Love you.
Zane smiled, getting ready to tell Felix he loved him too, when he realized it wasn’t from Felix but Asa. He blinked rapidly, his brain trying to process the words.Love you.Love you? It wasn’t that Asa never said it, he did. Just rarely unprompted and usually only when he was balls deep inside him, breathing the words against bruised and battered skin. It was just how things worked with them.
Have you been kidnapped? Is this a cry for help?
Zane shot back, knowing he shouldn’t tease his husband, but unable to resist, even as heat bloomed in his chest and over his cheeks. Once more his message went unanswered. What the fuck was going on?
Zane startled, choking on a gasp, as gentle fingertips grazed the back of his neck. He jerked around to see Asa standing there, an amused smirk on his face. Zane slapped at him, his heart rate beating out an erratic rhythm behind his ribs. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Asa grabbed Zane’s hand, tugging him to his feet, pulling his earbuds from his ears and leaving them on the table beside his phone. “Aw, I’m sorry, Lois,” he murmured, mouth ghostingover his in a there and gone tease of a kiss. “I didn’t mean to scare you, baby.”
Zane’s quieting pulse took flight once more at Asa’s softness, that splinter of weirdness burrowing deeper. “What’s going on? You’re freaking me out.”
Asa wound his arms around Zane, his hands sliding down to squeeze his ass through his sweatpants. “Why?” he asked, nuzzling gently just behind his ear in a way that made his dick take notice.
Zane waited for the teeth that usually followed, but all he got was a soft kiss and a groan as Asa inhaled him like he was his favorite drug.
Zane shivered, unease simmering low in his belly. “I’m serious. What’s wrong with you?”
Asa pulled back and frowned down at Zane, hands still on his ass. “Can I not come home early to kiss my husband?”
Zane poked him hard in the chest, narrowing his eyes. “There, that. What is that? Why are you being like this? Did I do something? Are you mad at me? Did someone write another article about me being abused again because nobody believes that.”
Asa pressed their foreheads together as he huffed out a laugh against Zane’s cheek. “Shit, maybe they’re right if me giving you this level of affection is triggering you this much. Am I too mean to you, Lois?”
Zane scoffed even as his stomach plummeted. “What? No. Why would you even say that?”
Zane didn’t like this, he couldn’t handle the level of panic creeping in on him. Was this why Avi and Felix were staying away? Had something happened? Had they had some kind of meeting about Zane behind his back? Had Zane done something to make Asa think that he was unhappy with how things were?Was this some kind of fucked up intervention? “What did I do?” he asked, unable to hide his misery as he mentally spiraled.
Asa frowned, for once looking genuinely concerned, letting his knuckles caress Zane’s cheek. “Christ, Lois. Do you not own a calendar?”
Zane’s head swam at the sudden change in topic, gaze dropping to the smart watch on his wrist. “It’s Wednesday? So?” he said, irritated at his question going unanswered.
Asa groaned, knocking his forehead against his once more gently. “It’s your birthday, Lois?”
Zane’s stomach curdled, unable to stop his lip from curling as his gaze landed on the date on his watch, not just the day of the week. “Oh, yeah. That. You promised you wouldn’t bring that up.”
Asa gave a humorless laugh. “No, you demanded that we don’t bring it up. None of us agreed to that. Just you.”
Zane didn’t want to talk about this. The topic made him feel queasy, like there were eels swimming in his belly. “My birthday doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another day.”
Asa gave him an infuriatingly patient look. “It means something to me. It means something to Felix and Avi and the rest of our family.”
Zane shook his head, stomach churning. “If you tell me you’ve planned some kind of surprise party, I swear to god I’m going to puke all over your three thousand dollar loafers.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Asa promised, pressing a kiss to Zane’s forehead. “It’s just you and me. That’s all. I just wanted to be with my husband on his birthday. Christ, Lois. Can’t a guy just be romantic?”
All the tension left his body so quickly he felt dizzy from it. “Oh, thank God.” Still, he frowned. “So whatareyou planning?”
Asa chuckled at the suspicion in Zane’s voice. “You have trust issues, baby.”
“It happens when you marry the guy who kidnapped you and chained you to a radiator,” Zane said, tone sulky.
Usually that would be met with a ‘You love when I tie you up, Lois’. But not this time.
“Oh, my poor Lois,” Asa crooned, swaying them like they were slow dancing as he whispered in his ear. “So abused. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.”
“Fuck you,” Zane muttered, even as his hands shot out to cling to Asa’s cashmere sweater, petting his hands over the softness before gripping it in his hands.
