A persistent one too. If I was stuck with him all day, I’d get more sleep if I gave in now. “Things are happening. Between him and her. The three of us together.”
Rubi nodded slowly, zero surprise colouring his gaze. “What about you and him? Has Locke daddied the shit out of you yet?”
All the damn time. But I knew what Rubi was asking and I shook my head. “Not yet. Turns out being with a dude is a fucking journey for me.”
“How so?”
I measured my words, and without Locke there to save me, anxious heat burned my heart. “I want him, Rubes, so damn much, but I freeze up every time I touch him. He can do whatevertome, but when I touch him—or I try—I feel like I’m fifteen again and my dad’s gonna bust in on us and lock me in the cellar for a week.”
Every scrap of humour evaporated from Rubi’s face. “You never told me that happened to you.”
“It wasn’t important.”
“What the fuck? Are you out of your mind?”
I shifted onto my back as if I could repel Rubi’s fierce gaze with the side of my face. “It wasn’t important,” I repeated. “It never affected me until Locke—it nevermattereduntil him.”
“Because you like him so much?”
“I love him, man. He’s on my mind as much as she is. I want him as much as I want her.”
“But you won’t let yourself have him?”
“It’s not that.” I set my mind free, sifting through the nights I’d spent with Locke and Orla in this bed. “We’ve done... stuff. It’s just not as easy as I want it to be. As he deserves it to be. I want him to feel as wanted as he is. I want him toknow.”
Rubi rubbed my arm. “Locke’s a smart dude. I’m sure he knows. Besides, you can see the spark between you from space, so I’d be worried we’d patched another dud if he hadn’t figured it out.”
“He didn’t need to figure it out. I told him.”
“So why are you worried he doesn’t know?”
“Because I want him to feel it, I s’pose. It makes more sense in my head.”
“It makes all the sense it needs to.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But it’ll probably feel a whole lot better if you get some more sleep, bro.”
I didn’t need telling twice. And sleeping with Rubi was easy. I stuffed my head under his big arm and shut my eyes. Then I took him to the record shop in town and bought him my favourite Palace album, perfect for his fucking yoga, so he’d stop banging on about Locke’sproportions.
Next thing I knew, it was evening and he was pressing a bowl of colcannon into my hands. “You had fuck all in the fridge.”
“It’s not my fridge.”
“Live here, don’t you?”
Did I? DidLocke?
Goddamn, my head was so full.
I ate my dinner/breakfast and rolled into the shower in a futile attempt to tidy my brain before I had to go out and face another Russian trickster, but it was no good. My every thought wasthem, and I rode out to the compound with one thought playing on a loop.I need to see them.
It was Friday night. Orla was working the bar. She did that more now that Decoy was a full-time dad.
Locke was on point, hawk-eyeing every soul who came within an inch of her, even me.
Especiallyme.
