“Today, you mean?”
Noah chuckled lazily, as if his batteries were about to die. “Yeah.”
“Probably sleep until my body decides it’s on European time again. Then... I don’t know. You?”
“Not much. Might go through some of the songs I’ve been working on.”
Kaj nodded, feeling his eyelids growing heavier by the second. “I’d like to hear those,” he slurred.
“Sure.”
Kaj finally closed his eyes. Noah’s body beside him anchored him, making the spinning sensation of jetlag less disorienting. Dreams came in fragments—flashes of stage lights, the roar of crowds, Noah’s smile backstage, fingers intertwined when they fucked. The boundary between memory and fantasy blurred as sleep deepened, pulling Kaj under completely.
He didn’t know how long they’d been asleep when an insistent buzzing cut through his consciousness, along with female voices. Two or three, Kaj wasn’t sure. He groaned, burying his face into the pillow that smelled of Noah. The buzzing stopped, blessed silence returning, and he sank back toward oblivion.
Then it started again.
“Make it stop,” he grumbled as he rolled over, not fully awake.
Noah stirred beside him. “S’probably the neighbor,” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep. “Ignore it.”
The buzzing ceased once more, and Kaj relaxed, tightening his arm around Noah’s waist. His mind began to drift again, hovering in that perfect limbo between conscious and unconscious.
Then the damn buzzing started again, and Noah’s entire body went rigid in Kaj’s arms.
What the fuck? Why am I hugging him?
“Fuck,” Noah whisper-growled, jumping to his feet and pulling on his underwear. He twisted to look at Kaj, eyes wide with panic.
“What is it?”
“It’s my mom.”
Kaj blinked, brain struggling to process. “What?”
“I had forgotten. She said they’d come over for lunch today.” Noah scrambled to pull on sweatpants and a T-shirt, panic evident in every jerky movement.
“They?” Kaj sat up.
“My mom and her wife, Sigrid,” Noah hissed, checking the hour on his phone. “They’re early. Fuck.”
Before Kaj could ask about his mom being married to a woman—like,when did that happen—a loud meow resonated in the hallway, followed by scratching at the bedroom door.
The door.It wasn’t closed when they fell asleep.
Kaj and Noah exchanged a look, eyes wide as they both reached the same conclusion.
“Shit.” Noah mouthed.
Kaj got out of bed and searched for his clothes. He grabbed his pants from the pile on the chair and hopped into them, nearly falling over. If this were a ground or first floor, he’d jump out of the window. He hadn’t seen Trine in over a decade. Facing her right now, when it was obvious he’d spent the night with her son, would probably make the reunion awkward as fuck.
“Should I hide?” The irony wasn’t lost on him.
Noah shot him a withering look as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants. “No, you idiot. Just—” He gestured vaguely at Kaj’s bare chest. “Put something on and try to look like you didn’t fuck me senseless a few hours ago.”
“She’s seen us sleeping butt-naked next to each other. She already knows that.”
“Shut up.” Noah threw a tee at Kaj’s face. “Just try to act normal.”
