Chapter 8
eight
. . .
Harry grinned and shook his head when he heard the shower turn on down the hall. How he’d ended up with such a fascinating sweetheart in his bed, let alone his life, was a mystery to him.
Not that he and Nikky had done anything in bed.
Harry couldn’t have lived with himself if he’d so much as looked longer at Nikky’s body as he peeled him out of the ridiculous leather trousers than he should have.
He’d slept on the sofa while Nikky’d snored away in the bed, the bedroom door open so that Harry could hear right away if Nikky was in trouble.
The idea of Nikky in trouble that way had seemed farfetched when the two of them had first met.
Harry had a hard time believing they’d met less than a week ago.
It felt like the two of them had been essential to each other’s lives for ages.
Or maybe Harry just saw a lot of himself at the beginning of his career when he looked at what Nikky was going through.
Nikky was too innocent, despite being in the thick of the entertainment world’s brightest spotlight.
He was a sexy baby deer in Hollywood’s headlights.
But maybe there was something deeper and pulsing resting just under the surface of the way Nikky presented himself to the world. Maybe everyone had things wrong and Nikky was just as edgy as he said he wanted to be. He certainly had a sixth sense for being a dream sub.
Harry snorted at the thought and put several rashers of bacon in the pan to fry.
Whatever Nikky was, it wasn’t dark or dangerous.
That wasn’t what he’d seen at the club the night before.
What he’d seen was a beautiful bird let out of his cage, throwing himself at the new experiences in front of him to see how they tasted.
That was sexy as fuck and admirable in so many ways, but it was a far cry from the ambitious, angry, experimental man he’d been when he was that age.
As far as Harry was concerned, Nikky was an angel who had just discovered his wings and wanted to fly, despite the fact that the world he’d been launched into was known for holding people down.
He was in the middle of flipping pieces of bacon and plotting his strategy to stick by Nikky’s side to prevent him from crashing or being taken advantage of when a rapid knock sounded on his door. He would have known that knock anywhere.
Turning down the heat on the hob, he left the bacon and crossed the flat to open the door.
“We heard you have a certain overnight visitor,” Maggie said, her smile bright and her eyes sparkling with mischief.
“We brought scones, just in case,” Laura added, offering a porcelain plate piled with what looked like freshly baked blueberry scones.
Harry let out a breath, shaking his head and smiling.
“Come in,” he said, stepping back and holding the door wide.
He could have tried to tell his neighbors to go away, but they wouldn’t have listened.
It was best to give Maggie and Laura what they wanted.
And besides, it wouldn’t hurt his ego at all for them to see the picture of masculine perfection who had spent the night in his bed.
“We saw the photos online,” Maggie said as she and Laura followed Harry to the small dining table under a window at the side of the main room. “And we heard the two of you come in last night.”
“We didn’t hear anyone leave,” Laura added. She glanced down the hallway, where the shower was still running. “Is that him?” she whispered.
“Yes, that’s him,” Harry said, pretending he was put out by the ladies’ intrusion when he was anything but. “Don’t give him a hard time.”
“We wouldn’t dream of it,” Laura said with pretend offense as she put her plate of scones on the table.
“He seems like a very nice boy,” Maggie said, helping herself to a seat at the table. “Tea?” she asked Harry before going on with. “We loved Cooked, of course. And we’ve seen quite a lot of Nikky Smith, Drew Oberlin, and Joe Paul.”
“We were quite divided on whether Drew’s character should have ended up with Nikky or with Joe,” Laura added.
Harry laughed as he fetched tea from the kitchen.
One of the core conflicts of Cooked had been the love triangle between the three leads.
Drew Oberlin’s character chose Joe Paul’s character in the end, but the chemistry between Drew and Nikky was what had made the show the success it was.
Fans were calling for a season two where Drew changed his mind and got together with Nikky’s musician character instead.
“Nikky is a good guy,” Harry said, returning to the table with two mugs of tea for his guests. “He’s a brilliant musician who is trying to create the career he wants for himself despite what everyone around him is telling him to do.”
“Sounds like someone else we know,” Maggie said, giving Harry a significant look over her mug before taking a sip.
The comment hit Harry in all sorts of ways. It was like Maggie was inside his head. He just hoped she didn’t figure out all the other things he felt about Nikky. He would never hear the end of the teasing or the jokes about cradle-robbing if she did.
Nikky didn’t help him avoid teasing at all when he emerged from the hallway in nothing but the towel wrapped around his waist, his skin pink from the shower and his hair wet.
“Hey, do you have—” That was as far as he got before he spotted the two old ladies sitting at the table, tea mugs in hand, wicked grins appearing on their faces at the sight of him mostly undressed.
“Shit,” Nikky whispered before taking a step back.
He gestured over his shoulder down the hall and said, “I—” but nothing came after that.
“Nikky Smith,” Harry said, making the introductions like they were in some sort of public hall and everyone was fully dressed. “I’d like you to meet my neighbors, Maggie and Laura Cartwright.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you, young man,” Laura said, then giggled as she took a sip of tea.
“Good job, Harry,” Maggie pronounced with a nod, then made a show of looking Nikky up and down. She seemed to note his still red nipples in particular. “Very good job.”
“I should get dressed,” Nikky mumbled before dashing back down the hall and out of sight.
The ladies laughed. Harry knew he shouldn’t, but he laughed with them before saying, “I thought the two of you didn’t like dick.”
“We can appreciate an attractive human form,” Maggie said with pretend offense.
“I don’t mind looking as long as he keeps his dick to himself,” Laura added, then reached for one of her own scones.
Harry snorted with laughter as he brought the rest of the breakfast things to the table. “You two are menaces.”
“We’ve never pretended to be anything but,” Maggie said, taking a piece of bacon and biting into it with relish.
It didn’t take long for Nikky to return, fully dressed and hastily groomed, and to take a seat at the table. By then, Harry had brought everything out from the kitchen, and although he hadn’t planned to entertain three other people for breakfast, with the scones there was enough food for them all.
“I apologize for these two,” he said, leaning closer to Nikky, like the two of them were conspiring about the couple while they enjoyed their breakfast. “They barged in here with housewarming cake when I moved in eight years ago, and they’ve acted like this is their second home ever since then.”
“Yes, but we’re fabulous neighbors,” Laura added, her wrinkled cheeks going pink with pride. “We bake, we host parties, and we know where to acquire the very best cannabis.”
Nikky’s growing smile dropped suddenly. “None for me, thanks,” he said, then stuffed his mouth full of toast.
Interesting. At least Harry didn’t have to worry about keeping Nikky away from drugs.
Someone was sure to offer them soon, if they hadn’t already.
He wouldn’t have put it past Albion to make sure something strong was slipped to Nikky as a way to control him if he put up too much resistance to the plans he had.
Past experience had taught him Albion wasn’t above that shit.
“Oh, so you’re a teetotaler, are you?” Maggie asked, studying Nikky carefully. “That wasn’t what it looked like in the pictures we saw of you from last night.”
Deep red splashed across Nikky’s gorgeous face. “You saw those pictures?” he asked with a look that made him seem every bit the na?ve young man that had Harry’s blood pumping.
“My dear, anyone with access to the internet saw those pictures,” Laura said.
A slight shift came over Nikky, and he sat straighter. “What did you think?” he asked, eyes eager.
Maggie and Laura exchanged a look. “We thought that you appeared to be enjoying yourself immensely,” Laura said.
“Particularly when master Harry here had his tongue down your throat,” Maggie added with a smirk.
Harry rolled his eyes. The use of the word “master” was deliberate, and not in the archaic sense of the head of a household.
“I did have a good time,” Nikky said just as Harry opened his mouth to defend him. “I’d never been to a place like that before.” He paused slightly, then asked, “Did seeing me there change your opinion of me at all?”
Harry leaned back in his chair. He saw what Nikky was doing. He also saw that Nikky would be disappointed.
“It most certainly did,” Maggie said, smiling. “It improved my opinion of you immensely.”
“We didn’t think you had it in you,” Laura said, then winked.
It took everything Harry had not to laugh.
He was inclined to agree with the ladies, and with most of the comments he’d seen under all the posts online.
He could also see from the hint of desperate disappointment taking over Nikky’s face as he tried to be polite with Maggie and Laura that their observations weren’t what he wanted to hear.
“So it didn’t turn you off?” Nikky asked on, shoulders dropping and eyes lowered as he gathered scrambled eggs onto his fork. “It didn’t make you think twice about whether you should be following me?”