“Because I need to know,” Sam continued, the words tumbling out now that he’d started. “I need to understand why three people who look like you would pay this kind of attention to someone like me. Someone ordinary. Someone who works at a coffee shop and lives in a tiny cottage and can’t even finish a fancy dinner without disappointing you.”
His voice cracked on the last word.
“Because if it’s an elaborate joke, or some kind of dare, please just tell me now.”
/~/~/~/~/
Mabon stood first, his chair scraping against hardwood. His hands shook - actually shook - as he pressed them flat against the table.
“A dare,” he repeated, and his voice came out broken. “You think we’ve been…that we would…” He stopped, swallowed hard, and his knuckles went white against the wood.
Urien’s face had gone pale, his blue eyes darker than Sam had ever seen them. He reached out - hand halfway across the table toward Sam - then jerked it back like he’d touched fire.
“Sam.” Just his name, but there was a world of hurt in that one word.
Rux looked utterly destroyed, that was the only word for it. His broad shoulders curved inward, like Sam had reached into his chest and squeezed. The color drained from his face except for two spots high on his cheekbones that might have been shame, anger, or something else entirely.
“A dare.” Rux’s voice scraped out rough and raw. “You think we’remockingyou?”
Sam’s eyes started to burn. He blinked hard, refusing to cry in front of them. “What else am I supposed tothink?” Once he started, Sam couldn’t stop. “Three guys who look like you, interested in someone like me? It doesn’t make sense.”
His vision blurred anyway. He stared at his plate - at the beautiful, untouched food - and felt the weight of every inadequacy he’d ever pretended not to notice.
“You’re all tall, gorgeous, and clearly have money, and you show up in my life leaving gold bars on my doorstep and building gardens and trying to buy entire businesses, and I’m just…” His throat closed. “I’m just me. I work at a coffee shop. I’m not special. I’m not…”
“Stop.”
Mabon’s voice cracked like thunder, and Sam’s head snapped up.
Mabon was staring at him with something fierce and desperate burning in his dark eyes, both hands now pressed to his chest as if he were physically holding something back.
“Don’t.” The word came out strangled. “Don’t say that about yourself. Don’t ever…”
He stopped again, closing his eyes as he took a shuddering breath that made his shoulders rise and fall.
When he opened them again, he looked at Urien, then at Rux. Something unspoken passed between them as if some decision had been made in the space of a heartbeat.
“We’re terrible at this,” Urien said quietly. His hands were fisted on the table now, trembling slightly. “We’ve been terrible at this from the beginning.”
“We never meant…” Rux’s voice broke. He tried again. “We would never mock you. Never. The thought that you’ve been thinking - that you believed we would…”
He looked genuinely sick.
“Then what?” Sam demanded. His tears were threatening to fall. “What is this? Because I’ve been making myself crazy trying to figure it out -the gifts, the attention, the constant visits. You barely know me. Why would you care this much about someone you barely know?”
“Because we want to know you.” Mabon’s voice was raw. “We want to know everything.”
“But why…”
“Because you’re ours.”
Sam stared.
It was Rux who had spoken. He stood now, too, all six-foot-five of him, looking at Sam with naked vulnerability written across every feature.
“You’re ours,” Rux repeated. “And we’re yours. If you’ll have us.”
Sam’s brain stuttered to a complete halt.
