“Ooh.” I sit up straighter. Before living in this house, I’d never had steak, but Quinn grills it pretty often.
His eyes flick up. He smiles a little.
It’s nice to see Quinn doing better, and the reason for that could not be more obvious than when Vitali walks in, nodding a vague greeting to me and Roman as he beelines for Quinn.
Though Quinn is obviously pleased by Vitali’s arrival, he pretends to be annoyed. “Are you following me?”
“Yes,” Vitali replies shamelessly. “What are you doing?”
Quinn huffs, working very hard to keep up his pretense of annoyance. He loves Vitali’s attention. “I’m making marinade. Would you grab the mustard?”
Vitali makes a noncommittal sound as he joins Quinn at the island, pretending to take an interest in Quinn’s work even though it’s obvious that his interest is in Quinn himself. He grabs Quinn’s ass through his jeans. Quinn looks him dead in the eye and says, “That is not the mustard.”
“Black cat,” Vitali complains.
“Go fetch the mustard,” Quinn insists.
A smile plays around Vitali’s mouth, hinting at a private joke. He squeezes Quinn’s ass again then walks to the refrigerator. When Vitali opens it and bends to look inside, Quinn stares, clearly enjoying the view as much as Vitali was enjoying the handful.
Quinn catches me watching him and gets embarrassed. He returns his attention to juicing a lemon. I’m the one who should be embarrassed. I am, a bit, but it just feels so good to be here and to watch the two of them learning how to be happy.
Quinn is still pretty reserved, but ever since his and Vitali’s relationship evolved from bodyguard and boss to a real partnership, more of Quinn’s personality has emerged. I know why, because the same thing has happened to me with Roman. Quinn feels safe now, like I do.
“Jesus,” Vitali mutters. “There are four kinds of mustard in here.”
“The Dijon,” Quinn says, but Vitali grabs them all. Quinn snorts. “You couldn’t tell which one was Dijon? They have labels.”
Vitali sets the bottles on the island. “I thought you might change your mind.”
“Since when am I indecisive? I do know what I want.”
Vitali wraps his arms around Quinn from behind. “Well, it’s not always obvious, and you’re not always honest. Youdidspend two years pretending you didn’t want me.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Quinn mutters, trying to shrug Vitali off. “If you’re going to be an asshole, maybe you should go away.”
Vitali nips Quinn’s ear. “No.”
Quinn sighs and pretends to ignore Vitali being draped on him while he works on his marinade.
I glance at Roman to see if he’s enjoying this show as much as I am, but I find him watching me instead. Roman has always watched me very intently. I don’t mind. I like it. But there’s something in hiseyes that I can’t read, something dark. It’s not aggressive. It’s not even directed at me. It’s inward.
Instinctively, I reach for his hand where it’s resting by his plate. His hand twitches and almost pulls away from mine. He catches himself and overcomes the impulse, but it has me fighting an impulse of my own. I want to pull back. Even though Roman stopped himself, I’m stung with a sense of rejection. A lifetime of being unwanted rushes up at me, an unwelcome reminder of my life before Roman.
But I stop myself, like he did. I make myself stay in the moment until Roman turns his hand to let my palm settle against his.
“Do you want to go back upstairs?” I ask quietly.
Roman shakes his head no.
“Okay.”
As I go back to eating my toast, I try to be less obvious about watching Quinn and Vitali, though I do continue. But I’m watching them now less for enjoyment than for comparison. Their relationship is different from ours becausetheyare different from us. I’m not envious of their ribbing and wrestling for dominance. I wouldn’t want that, even though I enjoy seeing their obvious pleasure in it. And, yes, it’s entertaining. But what I’m really looking at, all from the corner of my eye, is Vitali as Roman’s brother.
There’s so much similarity in the structure of their handsome faces. They both have dark eyes and dark hair, though Vitali’s longer hair is wavy and stylish.His clothes are stylish too, even his V-neck t-shirt and jeans.
I know that Roman used to dress more like Vitali because his closet is full of expensive clothes. Most of them don’t fit him anymore. Roman is still huge, but he’s so, so lean, his muscles sharply delineated, his whole body vascular. Vitali is lean too, but it’s different. Vitali is lean from working out and eating well. Roman is lean from suffering and because it’s taking a long time for him to remember how to enjoy things.
Then there are Roman’s scars, of course, in contrast to Vitali’s intricate, artful tattoos.
