Staccato (Magnum Opus #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,83

at him, but there was a piece of him looking forward to having something he could call his own. Before he left the city, his apartment room was his, but all the common spaces were shared. It was like being locked in that limbo between teenager and adult, and even though he was nearing thirty now, he was finally starting to feel like it.

Yes, he didn’t have medical insurance yet, and yes, he’d probably still have to call his mom when shit was really tight, but he liked taking this step. He’d enlisted Jay to keep an eye out once the internet yielded nothing, and it was that lazy, quite morning in the house that his favor paid off.

“Hey,” Adam answered, his voice still heavy with sleep.

“So, I have a friend who has to take off out of town and he needs to sublet his place,” Jay said by way of greeting. “He’s got one other interested guy, but he’s only charging rent—no extra. The place is decent, pretty close to the mall, and all the utilities are included.”

Adam sat up, his head swimming from the motion, and he rubbed at his eyes as he tried to find his jeans and t-shirt. “Fuck. Okay. Can I go over there right now? I have cash like, immediately.”

Jay laughed. “Chill, bro. I’m assuming you’re at Nik’s, right?”

“Yes, but I think he already left for work.” He pulled his phone away to check the time and saw it was past nine. He felt like a lazy fuck, but he liked that Nik didn’t mind. In fact, the night before, Nik had mentioned how much he enjoyed his early mornings with Adam asleep, pressed against him. It was hard to feel too bad about that, really, even if he wanted to seem more productive.

“It’s not like he was going to drive you,” Jay said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. We can get coffee on the way.”

“Dude. I love you,” Adam said with a groan, and he hung up at the sound of Jay’s laughter as he found one of Nik’s shirts and tugged it over his head. It was old, thin, and too big for him, but he liked wearing it. He liked carrying around a piece of Nik with him all day—more than come in his ass, though he would be lying if he said he didn’t like that a little bit too.

They didn’t do that a lot, though. Nik seemed more comfortable using hands and mouths, and Adam wasn’t going to complain about his boyfriend sucking him off to multiple orgasms whenever they were in bed together. It didn’t seem to matter what they did, really, because the connection—the passion, the fire, the waves of emotion—it was all the same. Whether Nik was making him sob into a pillow while he split him in half or whether Nik held him tight and whispered the sweetest nothings against his flushed skin.

It was the first time he wanted something in his life to be a lot. It was the first time he wanted the chaos.

Grabbing his shoes, Adam popped into the bathroom to wash up, then made his way downstairs and came to a skidding halt when he saw Van in the living room with the paper and coffee. There were moments when it became profoundly obvious how much older and how much more put together the brothers were than Adam. Moments like this—even with Van dressed casually, he looked like a man in his forties. He had his ankle resting over his knee, the fingers on his left hand loosely holding his mug.

The light caught the greys at his temple, the corners of his eyes wrinkled as they blinked owlishly behind his thick glasses. He noticed when Adam walked into the room, but he didn’t say anything right away.

When the awkward silence settled heavy between them, Adam sighed and took the armchair nearest to the door so he could tie up his shoes.

“I loved Converse when I was a kid,” Van said, cracking the waves of quiet. He peered over the top of his paper, and Adam couldn’t tell if he was trying to make conversation or insult his method of dress.

“They were great for skating,” Adam said, like a peace offering. “I haven’t done that in years, though.”

“Jay seems to enjoy it still.” And there was some judgment in that.

Adam leaned over his thighs and waited for Van to look at him again, which took several long seconds. “There’s no shame