Nope. Not an illusion. Prince Charming was made of flesh and blood, not hopes and dreams.
Absently, Jayne wondered if small woodland creatures would scurry out of the kitchen cabinets and help him with the cooking. It seemed about as realistic as a man like that bringing him home, taking care of him with no strings attached, and then making him breakfast. And not just some half-assed buttered toast with coffee—the pan on the stove began to sizzle, and a familiar aroma filled the air.
Bacon.
The fucker was making Jayne bacon.
Jayne squinted at him again to double-check that he was real. Something was off. Why on Earth would anybody—studly, golden-hearted Prince Charming or not—think it was a good idea to cook bacon while nearly naked?
“Motherfucker!” Prince Charming danced back from the pan, brushing frantically at his chest.
That was better. More realistic. Jayne stopped squinting, assured that the dark-haired hunk was, in fact, human.
“Are you cooking bacon naked again?” someone who wasn’t Prince Charming asked from elsewhere in the apartment.
“… No,” Prince Charming said. What he meant was, “yes,” but with the possibility of princely bacon in his future, Jayne wasn’t going to correct him.
“I bought you an apron.”
“Clothing is for the weak.”
“Then stop swearing at our breakfast.”
Jayne snorted. The noise alerted Prince Charming to his presence. Eyes narrowed, he looked over his shoulder, but the moment he saw it was Jayne, his expression loosened. He left the pan where it was on the burner and turned away to face Jayne in full.
His Highness was every bit as gorgeous as Jayne had predicted. At least, Jayne assumed so from the brief look he’d sneaked. Right now, he was too busy noticing the A+ job Prince Charming’s underwear did at framing him both from the front and behind.
Fuck, that bulge.
Bulges like that were illegal in some states.
Concealed carry didn’t even come close.
“Good morning,” Prince Charming said. Jayne jerked his eyes up and did his best not to let his gaze wander below Prince Charming’s shoulders. It was an exceptionally challenging task. “We didn’t think you’d be up so early.”
“It’s ten,” Jayne said blankly.
“Which is early.” Prince Charming held a pair of tongs in one hand. He waved them to make a point. “I’ve barely even got the bacon started.”
There wasn’t much point in arguing. It seemed that Prince Charming operated in an entirely different time zone.
“You, uh, you must be confused,” Prince Charming continued, setting the tongs aside. “I get it. Last night was kind of wild. I’m Caleb. After you passed out, my best friend and I took you home.”
So far, the story stacked up. Caleb and his incorporeal friend didn’t seem like bad people. He really had lucked out—in a million ways, his night could have gone far worse.
“We would have taken you back to your place, but you wouldn’t wake up to tell us where it was,” Caleb’s incorporeal friend said. His voice was closer this time, and as he spoke, it continued to get closer yet. At last, he appeared from a hall at the far side of the room.
Jayne could only stare.
Caleb’s now-corporeal friend lookedfamiliar,but the longer Jayne tried to figure out who he reminded him of, the more he came to believe his déjà vu was coincidental.Caleb and his friend both had similar, well-defined bodies; they both had the same double black bands encircling their upper arm; and they both had the same penchant for being shirtless. Whereas Caleb was dressed only in underwear, his once-ghostly friend was wearing fleece Cookie Monster pajama pants. He had blond hair and, despite his impressive physique, had kinder, more boyish facial features.
The two of them could have been brothers.
For the sake of the fantasy, until proven otherwise, Jayne would assume that they were.
“Plus there was a creep hanging around,” Caleb added. He turned to check on the bacon, then moved it off the burner. It smelled right on the edge of being overdone—with a little more time on the element, it would have charred to a crisp. “Neither of us felt comfortable bringing you back somewhere he might have been able to find you. From the way he was talking, it sounded like he knew you.”
No.
