He eventually runs out of fence to pick fault with and sidles back to where I’m slouching, nursing the same tea I’ve been carrying around all morning, too distracted to fucking drink it. “Are you going to hook up with him?”
“What? No. Course I’m not. He’s my tenant.”
“So?”
“So, that’s fucked up.”
“Why? Sounds like porn to me.”
I feint an elbow to Sab’s ribs.
He laughs. “What’s wrong with that? It’s what you like, isn’t it? Kinky sex with no strings?”
“Nocomplications.”
“And…”
“Fucking my tenant would be complicated.”
“Depends how you do it, mon frère. Surely your repertoire isn’t that basic?”
I jab him for real. He rolls with the blow and ambles inside to raid my fridge.
Scowling, I follow and try not to fixate on the front gate, where I last saw Bhodi as he jogged past with bed head and black running sweats, a feat that only leads me back in time, to the evening he spent in my kitchen, eating dinner and making me laugh more than I have in years.
To what happened next.
I saw him.
Back arched, skin flushed. Bottom lip caught between his teeth. His dick?—
“How’s work?”
“What?”
Sabsmirks from the fridge door, letting me know I was an absolute fucking idiot to tell him even the briefest version of what happened a few nights ago. “I was right the first time.”
“About what?”
“About you having it bad for the lodger.”
“He has a name.”
Sab clutches his chest. “Stop. Mon cœur!”
“You fucking stop.”
He does for as long as it takes him to hoover up every scrap of bread and ham in my kitchen. Then he’s on me again because he cares as much as he loves to watch me squirm.
“How much dick did you actually see?”
Sab’s even messier than me. I sweep crumbs from the counter and consider thumping him again, but it’s hard to think about violence when his question fills my head with…other things. Also, without the safety net of a phone screen, bullshitting my brother is impossible. It’s easier to tell him the truth and worry about what he’ll do with it later. “I saw enough.”
“It was a good one?”
“The whole package was good, but I knew that already.”
“How?”
