“You’re serious?”
“It’s because of me, isn’t it.” Sila stepped up to the kitchen table and leaned on the back of one of the chairs. “That’s ahead of schedule.”
“You predicted this would happen?”
“Hoped for, is more accurate,” Sila told him. “It was obvious you hadn’t picked up on the slight changes over the course of the summer, but I noticed them. We were easing you into this the whole time, Professor. Only, I assumed you’d need more time. I certainly never imagined you’d return to the living after a single rough fucking.”
“That wasn’t sex,” he snapped. “It was—”
Sila waved him off before he could finish, clearly bored. “Does it matter what it was? No matter what label you give it, it worked. So, tell me, how do you feel? Is it everything you hoped for and remembered?”
Bay considered the question, since there was no other choice but to answer it. Knowing Sila, the younger man wouldn’t just drop the subject simply because it made Bay uncomfortable, the exact opposite in fact. The problem was, he wasn’t entirely sure how or if he could give a satisfactory answer, because he hadn’t yet figured it out himself.
“I feel,” he began, leaving it at that for so long that Sila’s eyes eventually narrowed in warning. “That’s it,” he sighed. “I feel. Before, I could barely do that at all, but I woke up this morning achy and frustrated. And when I found what you’d done to my collection in—” he slapped a hand over his mouth but it was too late.
Sila grinned at him. “Is that what you call it? That ridiculous shrine of us hidden in your coat closet? How childish. I wouldn’t have guessed that of you, Professor. But see, this why I like you. You’re forever finding new ways to amuse and surprise me.”
He hadn’t done it for Sila’s sake, but laughter was definitely better than the alternative.
“Most people would be freaked out and disgusted if they found their teacher hoarded photos of them,” Bay pointed out.
Sila lifted a single shoulder in an absent half shrug. “I’m not like most people.”
Or anyone. Sila Varun was original.
The universe should rejoice for that, because Bay didn’t think it could handle having more than one of him out there on the loose.
“Why did you tear some of them down?” Bay found the courage to ask just as the soup began to boil and Sila turned to take care of it.
“You don’t need the ones of my brother,” he gave him another dark look over his shoulder, “Isn’t that right?”
“Right,” he agreed wholeheartedly. Rin couldn’t give him what he craved, not like Sila could. It’d been his mistake that he couldn’t tell them apart before, but he’d do better from here on out. He didn’t even think he’d have to try all that hard at it, in fact. When he’d been watching the twins in the East Quad the other week, their differences had been blindingly obvious, he’d actually been surprised by it.
The air around them was different for one. Rin gave off this electricity, waves of snapping energy. He demanded attention. Sila, however, gave off a calm balm edged in darkness. There was the false sense of softness tinged with the promise of pain. Like the sharp thorns on one of the bay roses Sila had left him before he’d revealed his identity.
“You shouldn’t look at me like that, Kitten.” Sila had placed a bowl of soup in front of the chair closest to where Bay still stood pressed against the small table. His spine had straightened and his head was tipped slightly downward, his eyes steady and unblinking.
Bay licked his lips. “Like what?”
“Like you want me to eat you up.” His expression was enigmatic and his words were spoken plainly, making it impossible to tell what he was feeling. “Like you’re already playing out in your mind how the rest of this evening goes.”
“How does it go?”
The corner of Sila’s mouth tipped up and just like that the spell was broken. He held a hand out to the empty chair. “Eat your soup and let’s find out, shall we?”
“What if I—”
“Eat,” Sila commanded.
Almost without thinking, Bay dropped down into the chair and reached for the spoon. The flavor was rich with a hint of sweetness and umami that had him sighing and instantly relaxing into his seat. The water concoction Sila had given him yesterday had done wonders, but his throat was still sore, and the soup helped ease the discomfort.
“I’ve asked my contact to start looking into things with your grandmother,” Sila announced a few minutes later after he’d taken the chair across from him.
Bay paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth again. “Already?”
“I keep my promises.”
“Thank you.”
