“Cleaning up. We passed out in a bit of a mess last night.”
“Did I fall asleep first?”
“Yup.” Rupert grinned. “With a mouthful of chips and a can of Tizer in your hand. Reminded me of those nights you used to get tanked on JD and wait up for me, only to KO before you took your bloody clothes—”
Rupert stopped, flushing guiltily.
“Go on,” Jodi said. “Tell me.”
“Not sure it’s something you want to know.”
“Why do you think that?”
Rupert didn’t answer. Jodi replayed his last sentence.“... only to KO before you took your bloody clothes—”“Did I summon you home on a promise and let you down?”
“You’ve never let me down, Jodi.”
It was sweet of Rupert to say, but Jodi doubted it was true. Whoever he used to be, he couldn’t have been perfect. Lord knew, he wasn’t now. “Did we have sex a lot?”
The blush returned full force to Rupert’s fair cheeks. He got awkwardly to his feet and made a meal out of stuffing crumpled chip papers in the nearby bin. “Why do you want to talk about that?”
“Talked about everything else last night, didn’t we?”
“Aye, but we never figured out what we were going to do about it.” Rupert left the room.
Jodi thought about following, but something told him to stay put and do all the things Rupert usually had to remind him to do.
He’d just swallowed the last of his morning medication when Rupert reappeared, sheepishly brandishing a mug of tea and a plate of Nutella toast.
“Sorry I keep walking out on you,” he said. “This is way harder than I ever imagined it would be.”
“What is?”
“You getting better. I thought we’d done the hard bit, but it feels like we’re just getting started.”
Jodi twisted the cap back on his antiseizure drug bottle. “Is that why you won’t talk about sex?”
“Jesus, Jodi.” Rupert scrubbed a hand down his face. “Why do you suddenly want to talk about that?”
“Because it was the first thing that came back.”
“What?”
Shit.It may have been the first part of his attraction to Rupert that had returned, but it was the last thing Jodi had ever intended to say. Still, there wasn’t much he could do to take it back. He got up and turned away while he stripped off the T-shirt he’d slept in and rummaged in a drawer for a clean one. “I started dreaming about you a few months ago before I ... before I knew about, um, us.”
“Dreaming?”
“Yeah.” Jodi had never been so glad he couldn’t see Rupert’s face. “Except it happened when I was awake too.”
“What kind of dreams?”
“Erm ...”
“Oh.”
The single syllable wrapped Jodi in a cloak of heat. He turned around. Rupert was staring at him, eyes wide. Jodi chanced a grin and tried not to fixate on Rupert’s teeth digging into his bottom lip. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re probably right.”
“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking.”
