Chapter 23
Samuel
The rest of the morning unfolded in a strange, elastic time.
Minutes stretched into hours, heavy and slow, while the hours themselves seemed to slip by in a blur, one indistinguishable from the next.
Samuel moved through it in a state of suspended animation, his mind circling the morning’s events like a wary animal around a fire it had been burned by.
He’d taken to calling it the incident in the privacy of his thoughts. To name it anything else, to think the words I came in my pants because he kissed me against a wall, was to invite a level of humiliation that threatened to short-circuit his brain entirely.
After cleaning up in the bathroom, he’d finally retrieved his duffel from the entrance hall. He changed his underwear, bundling the soiled pair into a plastic bag at the bottom of his bag, a secret buried evidence of his own loss of control.
Then he ventured back into the kitchen. Gael was seated on a stool at the polished stone island, a broadsheet newspaper open before him.
A heavy white mug of coffee steamed at his elbow.
He was dressed now in soft, dark trousers and a thin charcoal sweater.
The terrifying, bare-skinned deity was gone, replaced by this composed, unreadable man.
On the island, precisely placed before the empty stool beside Gael, was a white plate. On it, fluffy yellow scrambled eggs, two pieces of perfectly golden toast, and a small porcelain pot of deep red jam. A tall glass of orange juice, beaded with condensation, stood beside it.
Samuel hovered in the doorway. The space beside Gael felt charged, like stepping into a quiet electrical storm. After a few heartbeats of paralyzing indecision, he crossed the room and slid onto the stool, the leather cool through his jeans.
He stared at the food. It looked perfect. He had no appetite. A knot of anxiety and residual sensation sat like a stone in his stomach.
Should he just… eat? Was there a protocol? A blessing to be said?
He glanced at Gael, but the man’s attention was absorbed by the financial section, his expression one of mild interest. He gave no sign of noticing Samuel’s internal crisis.
“Eat.”
For what felt like the hundredth time, Samuel wondered, with a touch of genuine suspicion, if the man was omniscient.
Did he have eyes in the back of his head?
Could he sense hesitation through some preternatural radar?
It was unnerving. It made the space around Gael feel like a panopticon, a place where every flutter of an eyelash was observed, cataloged, and understood.
Mechanically, Samuel picked up his fork. The eggs were light, seasoned with just a hint of pepper and fresh herbs. The toast was crisp, the butter melting into its golden pores. The food was good.
When the plate was clean and the juice glass empty, he set his utensils down with a soft clink. Then he sat. And waited.
The awkwardness descended, thick and suffocating.
What was he supposed to do now? Clear his plate? Offer to wash up? Was he allowed to speak?
He felt like a guest who had wildly overstayed his welcome, a spectator who had accidentally walked onto the stage.
He should say something. Anything. A ‘thank you for breakfast’ seemed grotesquely inadequate. A comment on the article Gael was reading felt presumptuous. His mind scrabbled for purchase, and in its frantic search, it landed on a stark, unsettling truth.
He knew nothing about this man.
Oh, he knew the public facts. Gael Wise, partner at Voss that the heat in his cheeks would ignite, that the frantic energy coiled in his muscles would erupt and send him shattering into a thousand brittle pieces right there on the sofa.
Just as the scream was building behind his teeth, a silent, pressurized thing, Gael spoke.
“Last night,” he began, his voice not loud, but so clear it seemed to carve its own space in the dense air. “You revealed some things I had not known.”