Heartbeat Repeating - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,54
of latkes, and fried doughnuts, and mozzarella sticks dripping with grease. It feels like a stoner snack spread, but he doesn’t mind. It’s still a five-star gourmet stoner snack spread, the cheese sticks alone making him groan obscenely as he dips them into sour cream.
He’s aware Alejandro is watching him too. He’s can feel the older man’s gaze like a touch as he bites into a sufganiya then licks jam off his fingers by deep-throating them. He hears the sharp intake of breath then adds to it as he drags his tongue over his bottom lip to catch any of the stray powdered sugar.
He’s barely full, and his appetite is entirely unsatisfied, but he doesn’t care. Not when he finally—finally—looks up at Alejandro and really sees him. He feels an ache deep in his chest for what he knows now. Before, Alejandro had been standing behind a thin veil—his features visible but blurred. Now he’s in sharp focus, and Avery knows that haunted look in his eyes is loss. An unimaginable loss that probably carved him out and left him hollow.
And it’s no surprise he’s kept Avery at arm’s length this entire time. It’s no surprise that he doesn’t want to touch anyone.
But he’s touched Avery. He wants to keep touching Avery.
“Thank you,” he says when he pushes his plate away, and Alejandro raises a brow over the rim of his wine glass. Avery pretends not to notice that Alejandro hasn’t been drinking much since he got there—and he thinks that’s probably a big deal.
“For what?”
Avery smiles at the accent, the way it sort of curls his words. “Sharing your daughter with me. I know that wasn’t easy.”
Alejandro’s eyes flutter closed for a long moment, and his breath sighs right out of his chest. “It was a long time coming. She’s been gone twice as long as she was alive. It’s about time I…” Avery braces himself against what’s coming next, “…let myself feel it.”
Well, he thinks, that’s a fucking lie. It’s obvious Alejandro has been feeling it this entire time, but he thinks maybe the guy is just not great with words, because he probably means expressing and emoting. He’s seen Alejandro on the verge of an emotion once or twice before things cracked between them, and although he’s not long-term for him, maybe he’s the catalyst to a future where Alejandro is happy again.
Because he was happy once.
He had to be.
The photographic evidence is all over the house. Avery can’t stop thinking of those photos in that study. Avery had been startled when Alejandro walked him in there, mostly because he didn’t think any room in that fucking penthouse could look lived in—but it was. There was an empty teacup on a table and a book open and resting upside down on the arm of a chair. There was mail on the side table and a pair of slippers neatly tucked against a wall.
It was just as put together as everything else, but the air in the room felt like it pulsed with a beating heart. And it only felt more profound when he set eyes on all those photos, proving that Alejandro had a very human side to him. He smiled, and he loved, and he lived. It wasn’t here with Avery, but Avery knew now Alejandro was capable of being that way again.
“It means something to me that you told me,” he finally confesses.
Alejandro’s eyes are still half-lidded, but they’re warm as they settle on Avery’s face, and they hold his gaze longer than they ever have. “I should have been better to you.”
“You’re paying me enough to,” he begins, but then Alejandro’s jaw goes very tight.
“Do you need to do that every time?” Avery doesn’t answer the question, just blinks at him, and Alejandro growls. “A contract doesn’t mean people don’t care. It’s not all…” He stops to correct himself. “It’s not entirely money. I enjoy taking care of you.”
That startles the fuck out of him because so far, he’s been grudgingly treated like a spoiled pet. Like Alejandro read, How To Care For Your Sugar Baby in some mega-rich-guy magazine and followed the steps. One, make sure your Sugar Baby has plenty of food and water. Two, Sugar Babies enjoy luxury so make sure their new apartments have heated floors. Three…
But Alejandro is claiming actual feeling now, and Avery isn’t sure what the fuck to do with that. He just assumed that Alejandro had neglected step nine, make sure your Sugar Baby has lots