The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,35

stood there, studying the kitchen, sniffing the air, and then bumped the door shut with his hip. When Scipio came over to lick his hands, he still tensed up, the way he always did, but not as much as he had at the beginning. He ruffled the Lab’s ears. He hadn’t moved from the door. His eyes looked hollow.

“Are you ok?” Tean asked.

“You should lock your door.”

Tean opened his mouth, shut it, and tapped the wooden spoon on the pot’s rim. He tried again. “How was your day?”

“You realize that somebody’s going to try one day, just to see if it’s open, and they’ll walk in. And you’ll be here, and then—and then somebody will do something stupid.”

“Maybe they’ll just run away when they see Scipio,” Tean said. “He’s so fierce.”

Scipio was on the floor, one leg hooked behind his head as he took care of his downstairs business.

“Right,” Jem said with a laugh, but it wasn’t a nice laugh.

“Or maybe he’ll have a knife, you know, like, a switchblade. And he’ll stab me. Three or four times in the belly, but the one that’ll really do me in will get me here,” Tean indicated a spot on his chest, directly over his heart. “Or maybe I’ll get lucky and he’ll just perforate my lungs.”

“Great. This is a joke.”

“And while I’m dying, I’ll just be confronted with the complete and utter meaningless of my existence. You know, just, the reality that we’re all ants pushing grains of sand around on a desolate cosmic beach, spending our whole lives on things that mean absolutely nothing in the end before something bigger than us comes along and crushes us out.”

Jem took a few deep breaths. Then, peeling off the Super Mario shirt, he said, “I can’t do this with you right now. I’m going to take a shower.”

“It’s my shower,” Tean said. “Should I put a lock on that door too?”

Digging around in the duffel, the scar on his back—running diagonally from shoulder to hip—on full display, Jem said, “It already has a lock, dumbass. Don’t be snarky.” Then he headed into the bathroom.

Scipio looked up when the door closed, gave another experimental whuff in Jem’s direction, and went back to cleaning the undercarriage.

“I agree,” Tean said, “he’s being a real ball-muncher.”

The bathroom door opened. “I heard that.”

Tean’s face heated.

“Put a nickel in the swear jar, Doc.”

Then the door closed and the shower started, and Tean finished cooking dinner. He served himself a plate, left the burner on low in case Jem was hungry, and ate at the dinette table. He barely tasted the food; he was replaying the whole conversation again and again.

When Jem emerged from the bathroom, he was in knit shorts and a Dungeons & Dragons ringer tee. It was hard not to give him a second look: huge biceps, solid chest and shoulders, killer calves. He wasn’t pretty, but he was handsome, and cute when he wasn’t being such a jerk. Cute when he smiled, exposing the slightly crooked front teeth. Cute when he watched TV with one arm behind his head. Cute when he worried about his hair, teasing the part with the comb until the hard side part—he had drilled the words into Tean’s memory—was exactly right. Cute when he worried about his beard, going after it obsessively with the trimmer. Cute when he leaned into Tean, in what he insisted were platonic snuggles, best-friend snuggles, when they crashed on the couch to watch a movie.

“Is it too late to apologize?” Jem said as he passed Tean and headed into the kitchen.

“It’s never too late to apologize.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t immediately agree that Scipio is fierce. He’s the fiercest.”

Scipio, who was now zonked out on the dog bed and snoring loudly, was in no condition to accept the apology, so Tean said, “I think he’ll let it slide.”

“And I’m sorry I was a total ball-muncher.”

Tean’s face heated again, but he was grinning a little too. When Jem glanced over his shoulder from where he was serving himself stroganoff out of the pot, he smirked. “Busted,” Jem said. “I knew you felt like a bad boy for using naughty words.”

“I don’t—that’s not what I—”

Jem was still laughing when he came back to the table with his food. He had nice hands. And nice feet. Tean tried to reboot his brain to friend mode, but these days, that was getting harder and harder.

“I really am sorry about being a ball-muncher,” Jem said, stirring the stroganoff with a fork.