Chapter Sixteen NourishNumb #2
Reece shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the back of a kitchen chair.
Then he flicked on the coffee machine and moved to the counter where a linen-covered bowl sat waiting.
He pulled back the cloth. Dough. Soft, pillowy, risen perfectly.
And Reece popped it out, chucked it onto a floured surface and punched it down with the heel of his hand, shaping it into a tray, flour dust rising into the air.
“You bake?” Trent tried to keep normal.
But even as he watched in awe, his chest jittered, off-beat and heavy, and the dizziness returned. Soft, creeping edges of nausea. Not enough to show. Not yet. He gripped the edge of the table when Reece turned away.
Touching? Kissing? That part came easy.
Staying upright?
That was taking everything.
Reece gave a half-smile without looking up. “Yeah. Helps me not lose my shit. ”
He transferred the dough onto a tray lined with baking paper, then shoved it into the oven and set a timer with an efficiency that wasn’t some rare display. It was routine.
“Where’s your Nana?” Trent checked to see if she might appear at any moment in a cardigan and curlers, ready to fuss and say that she was the real baker here.
Reece reached for two mugs. “Rosebay Haven.” He angled his head to the coffee machine. “Coffee?”
“Uh… yeah. Please.” Trent hovered near the table, suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands. A coffee might sort these withdrawal symptoms out a little. “Sorry.”
Reece turned back to him, brow creased. “Hmm?”
“Rosebay.” Trent tilted his neck. “That’s end-of-life care. I’ve… been there.”
Reece nodded, quiet. “Yeah. Vascular dementia. She’s in good hands, though.”
“I’ve heard those hands come with a decent price tag, too.”
“She’s worth it.” Reece set the mugs down. “Brought me and my brother up when she should’ve been sitting in the garden reading. Gave up everything for us.”
Trent swallowed the lump rising in his throat. “You have a brother?”
Reece didn’t answer right away. He turned, eyes catching Trent’s with that lingering, assessing look that always made Trent feel as if he was being seen and undressed at the same time.
“Yeah.” Reece turned back to the counter. “Twin.”
Trent blinked. “Christ. There are two of you walking around looking like that? Lucky Worthbridge.”
Reece chuckled. Low, warm, and deep in his chest. A sound Trent felt more than heard. “Sadly, Worthbridge only has me. Ethan’s usually in Brentwood. Works in the city. Solicitor. He’s… not me.”
There was something in the way he said it. Not sharp, but heavy. Like a door Reece wasn’t ready to open, and he reached for a carton of eggs on the top of the fridge and cracked them into a bowl. Trent was sure half the shell had gone in there, too.
Intrigued, Trent drifted closer to feel the heat rolling off him along with the scent of flour and aftershave and something underneath that was all…
Reece . And suddenly there was a whole other reason why Trent was here.
Not to get back what he thought he needed, but to claim what he actually might.
Reece . So he trailed light fingers up the firm line of Reece’s forearm, tracing over the ink curling and stretching over muscle and skin.
Tattoos he’d lusted after once, hard and fast and thoughtless.
But now, every line felt like a sentence he hadn’t read yet.
He hovered over the face etched into the underside of Reece’s arm, nestled between curling leaves and the snarling lion prowling along the outer edge. “Is this her?”
Reece stilled. Shoulders locked. Chest rising slowly. As if Trent’s touch had stolen the air from him. “Yeah.”
Trent couldn’t stop. Not now.
He pressed a kiss to the top of Reece’s arm, where the ink disappeared beneath the hem of his sleeve. Then another, higher this time. Into cotton-warmed muscle.
Reece didn’t move.
So Trent ghosted his hands back down the curve of Reece’s arms, pressing his lips along his shoulder blade, then to the nape of his neck.
He felt every shiver rolling through Reece’s frame.
Every tremble beneath the surface. And he wanted more.
He kissed the dip of Reece’s spine, then worked his way back across his shoulder, and it was only when he reached the other side, when he hovered his mouth over skin and slipped his hand up the front of Reece’s chest, did Reece move.
Fast.
He spun, grabbed Trent by the back of the head with one firm hand, digging his fingers in, and dragged him to him with a groan that was more surrender than control.
Tongues tangled before their lips met. Tasting.
Chasing. Devouring . A kiss that was messy and breathless, all tension and desperation, as if they’d been holding it back for too long and now it was spilling out faster than either of them could control.
God, Trent hoped this was the breakfast Reece was offering.
This would sort him out.
Reece growled low in his throat, gripping Trent’s hips, walking him back until he hit the table.
Then he lifted him, effortlessly, setting him down atop the flour-dusted surface, dough still rising in the oven, coffee half poured, eggs forgotten.
A wave of light-headedness hit hard. The kiss was distracting, enough to chase the edges of panic back, but the heat beneath his skin felt wrong.
It was too much. Too raw. He could feel himself shaking as Reece dragged hands under his shirt, and he clenched his jaw against it, praying Reece didn’t notice.
Reece stepped between his legs, sliding his palms under the hem of his shirt, rough fingers dragging up hot skin.
It didn’t stop. It spiralled . Deepened.
Dragged them both under like a riptide. Reece kissed him as if he couldn’t breathe without him.
As if trying to climb inside Trent’s skin, erase the space between them completely.
He groaned low in his throat when Trent tugged him in by the collar, hooking his legs around Reece’s hips, locking him there.
And Trent gave in .
Fully.
Let himself feel all of it. Every sharp edge, every soft ache, every unspoken word pressed between their mouths.
Until—
Reece tore himself back, breath catching, dropping his forehead to Trent’s as if he needed the contact to stay grounded. He gripped the table either side of Trent’s thighs, chest heaving, lips flushed and wet, eyes half-lidded and wrecked.
But beneath the hunger, a flicker of unease had Trent in a panic.
“Fuck,” Reece breathed, dragging in air as if he’d forgotten how. He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again and when he spoke, his voice shook at the edges. “How long?”
Trent blinked, half-dazed. “How long what?”
“How long have you been numbing yourself with tramadol?”
The bottom dropped out of Trent’s stomach. “What? I haven’t—”
The lie snagged in his throat the second it hit Reece’s eyes.
That look. That soft, steady, gutting look .
Trent narrowed his eyes in realisation. “So you did take them.”
“Yeah.” Reece didn’t flinch. Didn’t move away. “And if you’re about to tell me you’ve got some chronic condition that lets you still work frontline but somehow needs high-dose opioids in bulk… then sure. You can have them back.”
Silence.
A long one.
Trent looked away. Swallowed. “…Six years.”
The admission barely made it out. But it was real .
And once it hung in the air between them, there was no stuffing it back into the dark.
Reece inhaled. Straightened. Then stepped back. He leant against the opposite counter, bracing one hand on the edge while dragging the other across his mouth. But his gaze never left Trent. And Trent felt those green eyes like a physical thing.
He shivered.
“You wanna tell me why?” Reece cocked his head. “What you’re trying to quiet with it? The job? Or something more?”
Trent twisted his hands in his lap, wringing the nerves out of his skin until he forced them open, flattening his palms on the table to stop them shaking.
“My parents’ death.” He looked up. Met Reece’s gaze head-on. Waiting for the flinch. The pity.
It didn’t come.
Reece waited. Not with judgment. Not even surprise. But patience. Asking without demanding.
“They died in a car accident. Eight years ago. I was nineteen.” Trent felt as though he was reading from a file in his head he didn’t want to open but couldn’t seem to stop flipping through.
He glanced at Reece. He hadn’t said a word. Not because he didn’t care. But because he was listening . Really listening. And somehow that was worse. Somehow… better.
So Trent kept going.
“I was in Thailand at the time. On Ao Nang Beach, with Dev.” He let out a faint, bitter laugh.
“Back then, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted from life.
Knew I didn’t want to be home. Needed to be free.
So we went travelling. Did all the cliché stuff.
Drank too much, danced too long, talked shit until sunrise.
” He paused, swallowing the burn in his throat.
“I was half-cut, sitting on the sand, watching the waves come in under the moonlight. Happiest fucking moment of my life, or so I thought. Then the hospital called me.”
His voice caught.
“I didn’t answer the first time. Let it ring out. Thought it was one of those travel scams.” He shook his head. “But it rang again. And again. Until I finally picked up.”
He looked down at his hands clasped tightly, knuckles white where they gripped the edge of Reece’s kitchen table.
“There’d been a collision on the A127. Drunk driver. My mum died at the scene. My dad… a little later in surgery. I wasn’t even in the fucking country.”
Reece still didn’t speak. But his presence felt closer somehow. Solid. Quiet.