Chapter 6 #2
“Love,” Leo told him softly, and his heart skipped a beat.
There was no doubt that the others had caught his slip, that Joshua had caught it.
Leo needed to get a fucking grip. He needed to continue.
“You’ve had enough. Let’s call it a day.
Eat some ice cream and veg out in front of the telly? Fresh start tomorrow.”
“Please?” Joshua cleared his throat. When he raised his head, there was a wet sheen to his eyes, and Leo wanted to kiss it better.
“I’ll get the ice cream,” Tristan announced, sliding off the sofa.
“Bring the vodka too,” Mo told him, and Tristan gave a thumbs-up.
Joshua’s smile was wobbly, but it was there. Past the point of rational thinking, Leo skimmed his fingertips along the line of Joshua’s jaw, quick and light, while Joshua held perfectly still for him. His gaze was fixed on Leo.
What are you doing?
Leo dropped his hand. He shuffled further away, up against Nate’s side, and when he finally looked around, it was to find both Nate and Mo watching him curiously.
How much had they seen? Had it all been plain to read on his face, right there, exposed?
Had Joshua picked up on it? Leo didn’t dare glance at him.
He took a deep breath. “Let’s watch Game of Thrones,” he said loudly, his own voice jarring in his ears.
“Is that the one with the incest?” Mo asked.
“It’s the one with the boobs,” Tristan called from the kitchen.
“There’s male bums too,” Nate supplied helpfully, and Mo’s gaze snatched to him with open interest.
“You into that?”
Seriously? It seemed Joshua and Tristan hadn’t been kidding when they’d called Nate too subtle for Mo.
Leo glanced at Joshua just as Joshua glanced at him, and they shared a tiny smile.
Since Nate seemed at a bit of a loss, Leo answered for him—because Leo was an awesome friend, thank you very much.
Also because it helped distract him from the carbonated liquid bubbling in his stomach.
“It’s safe to say that in this flat, Tristan is the only person with an exclusive interest in boobs.”
Returning with a bottle of vodka in one arm, and five spoons and ice cream in the other, Tristan set everything but the ice cream down on the coffee table, then plopped himself down on Joshua’s lap. “It’s a tough job,” he confided. “But someone’s got to do it. And I’m up for the challenge.”
Joshua wrapped an arm around Tristan’s waist. “Up for it,” he said, heavy emphasis and a quiet giggle tagged onto the end. Jesus. He was positively ridiculous and Leo was so charmed, so very out of his depth.
“That’s a sad attempt at a pun,” he told Joshua. “If that is the best you can do, I weep for this grand old nation.”
Joshua’s smile showed a lot of teeth. “No one here to judge me.”
“I’m judging,” Leo said.
“No.” Slowly, sweetly, Joshua shook his head. His smile softened, and Leo wanted to touch him again—always, always. “You’re not, really. Not anymore. Thank you.”
There was no good response; nothing Leo could say that wouldn’t betray the unease sizzling in his veins.
He was still all wrapped up in Joshua’s space, and for the sake of his own sanity, he should move back.
He didn’t want to, though. Wrestling his gaze away from Joshua, he found the other three watching him with varying degrees of curiosity, waiting for his reply. Leo drew a blank.
Nate narrowed his eyes at him. Leo widened his own eyes in response.
Sooner rather than later, he would need to talk to Nate. He didn’t owe him an explanation, didn’t owe anyone anything, but… he wanted to. He needed at least one person to understand.
“Ice cream?” he asked, breaking the strange silence that had cloaked the room.
On the edge of his vision, he noticed how Joshua’s smile dropped, and—yeah.
Calling for ice cream was an inadequate response to Joshua’s honest expression of gratitude, could suggest that Leo was uncomfortable with it, uncomfortable with Joshua trusting him, relying on him, considering him a friend.
Could they be friends? Would Leo ever be satisfied with having Joshua as a friend, just a friend, when he was struggling to quench emotions from the past?
What if this had nothing to do with the past?
Leo tried to crush the thought as soon as it had occurred.
“Ice cream,” Tristan confirmed loudly. “And someone please find a semi-legal streaming website so we can watch some boobs.”
“Semi-legal?” Joshua sat up a little straighter and released an audible breath.
His arm was still wrapped around Tristan’s waist, their physical proximity easy and casual, as it always was with them.
It drove home the point that all those times Joshua had sought out Leo’s touch, it really didn’t mean anything.
Which was good. Much safer for everyone involved.
Leo looked away, just in time to catch the probing glance Nate sent his way—yet another time Nate had caught him out. Jesus, Leo really wasn’t subtle when it came to Joshua, was he? He needed to try harder.
Nate scrambled off the sofa to collect his laptop. “Don’t worry, I’m on it.”
“Make sure we don’t have police knocking down His Royal Highness’ door, will you?” Leo asked. Nate’s response consisted of a flat look.
Tristan popped open the carton of ice cream, and Leo wasn’t surprised that it was the homemade kind, not the industrial stuff that could be bought in stores.
He wondered if Joshua himself had made it, wouldn’t be entirely surprised to find him mixing swirls of liquid chocolate into the creamy substance, concentration written into the crease between his brows.
Leo needed to stop. And he needed to put some distance between himself and Joshua. Now.
He didn’t move an inch.
“Who wants the first taste?” Tristan asked.
Before anyone had a chance to reply, he quickly added, “Me, obviously,” and dug his spoon into the mass.
In retaliation, Joshua shoved him off his lap and Tristan tumbled to the floor, bumping into the coffee table with the carton clutched protectively to his chest.
“Serves you right,” Mo told him.
“Just for that comment,” Tristan said, “you won’t get any. Joshua won’t get any either.”
“But I made that,” Joshua protested.
Tristan righted himself, tipping up his face with a broad smirk. “So?”
Over Tristan’s head, Leo met Nate’s eyes. Leo raised his eyebrows, and Nate grinned and nodded, then crawled across the floor to dig his fingers into Tristan’s side, making him jolt. Leo used the distraction to pluck the carton from Tristan’s hands.
Grabbing a spoon off the coffee table, Leo ignored Tristan shouting insults in between trying to squirm away from Nate’s tickle attack. Leo held both items out to Joshua and received a slow, surprised smile in return. “Thank you,” Joshua said, and this time Leo was ready with a reply.
“Anything for you, Princeling.”
Joshua’s smile widened. Their fingers brushed over the carton, Leo’s cold from the ice cream and Joshua’s warm and dry, a gentle touch to the back of Leo’s hand as he accepted the spoon.
Leo held his breath and counted to three before he smiled back.
They’d intended to watch three episodes, give Joshua and Mo a taste.
Halfway through the first episode, Joshua had sat up a little straighter at a conversation between the Dwarf and the Bastard, glancing at Leo.
It had taken Leo a moment to understand that it had been in reaction to the Dwarf’s words—wear it like armour, and it can never be used to hurt you.
Leo sent Joshua a private smile and lifted one brow.
At the end of the third episode, Joshua had turned to Leo with wide eyes, voice soft with apprehension. “But what happens to the little boy? He can’t just—they can’t just leave him like that, wishing he was dead. Can they?”
“It’s Game of Thrones, love. You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Leo shook his head and slotted his fingers into the gaps between Joshua’s, retracting his hand after a quick squeeze.
So they’d watched another episode. And then another.
By the time the King had died and his son was delightedly preparing his own coronation, Mo had sagged into Nate’s side, his head on Nate’s shoulder, only just awake enough to make a displeased noise each time Joffrey made an appearance.
Nate was sitting very still, his gaze fixed on Joshua’s enormous flat-screen TV, as though any movement could endanger the fragile state of things.
Leo knew the feeling. Lack of room on the sofa had pushed him all up into Joshua’s space with their shoulders pressed together, arms bumping each time one of them moved.
Light from the screen flickered over Joshua’s face and tangled in his hair, and Leo wanted to chase each spark with his hands and his mouth.
Everything felt like a giant cliché, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to move away.
Fuck, when had he agreed to star in a romantic comedy? He wanted out.
He really didn’t want out.
But he should.
When the end credits for the seventh episode filled the screen, Joshua gave a little sigh and raised his arms above his head, stretching.
The motion exposed a slice of his stomach, black letters inked into pale skin, and Leo was too tired not to stare just a beat longer than he should. Time to go home, probably.
“Hey, you guys want to crash here?” Joshua’s words dripped like slow-motion rain. “Like, you’d all be back here tomorrow anyway, so it just makes sense, right?”
Stay here. Leo shouldn’t, he really, really shouldn’t; things were already so muddled and the time away would do him some good. Not that he’d be sleeping in Joshua’s room, in Joshua’s bed, but it was still too damn close.
Mo lifted his head by about an inch. “If I’m sharing with you and Tri, you take the middle. He kicks in his sleep. Don’t know how Kels puts up with it.”
“She loves me,” Tristan said. “You should try it sometime.”
“Try what?” Mo asked, his head dropping back down to rest on Nate’s shoulder. “Loving you? Sorry, bro. You’re like a hundred percent too much twink for me.”