The sums didn’t come out right. They couldn’t. Colin had known it since the first morning he’d woken up on the sofa withDiwa’s arm across him, in a house that cost more than Colin would earn in five lifetimes. A warm body, a decent hand with a drill, and a knack for keeping his mouth shut when other people needed the quiet. Those were his only selling points.
Diwa twined his fingers through Colin’s and settled more firmly against him. “I snore,” Diwa said. “But you know that already, and the way you complain about it, I think it might actually become a dealbreaker at some point. I’ve told you about the nose strip that helps it a bit, and you won’t let me wear it because you say it makes me look like a rugby player. But we can explore that again if it really becomes unbearable for you.”
“My ego is catastrophically linked to my business. It’s unhealthy. Iknowit’s unhealthy. I can work seven days a week for months at a stretch, and when I’m in a coding jag or I’ve latched onto a new project, I’m gone, Colin. Emotionally unavailable doesn’t begin to cover it. Ezra once had to physically take my laptop out of my hands because I hadn’t eaten in thirty-six hours and I was crying at a spreadsheet because the numbers had started moving around. I was looking at a running ten-thousand-dollar monthly line item just for cold-pressed juice for the office, Colin.Ten thousand dollars.On juice. I approved that.”
Colin’s mouth twitched.
“I’m telling you all of this because you’ve just told me the hardest thing you’ve ever had to say to another person, and I’m hearing you, Colin. I hear you.” Diwa’s grip tightened. “And I’m grateful you told me, because I’m choosing to take that as a sign that you’re not planning to run. Which means I need to work a lot harder on getting you to understand that you’re a fucking catch.” His free hand came up and touched the silver at Colin’s temple, tracing the streak back from his hairline with his fingertip. “You’ve got this fucking incredible thing right here, which I realise is a weird thing to fixate on, but I’ve beenthinking about it since the first time you showed up at my house and told me to flip my own breaker. And I have never, in my entire life, met anyone who can terrify me and turn me on with a single look.”
Colin’s face went hot. He fixed his gaze on the ceiling because looking at Diwa while he said such flattering things was more than he could reasonably be expected to manage right then.
“You’re one of the smartest people I know. And I went to Stanford and worked in the AI industry, Colin, so that’s a competitive field.” His finger was still tracing the silver at Colin’s temple. “You call things exactly as they are. No bullshit, no dressing it up. You told me my smoothie was disgusting to my face, in my own kitchen, on the first day we met, and I’ve been obsessed with you ever since.” His voice dropped. “And underneath all the sarcasm and the death stares, you’re the most loving person I’ve ever been around. The way you talk about your boys. The way you are withme, even when I’m being unbearable. No matter what a fucking ass I am, you put the kettle on and you sit with me and you don’t make me feel like a lost cause. So no, Colin. You’re not going to scare me away with your fake list of shortcomings.”
“You’re a fucking billionaire, Diwa,” Colin pointed out.
Diwa huffed a laugh against his hair. “Yeah. And some people would consider that a pretty big indication of a flaw in my character, Colin.” Diwa shifted beside him, pressing closer, his leg hooking over Colin’s shin. “Like I said. I’m obsessive about things. I latch on, and I’m a total stage-ten clinger.” His mouth kissed the curve of Colin’s shoulder through the T-shirt. “You’re not going to put me off. I’ve been all in since the light bulb, and nothing you’ve told me tonight changes that.”
His arm tightened around Colin’s middle. “Also, your andropause makes you run really hot, and my bed has neverbeen warmer. So there are practical considerations to my commitment.”
Colin let Diwa pull him closer. The alpha’s chin tucked over the top of his head, his breathing already settling into the slower rhythm that meant he was halfway to sleep.
“You’re doing that clingy thing right now,” Colin told him.
“Mm-hm.”
“Just so you know. I’m not complaining.”
Diwa’s arm tightened. His nose pressed into Colin’s hair, and a long, contented breath moved warm across his scalp.
Colin lay still and let him cling on.
Chapter Seventeen
Colin’sbag was on the hook by the bedroom door, which was where it lived now.
His work bag stayed by the front door with his boots, zipped and ready for Monday. This was a holdall he’d picked up from the Primark on Barking High Road three weeks ago for twelve quid, containing the things a man needed when he was spending more nights in someone else’s house than his own, but wasn’t quite ready to call it what it was.
It held a toothbrush, deodorant, a clean vest, pants for the morning, and the reading glasses he only wore in private because vanity was, apparently, the last thing to go. The holdall had taken its place on the hook without discussion. Diwa hadn’t commented on it, and Colin hadn’t explained it.
Friday nights had developed a pattern. Colin would arrive after his last job of the week, kick his boots off by the yellow door, and find Diwa already horizontal on the sofa with something playing on the television that neither of them would really watch. Tonight it was a documentary about avocadofarming. A drone shot was gliding over an endless green canopy somewhere in Mexico, and a narrator with a very serious voice was talking about water tables.
“So here’s the thing,” Diwa said, without lifting his head from the cushion. “A single avocado takes something like three hundred and twenty litres of water to grow. Which is insane, right? That’s a full bathtub. Every time you eat one, you’re basically eating a bathtub full of water. And the cartels have got involved now, because the margins are so good. There are actual armed guards patrolling avocado orchards in Michoacán. They call themoro verde. Green gold.”
“Mm.” Colin lowered himself onto the other end of the sofa and let his head fall back against the armrest. His lower back was singing at him from six hours of deep-cleaning a four-storey in Chelsea, and the sofa cushions were so absurdly expensive that sitting on them felt like being absorbed by a cloud.
“And the deforestation is wild. They’re clearing high-altitude pine forest for new orchards, which is destroying monarch butterfly habitat, which…okay, that’s a whole other rabbit hole, but the point is, the global demand for avocados is literally reshaping ecosystems. And I say this as someone who eats one every single day.”
“Fascinating,” Colin said, and closed his eyes.
The sofa shifted under him. Diwa had turned onto his side and was rearranging himself the way he always did, unable to stay still for longer than five-minute stretches. Colin felt the approach before the contact, as a warm redistribution of weight along the cushions. Then Diwa’s shoulder was against Colin’s thigh, his head finding the dip between Colin’s hip and the armrest, fitting himself into the available space.
“Your feet are freezing,” Diwa said, because his hand had wrapped around Colin’s ankle where his sock had ridden down.
“It’s March.”
“Your circulation is a disaster. Have you thought about compression socks? There’s actually really good evidence for graduated compression in people who stand all day. The venous return data alone…”
“If you buy me compression socks, Diwa, I will leave this house and never come back.”
