captured her attention and she looked away again.
Sander was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was Ben.
“Where’s Ben?” he asked, scowling. Had someone tipped his slacker of a brother off that he might actually have to take responsibility for his own cat? But before anyone could answer—and really, it was Ben, so the answer had to be one of a dozen variations of “doing nothing”—he remembered that Wren had been cheeky with him. “And what is it I’m supposed to be thanking you for, brat?” he asked, biting back the smile that his baby brother—with his ridiculous pranks and extra helping of sass—always secretly provoked in him.
Wren flushed pink at the nickname even though he usually had a snappy comeback for it, but then shook off whatever had caused that reaction and leaned back in his chair, grinning up at Leo with an unrepentant dose of attitude that made it really hard for Leo to keep a straight face.
The queen, sitting at Wren’s side, sent Wren a tender but exasperated look, but held her tongue. It was amazing how much more leeway the fifth child got. Had it been a teenage Leo, he would have been subjected to a lecture on the heir’s responsibility of maintaining a certain level of decorum appropriate to his station at all times.
He’d never been sure if he was jealous of everything Wren got away with and the total lack of responsibility the kid had grown up with… or if he wanted to cheer him on.
Probably both.
“You’re smiling,” Wren said somewhat gleefully as he pointed at Treble. “Because you love your cat. So… you’re welcome.”
Leo snorted, dropping Treble onto an empty chair and brushing the cat hair off his shirt. The smiling part was true, but it certainly had nothing to do with the purring pile of peril he was holding, and pigs would fly before he thanked Wren for smuggling the furry annoyance—along with an untold number of other kittens—into the palace a few years ago. Luckily for Leo, most of the cats had found other members of the family to latch onto, and despite Wren’s currently smug look, they both knew, everyone knew, that Wren had specifically given Trouble—er, Treble, to Ben.
“She’s not my cat,” Leo said for what felt like the six-hundredth time in the last four years.
“I don’t think she agrees,” the king said without looking up from the tablet he was reading from.
“And you know Ben’s feelings on the matter,” the queen said, raising an eyebrow.
Leo refrained from rolling his eyes. Ben’s assertion that cats didn’t—couldn’t—“belong” to anyone other than themselves was obviously just his way of dodging responsibility for the little terror.
Leo rounded the table to press a light kiss against the queen’s cheek, deciding to let it go since Ben wasn’t there to argue directly with anyway. “Good morning, Mother.”
“Leo,” she said warmly, patting his hand before he pulled away. “Your father and I were hoping we’d see you this morning.”
The king finally looked up. “We’d like to hear an update on your engagement, son. Have you narrowed down the candidates we selected?”
“No,” Leo said shortly, turning away from the table to prepare himself a plate from the well-stocked sideboard. The question brought up a familiar surge of irritation, but almost immediately, it was soothed by memories of the weekend.
Leo had been right about Eddie being the perfect height to fit against him. What he hadn’t expected was how different it would be to kiss a man. Hard planes instead of soft curves. A deeper, slightly muskier scent to his skin. The faint roughness of Eddie’s jaw, despite him being smooth-shaven. But those differences had been secondary to something much less definable. Something that was simply… Eddie.
Kissing him had been a revelation, filling a want that Leo that had never realized he had before. Not even something sexual, although that want had definitely been… stimulated. But something deeper. They just… suited. More than suited, although how Leo could feel so sure after so little time and such tame intimacies, he didn’t know.
Hand holding.
Kisses that had been more sweet than hot.
A hundred innocent touches he’d managed to slip in despite being hyper-aware of not wanting to scare his shy librarian off before he had a chance to fully reel him in… or until they were in a place he could do it properly.
“You’re smiling again,” Wren said in an annoyingly little-brother-ish singsong when Leo turned back to the table with his loaded plate. Wren pushed his own plate aside and leaned