“Damn.” Mav turns to Rami. “You okay, cuz?”
Rami shrugs. “More or less, I think?” he answers, then thins his lips and glares at his fathers. “Still curious about how you let yourselves in,” he points out, accepting the mug of coffee from me.
Anders, possibly for the first time in his life, looks abashed. “I…may have made a copy when y’all moved in.”
Rami takes a sip from his mug, then looks at me, his brows meeting in the middle. “This is perfect. How did you know?”
“You’ve mentioned your ridiculous coffee order a time or two in the chair. I guessed cream and sugar with a splash of coffee should do it.”
He takes another sip, his eyes never leaving mine. We stare at each other until someone clears their throat.
Refocusing on his father, Rami holds out his hand to his dad. “Give it.”
“What if you lose your key?”
“That doesn’t matter, Dad. All of us have keys, including Silas.”
“Wait, Silas gets a key, but I don’t?” Anders complains.
“Because Silas would never defile Baba within earshot of my cousins,” Rami says through gritted teeth.
“To be fair, you were also in earshot,” Honoré interjects, “Though you two were a lot quieter.”
Anders’s smug look is…not right.
Meanwhile, Rami is still holding out his hand. “Give it, Dad.”
Grumbling, Anders goes back to the rooms and returns with his wallet, cursing under his breath as he fishes out the key card. “Here. You ungrateful offspring.”
Rami kisses his dad on the cheek. “I love you too. And as you can see, I am perfectly safe. No boogey men hiding in the shadows. The Wildlings take care of our own.”
I slide my arm around his waist. “And me. I take care of you too.” I lower my voice. “Even if you are better with a gun.”
Rami flushes, then nuzzles my temple.
Maya makes a vomit gesture. “Ugh. Allosexuals are so gross.”
That cracks everyone up, and Holmes rejoins us. “Another pancake up!”
Anders hips his husband out of the way and grabs the plate from Holmes’ outstretched hand.
Omar shakes his head. “That man.”
The elevator dings again, and a heavily tattooed man—this is definitely Silas—accompanied by the most gorgeous Cane Corso I’ve ever seen, walks into the foyer, holding up his phone. “Holmes says there’s pancakes?”
Breakfast is a funny, raucous affair, especially with the two sets of twins. Maya and Rami have complementary intelligences, and their conversations weave in and out of social media gossip and Maya’s unrelenting schedule at the hospital.
Maverick and Holmes, on the other hand, are complete opposites who seem almost psychically connected. Which is hilarious because if I thought Rami was a social media prince, Mav has him beat in thefamous for being famouscategory by a mile, while Holmes is proud of the fact that he has never once logged on to social media.
Also, nobody seems to pick up on the fact that Silas, clearly some flavor of sociopath, is distinctly unhappy when Oakley regales the group about his unintentionally hilarious one-night stand. It seems to be the jealous unhappiness of a one-sided crush, and I feel a little bad for him.
Though…do sociopaths get crushes?
It is a spectrum, I suppose.
Cupcake, his Cane Corso, is wearing a harness with the wordsService Animalsubtly embroidered on it, which is also unexpected.
Honoré jokes that both of his fathers—one an ex-basketball god from the Spurs, and the other a popular yogi here in Austin—can palm the floor while Honoré can barely reach his ankles.
