“Mr. Axel,” Patricia says lightly, and Axel snorts.
“I-I didn’t hear,” I say, stricken.
“No,” Axel says. “At least someone here was sleeping like a baby.” He leans toward Luca. “Your unc-unc was sleeping like a baby. What do you think of that?”
He makes a funny expression, and Luca smiles.Unc-unc.
Last night definitely happened.
Axel flicks his gaze at me. “I think Enzo needs some coffee, Patricia.”
“I-I can make it,” I tell her, rising.
Patricia waves me away. “You sit down, Mr. Enzo.”
“Finish your smoothie, then you can take a shower,” Axel says.
“O-okay.”
Axel leans close to Luca, making exaggerated faces, his voice going high and silly. Luca giggles, a real laugh, bright and unguarded. Luca loves his father. Of course he loves his father.
I sip my smoothie and watch Axel make Luca laugh. Sunlight catches his hair. His hand—the same hand that touched me last night—rests casually on the table. He’s acting like nothing happened. Maybe for him, nothing did.
Axel
Enzo goes to take a shower, and some tension in my shoulders eases.
Last night I touched him. Last night I felt him pulsing in my hand. Last night I heard the way he moaned, heard the way his breath quickened, felt the way he wrapped himself around my body as he slept.
His eyes are brighter than I’ve seen them since he arrived in Boston, the dark circles finally fading, and I smile. He had a sleep issue, and I had a solution.
I go into the bedroom. Enzo is brushing his teeth in the ensuite, a towel slung over his lower half. Water drips down his chest. Last night I was touching him.
Not that I saw that much—darkness is darkness after all—but I know what he feels like. Warm, hard, and thinner than me. His muscles are tight, and we’re in the part of the season where he’s at his leanest.
“Sorry, dude. Gotta shower.” I tear off my shirt, then toss it into the hamper.
“I’ll, uh—” He freezes, toothbrush in hand, and his gaze bounces over my chest before he tears his gaze away, red spreading over his chest and face.
“Relax, you’re going to see me naked soon enough.”
“Axel?” His gaze drifts behind me to the bed, and I smirk.
“The locker room,” I remind him.
I pull off my sweatpants and toss them into the hamper, then I step into the shower. The water is hot, and I close my eyes and try not to think about the way Enzo looked at me just now.
I’d thought after we met that Enzo might be attracted to me, but when he started to date Sofia freshman year, I’d assumed I’d been wrong. Then after they’d broken up, and he never dated a woman again, I wondered if I’d been right in the first place. By then we weren’t sharing a room anymore, the dorms big enough not to require it, and I saw him with a variety of slender-looking men who gazed at him with adoration. None of them looked like me. Am I the opposite of what he’s into?
I take a quick shower, get ready, then Enzo and I say goodbye to Patricia and Luca. I drive Enzo to the Blizzards’ arena.
The car is quiet except for the hum of the engine and the sporadic soft click of the turn signal, so I put on his favorite music.
He smiles and leans against the door, peering at the tall red-brick Boston buildings. “I forgot how much I like this city.”
“I’m sorry I was sort of unwelcoming,” I say.
He snorts. “Sort of unwelcoming?”
