Theo smiled, but it was as weak as milky tea.“Sounds expialidocious.”
He turned toward the stairs, but Peter reached for his wrist.
“Look at me.”As soon as Theo did, Peter slipped his compulsion off him, the one that kept him from running away.“No more compulsion on you now, although you did lap up a bit of my blood earlier.Nothing I can do about that.”
“I wanted to do that.”
“So you did.”Peter smiled at him and couldn’t resist the pull of Theo’s lips.The kiss was sweet—butterfly wings and moth wings meeting in twilight.Peter didn’t even care that Theo had ejected the contents of his stomach not that long ago.“Am I ordering pizza for you?”
Theo nodded.“Yup.Can I move in here?”
“Yup.”
Theo nodded.“Cool.I’ll go shower.”
“Cool.”
Theo walked away while Peter stood there, admiring him.Not the way he looked or walked, but the way he moved forward, unbroken.
24
Theo
Ten days later.
Theodidnotfeelsure about this at all.
“Isn’t it weird to take you to dinner?”he asked Peter.
Peter, dressed in slacks and a short-sleeved shirt that showed off those nice arm muscles, reached for Theo’s hand and walked ahead of him toward the door of the suburban-looking house.“Of course it’s weird, Theodore.That’s what makes it fun.”
Before he could so much as voice another complaint, Peter was ringing the doorbell.About two second later, a blond guy with curly hair and a T-shirt that said “This librarian is taken” opened the door.The shirt showed the cover and spine of a large book with a person barely visible behind it.Theo liked it.
“You must be Theo!”said the guy Theo guessed was Corvin, Mike’s soon-to-be husband.Corvin went in for a hug, the over-enthusiastic kind.
“Yeah, hi.”
Corvin pulled back and stood aside to let them in.
“Hi, Peter.Come on in.”
“Corvin, so good to see you,” Peter said as they all filed into the house.“I hear you are busy deciding on a cake.”
Corvin waved that off.“Dark cherries and chocolate.Mike said everyone would love that.”
“Did he?”Peter pulled Theo against his side.
“Peter, Theo,” said Mike, leaning out from an open door on the right, “don’t just stand there.Come inside.”
Mike appeared decidedly less like a lawyer during his time off.Where Peter seemed incapable of getting rid of his button-up shirts and nice pants, Mike had donned jeans and a T-shirt.Nothing as flashy as Corvin’s though.
Corvin pulled Theo aside while Peter followed Mike through to the living room.
“So how did you meet Peter the Terrible?”Corvin asked, his voice low and his head close to Theo’s ear.He pulled Theo into the kitchen.Food was laid out on the counter, but Corvin ignored that and went for a bottle of wine.
“Oh, well, you know,” Theo said.
Corvin waited for a heartbeat, then poured Theo a glass of wine and handed it over.“To lawyers,” he said, holding up his glass for a toast.
