He unlocked the door and pushed it open, then followed Elio inside. “I have groceries coming because I know you won’t have any,” he said with a displeased grunt at the sitting room. “It’s not as bad as I was expecting but I was hoping you’d discover hampers as you unraveled the mysteries of the universe.”
“Why would I bother with learning about laundry? Plenty of people have already mastered that.” Elio headed for the board in the sitting room to scribble down a thought he had on their P versus NP research, tossing his skateboard on the sofa. It was protected by crumpled reports and Elio’s laundry but Matteo clicked his teeth as he hurried to save the upholstery.
“Have you run out of clean clothes yet?” Matteo asked when he reappeared a few minutes later with a basket, stuffing jeans and T-shirts into it as he made his way through the sitting room.
Elio smirked at the board. “Not yet. I figure I have another week left.”
“I’ll send all of this out to be cleaned since you won’t but Muriel will murder you and hide your body somewhere in this building if she comes home and sees the place like this.”
“I’m certain Leo would warn me if she was imminent, to avoid that very thing.”
“You’re probably right, but look!” Matteo dropped the laundry basket and waved at the room. All the clothes were gone and the tennis balls had been gathered in a smaller basket on the sideboard. “How long did that take?”
“Very impressive,” Elio murmured as he turned back to the board. “Not as impressive as solving P versus NP or worth a million dollars,” he said while mentally plotting a Euler diagram of the problem.
“Was auch immer,” Matteo said with a dismissive wave, then reclined in one of the armchairs. “How bad are things with Milo?”
“Bad?” Elio pretended he didn’t know what Matteo was referring to, hoping he’d take a hint.
“Can we smooth this over with an apology to Giles and Claire or will we be shunned at family gatherings?”
Elio cringed at the board. “I don’t think we’re in the realm of apologies yet. I may have avoided a wider disaster, but Milomight be upset with me,” he worried and Matteo straightened, his expression severe.
“Did you lead him on?”
“No!” Elio shook his head and held up a hand, willing Matteo to relax. “We both got a little carried away last night—accidentally. I didn’t mean for it to happen and Milo deserves much better. I explained all of that to him and we should be fine now. Right?”
“Fine?” Matteo made a sympathetic sound. “Poor Milo.”
Elio looked towards 8B. “Poor Milo? I just stopped him from wasting his first kiss on a selfish shite.”
“That’s not how he’s going to see it,” Matteo predicted and clicked his teeth again. “Maybe you both nerded a little too close to the sun and got drunk on physics fumes, but that’s no excuse, Eli. You’re older and you have to know how naive Milo is.”
“I do!” Elio shot back, but his conscience twinged because while he had taken care not to overstimulate or overwhelm, he hadn’t asked if Milo had ever been kissed.
“It’s not like you to get carried away. Not with sex,” Matteo said carefully. “You’re too smart and too busy for that, remember?”
“That’s the problem,” Elio confessed, turning back to Matteo and throwing his hands up in defeat. “I am too smart and I’m too busy until I think of Milo and I think of him too much as it is. I worry about if he’s happy and if he’s being treated the way he deserves, and when he’s in the room, his eyes and his thoughts distract me. I can’t have that!”
“Mein Gott! YouDummkopf!” Matteo clapped a hand over his mouth, holding back a watery laugh. “Eli’s finally fallen in love! Ican’t waitto tell Theo.”
“No! Nein!” Elio pointed at his brother, shaking his head. “You tell him nothing! And you’re wrong, I am not in love. Milois exactly the man I would love, if I could,but I can’t. I’m too busy and I don’t knowhowto love.”
Matteo pulled a face. “It’s not something you can really learn, is it? You can’t make yourself fall in love and you can’t predict who you’ll connect with. It just happens and you have to go with it. Unless you’re already in love with someone else. Don’t be a philanderer.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Elio crossed his arms over his chest. “I can’t imagine making one man happy. Why bring others into the equation? And why do I have to ‘go with it’?”
Matteo hummed in agreement. “In my experience, it’s more uncomfortable if you fight it and it’s a waste of time when you could be doing much more enjoyable things.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Elio said while he imagined giving Milo unlimited head.
“Oh, you do!” Matteo whispered and rubbed his hands together. “You’re going down!”
I already did and that’s my problem.
“Ruhe!” Elio ordered, clutching his forehead. “I don’t need Milo for that, I need his brain. We have important work to do.”
This time, Matteo didn’t hold back his temper. “You really are a fool, then. He’s a hell of a lot more than his brain! If you can’t see Milo as a complete person, you’re just using him. If that’s the case, take your arse back to Cambridge and forget about Milo and whatever this is.” Matteo tossed his hand at the board, shaking his head in disappointment.
