Where Foxes Hunt with Wolves - K.A. Merikan Page 0,103

please. You just happen to live with the forest ranger for no apparent reason? Your mom might believe that, but that’s about it.”

Emil cocked his head, watching them both as if they were performance art. “So… You have a baby together?” He pointed at Coal with a smirk as he put down the tray with plates and steaming mugs of tea.

Radek rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Yev’s been helping me get back on my feet.”

Emil snorted, hiding behind a cup. “More like on your back.”

“Don’t talk to him like that,” Yev said, stabbing Emil with a sharp glare from across the table.

Emil stilled but then put his hands up in defeat. “Okay, okay. Keeping it clean then.”

Yev wasn’t sure what to say, or whether Radek was happy about his intervention in the first place, but Adam smiled as he offered him a generous slice of the cake.

“I get you. I’d give him hell if he said something like that about me in front of other people,” he said, but squeezed Emil’s hand on the table.

“Just kidding!” Emil met Radek’s eyes, and they both had a silent conversation Yev couldn’t decipher.

It only unnerved him further. Because he wouldn't be staying in Dybukowo long enough to develop that kind of bond with Radek and his whole being was already throwing a fit about it. To say things with just a look, to understand without words the way they already did in bed.

“Are you staying then?” Adam asked.

Radek licked his lips and grabbed a piece of cake with his fingers while holding Coal away from it with his arm. “I mean… I’ll need to go back to Cracow at some point, but it’s all so up in the air right now.”

“Yeah, everything is still fresh,” Yev mumbled and spread some of the softened butter on his cake, sweating under his clothes. He cleared his throat. “You have a very nice house,” he said, briefly frowning at a small bowl of scraps placed on the floor in the corner. It was mostly vegetables, but maybe the dog liked more fibre in his diet?

“We built it together,” Emil said and bit into the cake. “My grandparents’ house used to stand here, but it burned down. We were able to use the foundations and some leftover stone elements. If you ever want to test your relationship, build something together. I swear I was on the verge of killing Adam at least twice.”

Yev had said that they were a thing, because getting into the explanations of how he and Radek weren’t a real couple would get far too awkward but could this ever become his life? Coming over to friends for tea with his boyfriend?

Radek laughed, unaware of the dark clouds gathering above Yev’s head. “Good you didn’t or we wouldn’t have this amazing cake.”

Yev stuffed his mouth with a piece and hummed when the buttery, plump texture melted on his tongue. “Yeah. Let’s agree it would have been a waste of culinary talent.”

Emil laughed and gave Adam a quick kiss on the temple. “But those ideas you had ended up working so well. So I suppose I was wrong about them.”

Yev swallowed. He was not used to seeing two men in the state of such domestic bliss. Even his parents tended to keep their mutual affection under wraps in company, and the unreasonable longing to put his arm over Radek’s shoulders shimmered in his brain. “Must be an interesting life. Being out in a small village like this.”

Adam nodded. “I’m from Warsaw, so this is like a different world. We don’t even have Internet—”

“Working on it,” Emil added.

Radek sighed deeply after another bite of cake. “A Wi-Fi hotspot in Dybukowo. That would be something.”

“Do you miss your family and friends?” Yev asked, breaking off pieces of the cake as he ate, because he was a wolf, not a pig, and wouldn’t bite chunks off the slice as if it were a sandwich.

Adam shrugged. “Yes, but I’ve found my life partner here, and we both want to stay in Dybukowo. Everyone else is still important, but Emil will always come first.”

Yev could swear Radek kicked Emil under the table, grinning. Emil winked at him in return and Yev hated that he didn’t know the exact meaning behind the exchange. Was it well done!, or was it let’s fuck again someday? His brain knew it most likely wasn’t the latter, yet the hairs on his forearms still bristled.

“Yev’s family is in Ukraine, but close to the border, right?”