temp, thank God. “Sure you’re okay?”
He gave a tired smile. “I put a frozen lasagne in the oven, but I didn’t know what you’d want to have with it. I’m not real hungry.”
I lifted his chin, ever so slightly, and looked into his eyes. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is your headache?”
He slow blinked and tried to smile. “’Bout a six.”
“A six? Your six would be my nine, Juss, because you know what an actual nine or ten feels like,” I whispered. “Baby, you should have messaged me. I would’ve come up.”
“I’m okay. Just taking it easy.”
“Did you take your pills?”
He nodded and took my hand, threading our fingers. “Yeah. At three.”
Shit. And his pain was still a six. In hindsight, I should have checked on him when he didn’t come back down. “I got busy and lost track of time. I should have come up. I’m sorry.”
“’S okay, Dall. It’s not too bad. I just didn’t want to overdo it, that’s all.”
Which was a good thing, I allowed. And a good sign that he recognised the need to rest. “Can I get you anything? A juice or a cup of tea?”
He smiled. “A cuddle. Always makes me feel better.”
“I can do that.”
“A proper lie-down cuddle,” he added. “And you can rub circles on my back and put your fingers through my hair.”
Chuckling, I shuffled down a bit and lay beside him on my side, boots still on and all. But he quickly pressed himself into my chest, one arm under his head, the other drawing lazy patterns on his back. “That better?” I whispered.
“So much better.”
We lay like that for a few minutes and I stroked his back and his head like he asked. His face became peaceful, his breathing even. I could watch him sleep forever. I hated that he lived with such awful headaches, though.
And I could finally lie with him without the dark cloud of money hanging over me. I didn’t realise just how much it had overshadowed me. Like I could breathe deep and exhale properly for the first time in weeks.
The oven timer went off and I groaned. “Oh man, I’m sorry,” I whispered, extracting my arm from under his head. I planted a kiss on the scar above his ear and went to rescue the lasagne. I served up mine with some salad and cut Juss a small piece of the lasagne as well. He said he didn’t want to eat, but maybe he could have a few bites, especially if he’d had pain meds.
He begrudgingly sat up and held Squish away from the food, and I fed Juss small bites of dinner in between forkfuls of my own. When I was done and satisfied he’d eaten enough, we lay back down on the couch with Juss as the little spoon, and he fought sleep long enough to take his meds, then go to bed.
I tidied up and watched the rest of the Friday night footy, but the movie after that was crap so I showered and went to bed. Justin was sound asleep—his pain meds would knock him out pretty hard—but as soon as I was in the bed beside him, he stirred and somehow sensed that I was close and snuggled right into me and went straight back to a deep sleep.
All he’d ever wanted was to feel loved. To be held, to be protected and safe; everything that had been lacking in his life, everything his mother never gave him. So, even though he was out like a light, I held him a little tighter. “I love you, Justin Keith.” I planted a soft kiss to his forehead and closed my eyes. “Always have, always will.”
A sex dream woke me up. An amazing dream where I was on top of Justin, inside him. He was rocking his hips and I drove into him with his upswing. God, it was so good, I didn’t want it to ever end. But it flitted away like dreams sometimes do and it took a second for reality to kick in.
A reality of being on our sides, pressed up against Justin’s back, and . . . oh, sweet mother of God, he was rocking his hips.
“Morning,” he rasped. “Didn’t think you’d ever wake up.”
“Fuck, sorry,” I said, trying to get my mind in gear.
He put a hand on my hip. “Don’t move.”
Of course, I froze and it gave me a split second to take stock of my body and where exactly