Page 105 of Puck You Both

And it wasn’t the save.

Chapter 20

WALL

SOME THINGS YOU notice only because they don't happen, and Patrick Grześkowiak isn’t pulling away.

A lost game usually follows me home, asking to be worried about, to dissect until I know exactly what went wrong and how to fix it. But the game is a faint memory, and this isn’t my home, and my hand rests on the back of Patrick’s neck and he’s letting it stay there.

Every few bites, a little more of his weight arrives in my palm, like trust arriving shyly, in tiny waves, and I find myself wanting more of it.

All of it.

On the other end of the couch, Theo has been quiet for three minutes straight. When I glance over, he’s already looking at me. His eyebrows lift a fraction, and mine answer, and there’s a whole conversation that happens, in an instant, with words unspoken, and he’s transmitting thoughts I can’t possibly be sure of, but somehow am.

I nod, he nods, then it’s settled.

Patrick sets down his fork, and immediately tries to stand with the plate.

I grab his shoulder and hold. "Stay."

He pauses halfway up, brows furrowing over eyes that are still red. "I can put a plate in the kitchen."

Theo lifts it out of his hands. "Huge if true. Sit down."

Patrick watches the plate leave his custody, and Theo half-puts, half-throws it on the coffee table, then settles back down, and presses his mouth to the skin below Patrick's ear.

Under my palm, Patrick goes rigid. His head starts to turn, one hand rising toward Theo's neck, reaching for control automatically, like the night might crash without him at the wheel.

I catch his wrist.

He looks down at my hand, then up at me. "What are you doing?"

I keep my grip loose. It’s just a statement, after all. "Taking care of you."

He lets out a chuckle that sounds close to nervous. "I know how to take care of myself."

Theo kisses the edge of his jaw. "And that is very much the problem."

Patrick's free hand comes for my hoodie next, fingers curling into the fabric, because if he can't run Theo he'll run me. I catch that one too and press both of his hands flat against his thighs. His pulse taps against my thumbs, quick and climbing, calling his own calm face a liar.

"What are you two—"

"Sit back, Grześkowiak."

It comes out clean, all of it. The soft middle, and all those vowels, and the ending that took me three weeks to get just right. I'd been saving it for something. I didn't know until right now that it was this.

Patrick’s breath hitches in his throat and Theo jerks his head back, staring at me with eyes wider than I’ve ever seen them. "What the actual fuck?"

I try for casual, and somehow manage to pull it off. "What?"

"You can say it?" Theo presses, his tone almost accusatory and deliciously hilarious.

I shrug. "It's his name, isn’t it?"

Patrick’s just staring at me for a moment. His wrists have gone still in my hands. His pulse hasn't. It did something to him, something pleasant, I’m sure, and if that read is wrong, it's the first wrong read I've had all night.

His next word confirms I’m not wrong. "Again."