Luca’s face looked torn as he stood, but before Xan could start away, Luca gently grabbed his elbow. “Can I have a hug to pass on to Sebastion when I see him tonight?”
Xan rolled his eyes, but it was all for show. It was too damn easy to let Luca gather him close and hold him like he meant something. He got lost in the scent of him again, the warmth and the feeling like nothing in the world could touch him when those arms were around him. And he hated himself a little for dragging it out as long as he could. When they parted, it was with more reluctance than before, and he shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Did you uh, ever find a dog-walker?” he blurted.
Luca’s eyes widened, then he burst into laughter. “Why, you wanna apply for the job?”
Xan grinned and flushed a little. “There’s no way I have time, but if you’re ever in a pinch, you can call me.”
Luca gave him a look that felt like it should mean something, but he had no idea how to read it. He took half a step forward, then froze and took two back. “See you on the chat later?”
Xan told himself it was a bad idea, but he also knew there was no way he could stop now, so he nodded. “I’ll be there tonight.”
“Take care, Alexander the Great. Remember to eat your greens before you raid any unsuspecting countries.”
Xan rolled his eyes. “See you later, Tweedle Dum. Watch out for any rogue Jabberwockies.” He grinned when Luca’s laughter carried on as he walked off, and Xan couldn’t bring himself to move for long, agonizing minutes after the older man was finally gone.
Chapter Six
Husband,
I think I narrowly avoided getting arrested today. I’ll tell you about it later. Also, I have a gift for you—and it’s not the Greek food.
Sometimes I wish I was better at poetry because the way my heart feels when I think about you, even after all these years, needs better words than I have.
I love you,
Luca
Sebastion’s Benz was in the garage when Luca got home, and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he dragged his fingers along the passenger door on his way in. Everyone thought it was some over-spending doctor bullshit. In reality, it was Sebastion’s dad’s old car. He and his dad had restored it when he was thirteen—just a handful of years before Sebastion had been cut off.
When his father died, Sebastion was unsurprised to find out that a cousin had been named executor of his will. He told Luca about how he went to the funeral and sat in the back and only thought about the car when a slide-show had a few photos of him sitting behind the wheel. He didn’t think about the car after that, not until a man in an ill-fitting brown suit showed up at his door with a set of keys and an address to the garage his dad had kept it at.
“I sat in that fucking car and cried for fifteen minutes,” he told his husband one night he was wine-drunk and full on too much chocolate cake. “Then I cursed my dad’s ghost because the damn thing was made to be driven and he’d just let it rot after I left the house.”
Luca joked once that Sebastion would be buried in that car, and it was funny until he thought about actually losing his husband. He spent a few moments afterward breathing too heavily in a sort of abject panic because he didn’t ever want to think about having to exist without that man by his side.
He wasn’t really thinking about Sebastion or his car on his way into the house, though. His mind was caught up with Xan and the marks on his wrist and the look of absolute heartbreak on his face. He’d spent the day consumed with how powerless he was and how much he hated that there were no easy answers for the younger man.
He wanted to stick by his resolve to keep his distance from Xan’s situation—but then Xan asked for a hug in that quiet, shattered voice like he knew he was going to be turned down because he didn’t deserve affection. Luca couldn’t hold himself back—not for God, not for the world. And he wasn’t sure what to think when he walked away, because holding Xan like that felt so goddamn right. Like he’d tucked a