“You can stay here,” Snod insisted, scowling.
“Ugh, and listen to you and your boyfriend have freaky vampire sex all night?” Athaliah teased, his
eyes sparkling slyly. “Nope! I’m good!”
Snod’s face darkened, embarrassed down to his bones, saying flatly, “You heard that.”
“Obie,” Athaliah sighed, shaking his head and affectionately patting Snod’s cheek, “the whole
building heard you.”
Snod grimaced.
“It’s not a big deal,” he giggled. “I’m really happy for you, seriously. And yeah, I might crash here for
a few days, but I need my own place. You and Frankie got your thing going on, and fuck, I just... I need
something that’s mine, you know?”
Snod wanted to protest, a gaggle of familiar arguments coming to mind, but none of them applied now.
He couldn’t tell Athaliah to stay for the good of the Order because they were no longer members. He
couldn’t tell him that his place was here because he deserved to be happy on his own.
He could only nod, grumbling, “You’ll need a job. Whatever you stole from the Order won’t last
forever.”
“Well, where do you work?”
“The bar where we found each other,” Snod replied. “I work there as a bouncer.”
“I could come work with you!” Athaliah exclaimed, bouncing off the mattress and up on his feet. “I
could be a waiter or something!”
“We’ll see,” Snod said, wondering how far Rees’ kindness could be pushed, following his brother out
to the kitchen.
Frankie was blinking around getting breakfast started, smiling when Snod stood behind him and
wrapped his arms around his waist.
Happiness, pure and warm.
Snod watched Frankie cook, adding a pinch of salt here and there, smirking as they remained tangled
together even while scrambling the eggs.
Lorenzo began to wake up, drawn by the smell of food and mumbling, “Anybody get the number of
that bus that hit me? Holy crap.”
“Told you to drink water!” Athaliah chirped happily, bringing Lorenzo a cup of coffee and kissing his
cheek.
