind of ridiculous.
In a good way, mind.” He winked. “Are you quite sure you weren’t switched out at birth? ”
Joshua’s laugh pearled like beads of condensation on an ice-cooled water bottle—and that was a rather clumsy comparison, wasn’t it? Leo felt mildly drunk, but it was all down to sugar and chocolate sprinkles and hot tea. Nothing at all to do with the company.
“I really don’t think this is that story, L.” The nickname rolled off Joshua’s tongue with ease. Joshua didn’t even seem to have noticed, and Leo found himself staring at Joshua’s mouth, bitten red and a hint too generous to fit conventional standards of male beauty.
Leo had kissed a lot of people, and it had always been a prelude to something, a step in between; some clients had liked it, and Leo hadn’t minded.
Honestly, he couldn’t have cared less about some arbitrary rule installed by a romantic comedy of all things.
But here, with Joshua soft and close, Leo thought he would enjoy kissing him just because he could—not as a means to an end, but as simple human contact, comfort and closeness.
He broke a piece off his fairy cake and chewed thoroughly, gaze on a slice of road that was visible between the bars of the railing.
The city was beginning to wake. In less than an hour, Leo was supposed to pick up the usual rental van.
After that, he’d need to collect Kylie, who’d scouted out a new location for them—the backyard of an office that was deserted on weekends.
Leo couldn’t ditch Joshua, though. It would be a shitty thing to do, especially when Joshua had specifically come to him. Joshua still appeared smaller than usual, quieter, a sad curve to his mouth.
Fuck, he’d brought fairy cakes so Leo wouldn’t turn him away. As if. As if.
“Listen, Princeling.” Leo drew both knees up to his chest and glanced over to find Joshua looking at him already—searching, almost intense. “There’s stuff I have to do in a little bit.”
“Oh. Yes, of course. I’ll just… be on my way, then.” Joshua ducked his head and exhaled, then set his cup down and made to rise from the chair. Without thinking, Leo reached for his ankle, fingertips grazing warm, bare skin where Joshua’s jeans ended.
“Hey,” Leo said sharply. “How about you let me finish?”
After a brief moment, Joshua sank back into the chair. Leo’s fingers were still clasping his ankle, and Joshua made no move to extract himself.
“As I was just about to say before your rather rude leap to conclusions…” Leo loosened his hold.
“I’ve got stuff to do. Which means I’m giving you a choice: either you’ll let me drop you off with some nice person who gets to enjoy your company for the day, or you’ll tag along.
Fair warning that there’s a bit of trespassing involved.
And that you’re not allowed to ask questions. ”
“No questions?” Joshua picked his cup back up. His grin was small, but real. “At all? Why? When are we leaving? Are we there yet?”
“Funny,” Leo said dryly. And… well, damn.
Only now did the full implication of his offer catch up with him.
Even with sunglasses and a wig, there was no way Joshua would go unrecognised, and hanging out with a bunch of street kids was precisely the kind of thing that he shouldn’t do without a bodyguard.
Yet the presence of a bodyguard would scare away the kids, thus putting a dent in the trust Leo and Kylie had managed to build over the course of the last fourteen months.
“Another thing.” Leo turned to face Joshua fully, giving him a frown as he retracted his hand.
“I cannot guarantee that it’s entirely without risk for you.
I don’t think it’ll be a problem, but it’d probably be breaking about seventeen rules of royal safety protocol for you to go without a bodyguard.
Only a bodyguard would be… out of place. ”