“It’s falling apart.”
“Yeah, they do that. You’ve got to really commit. Get your mouth around it before you lose any more.”
Barnaby leaned forward and took a larger bite. Garlic sauce hit his chin. A chip lodged at the corner of his mouth. He chewed with his eyes closed, and Lex watched a reluctant, furious pleasure shift into his expression.
“That’s good,” Barnaby said around his full mouth.
“Course it’s good. Best Kebab, Barns. The name’s a promise.”
Barnaby took another bite, wider this time, his jaw stretching around the girth of the wrap, and Lex grinned so hard his face ached.
“That’s right. Get it in.” He leaned his elbows on the counter. “I’ve seen you get your mouth around bigger.”
Barnaby choked. His hand flew up to cover his mouth, and his shoulders shook once before he locked them down. Garlic sauce dripped between his fingers. His ears went pink, then red, and when he looked at Lex his grey eyes were bright and furious, brimming with a laugh he was refusing to release.
Lex reached across and wiped a streak of garlic sauce from the corner of Barnaby’s mouth with his thumb. He did it slowly, the pad of his thumb dragging across Barnaby’s lower lip, and Barnaby went still under the touch. The fluorescent light turned his pale hair sallow. He looked nothing like a marquess, and everything like a man Lex wanted to keep feeding for the rest of his life.
Lex licked the sauce off his thumb. “Eat your kebab, Barns,” he commanded, before turning his attention back to his own.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Meridianwas being difficult about his feed, which was entirely within character. He stood at the back of his stable with his ears pinned flat and his nostrils flared, radiating the kind of theatrical displeasure that, in a human, would have involved folded arms and a huffy conversation with a manager. Barnaby had mixed the feed to the gram — oats, chaff, a scoop of the joint supplement that cost more per kilo than saffron — and Meridian had taken one look at the bucket, curled his upper lip in the flehmen response, and turned his hindquarters to the door.
“It’s the same feed you had yesterday,” Barnaby said. “And the day before. And every day for the past three years.”
Meridian stamped one hoof against the concrete. The message was unambiguous: he was unsatisfied with Barnaby’s response.
“Fine.” Barnaby set the bucket down. He leaned against the stable door and crossed his arms. “We’ll do this your way. You’ll come to the bucket when you’re hungry, and I’ll stand herepretending I have nothing better to do, and we’ll both know that you’re going to eat every last grain within thirty seconds of deciding you’ve punished me enough.”
The horse ignored him. His mobile pulsed in his pocket so he fished it out and opened his inbox, expecting the farrier’s confirmation for Tuesday, or possibly the invoice from Meridian’s physiotherapist.
From:[email protected]
Subject:BLEX Social Strategy: Market Analysis, Content Roadmap & Monetisation Framework (FAMILY RATES APPLIED)
Attachments:BLEX_Strategy_Deck_FINAL_v3_PERRYSVERSION.pdf (20 pages)
Barnaby stared at the sender address. His younger brother had a professional email and had built an entire digital infrastructure around himself while Barnaby was still using the email address his mother’s secretary had set up for him when he was sixteen.
He opened the email.
Barnaby, brother mine,
Right. I know you’re going to hate this, but you need to read the whole thing before you spiral. I’ve done a full analysis of your current social media presence (non-existent), your organic reach (accidental), and the BLEX engagement metrics across all major platforms. The data is mental. You’re trending without trying, which means you’re leaving an insane amount of value on the table.
The attached deck covers:
Market analysis of #KebabDate (2.1M views on TikTok, trending #4 on UK Twitter for 11 hours)
Deep dive on #IveSeenYouGetYourMouthAroundBigger (which yes, I know, but you need to see the numbers before you kill me…or Lex)
