“Anything you fancy?”
“Hmm?” Jake leaned back in his chair. Tom’s arm was around him, and combined with the alcohol and his full stomach, he felt a little sleepy. “What’s your favourite?”
“The plum clafoutis. It sounds posh, but it’s just a fruity cross between a pancake and Yorkshire pudding. Cass makes it for breakfast when he’s being nice to me.”
“I thought you were always nice to each other.”
“I never said that.” Tom grinned, but his expression had turned blank by the time he got up to order Jake’s pudding. Jake had noticed that a lot tonight, and it felt like he was unwittingly touching Tom’s rawest nerves. After months of Tom being the coolest bloke Jake had ever known, the change was unnerving. Or, at least, it would’ve been if Tom’s rare moments of vulnerability lasted long enough to convince Jake he hadn’t imagined them.
Tom returned with pudding, two spoons, and two glasses of something strong and sweet. He settled in his seat and pulled Jake close again. Jake let him, and forbade himself from glancing around to see if anyone noticed. Did it matter if they did?
Tom didn’t seem to think so. He drew Jake back into the present with a light touch to his cheek, the kind of touch that often set Jake on fire. “Did you look into those online courses we talked about yet?”
Jake shivered, glad for once he could blame his overreaction on his tics. “I found a few, but the good ones cost loads. I’ll have to save up for them.”
“Not necessarily,” Tom said. “We usually fund further education for our employees, if the courses they want to take relate to the job they do for us.”
“Really?” Jake was sceptical. “I want to learn about typography. You don’t need me to do that for you.”
“Maybe not, but bear it in mind when you make your plans. Nothing is ever impossible.”
Jake picked at his half of the sweet, fruity bowl of loveliness, and downed his sticky wine. The nectar-like booze warmed him. “You know that’s not true.”
“Do I?” Tom said. “I don’t think we ever know anything for certain.”
Again with the cryptic melancholy. Jake watched Tom drink his wine, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to wind his arms around Tom’s strong body and hold him until the sadness went away. “Can we go home now?”
“Sure.” Tom stood and retrieved his wallet from his pocket. “Let me just pay and leave a tip behind the bar.”
“Pay? I thought you owned the place?”
“Doesn’t mean we get a free ride. That’s where most restaurants go wrong. Greedy managers eating the profits. It’s not fair on the staff either. They don’t get free two course dinners, why should I?”
Jake refrained from pointing out that Ethel had told him all Tom’s full-time staff did in fact get a meal with each shift. Tom disappeared briefly, but he was back before Jake had put his coat on . . . back in time to wrap Jake’s scarf around his neck and drag the pad of his thumb over his bottom lip. “All right? Sorry things got a bit heavy. I really only meant to feed you, honest.”
Jake fought against the thraldom of Tom’s touch. “I know.”
“Come on.” Tom took his hand and led him to the side door of the restaurant. They slipped outside, and Jake waited while Tom locked it behind them.
“When will Cass be home?”
Tom checked his watch. “Not for a while yet.”
“Oh.” Jake frowned and fell into step beside Tom as they circled the lock and joined the canal path. “It’s pretty late.”
“I know, but that’s how it goes. He won’t be out of the kitchen until at least eleven, then he has to do all the due diligence and drive home.”
“That’s why he stays at Pippa’s.”
Tom shrugged, though Jake hadn’t meant it as a question. “Pippa’s kitchen is intense, and working keeps Cass busy. Keeps his mind occupied and his bad habits in check. Trouble is, he doesn’t give himself enough credit. He’s changed so much, he just hasn’t bloody noticed.”
“Bad habits?”
Tom shook his head. “Not my story to tell.”
Curiosity burned Jake’s soul. “Do you think he’d tell me?”
“Perhaps, if you told him why you wanted to know.”
And there was a question. Could Jake admit that he was fast becoming obsessed with all things Tom and Cass? Nope. Not tonight. “What about you? Why do you work so much?”
“What else is there? Maybe I need occupying too.”
“You shouldn’t be fucking about with me if you need to spend more time with Cass.”
Tom didn’t answer, and they walked the rest of the way to the house in silence. He let them in. Jake shed his coat and shoes and took them to the cupboard under the stairs. He found Tom in the kitchen when he came back, wrestling with a tin of cat food and fending off a fractious cat.
Jake clicked his fingers. Souris cast Tom a baleful glare and sauntered over to him. He tickled her chin. “Hi, sweetie. Is that nasty man taking too long?”
Tom rolled his eyes and scraped the food into a dish. “Don’t encourage her. Bloody cat’s an arsehole. She’s lucky I feed her at all. And see? She doesn’t even want it now.”
Jake scratched the cat’s head as she rubbed herself against his arm. He felt Tom’s gaze all over him, and almost didn’t dare look up.
But he did look up, and in the softly lit kitchen, Tom’s eyes drew him in. He left Souris to her dinner and drifted to Tom’s side. Despite the half-arsed conversations and unfinished sentences, he sensed a change, like an invisible tie between them was strengthening, solidifying, and becoming impossible to walk away from.
Tom wrapped his arms around Jake and put his chin on his head. “Everything you say is right, and I’ve said it all to myself and Cass a thousand times. I wish I knew the answer, but I don’t.”
“Maybe there isn’t one.” Jake made the most of the embrace, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he went to bed alone.
“Hmm, maybe you’re right.”
Tom sounded defeated. Jake traced his strong jaw with the tip of his finger. He wanted to say something profound and reassuring, but the words weren’t there.
So he kissed Tom and felt a spark meld with all the excess energy in his body and become something warm and wonderful. It flowed through him like liquid gold until Tom pulled away with a soft sigh.
“Good night, Jake.”
The bare floorboard on the landing creaked. Jake froze, one foot in the air. It was Thursday morning, and not that early, but Cass was still in bed and Jake had heard him come home only a few hours before Tom had left for the city at dawn.
Jake didn’t want to disturb him. If he was being honest, he was nervous of what would happen when Cass did wake up. Despite their near-constant texting, they’d hardly seen each other since Cass had punched Jake’s landlord and bundled Jake into his car. Cass had worked the last six days straight, and it was always well past midnight by the time he came home.
Jake knew this, because he’d found he couldn’t sleep until he heard Cass tread softly up the stairs and open Jake’s door. What he was looking for, Jake didn’t know, because he’d yet to find the nerve to do anything but pretend to be asleep.
Perhaps he was checking that Jake was in his own bed.
Shit. Jake had promised himself he wouldn’t think about that, not today. Today was the first day Tom had left him alone with Cass, and he didn’t need another reason to freak out.
God no.
He tiptoed his way to the bathroom. He took a quick shower, but got out before the hot water pipes could make too much noise. When he was done and dressed, he crept back, but this time, the half-open door to Cass and Tom’s room proved oddly tempting. He let a run of silent tics ripple through him, then snuck across the landing and took a peek around the door. Cass lay sprawled on his stomach, dark hair in his face, the cat draped over his neck, and his arm flung out over what Jake assumed was Tom’s side of the bed.
I wonder if he’s lonely. Probably not w
ith Souris keeping him warm.
Jake felt a warning buzz in his arm. He quit while he was ahead and retreated downstairs to work on his coding.
It was nearly noon when Cass sloped into the kitchen and chucked the kettle on the stove. “Morning.”
Jake stared at him and apprehension warred with a strange sense of relief. It had taken him a while to figure out he felt a little lost without his morning text from Cass today, but did Cass feel the same? Jake had no idea. He pushed his work aside. “Do you want me to make you some tea?”
“Nah. You’re not a houseboy, mate.” Cass grabbed a couple of mugs from a cupboard and turned to the stove. Jake took in the curve of his spine and hunched shoulders. Even from behind, Cass looked tired.
“Houseboy?”
Cass faced him, and Jake realised with a start it was the first time he’d seen him in daylight. Fuck. Why did that seem so important?
“Tom said you were worrying about rent,” Cass said. “Do you take sugar?”
“No. And I’m not worried about it. I just want to pay it.”
Cass finished his tea making and came to the kitchen table. “There’s no rush.”
Easy for him to say. Jake didn’t want a free ride. Fuck that.
Cass moved around the table and peered over Jake’s shoulder. Oddly, though Jake had gone out of his way to conceal the Pink’s work in progress from Tom, he didn’t mind Cass seeing.
“I like that it’s not pink,” Cass said. “The first designer couldn’t handle the idea of not creating the fucking obvious.”
“Tom told me you named the restaurant after your teacher at school, so I figured the colour was irrelevant.”
“Mr. Pink was my woodwork teacher. I bloody hated that bloke.”
“Why?”
“Because he wouldn’t let me bunk off and smoke weed.” Cass gestured around the warm, stylish kitchen. “Thanks to him, I built most of these units myself.”
Jake didn’t know what to say to that. The kitchen was the only finished room in the house, and it was gorgeous. “How much is the rent?”
Cass took a step back. Jake thought he heard him sigh. “The mortgage is nine hundred a month, so if you really want to be equal, you can pay three hundred.”
“What about bills?”
Cass rolled his eyes. “Fine. Four hundred, but that’s it. No more.”
Jake clicked through to his online banking, and waited while Cass fetched the account details for the direct debit. While he was alone, he let a few tics escape, though he didn’t know why he was hiding them from Cass. It had only been a few days since Cass had seen him head-butting a wall.
“You don’t have to wait until I’m out of the room. I know that makes it worse.”
Jake took the cheque book Cass held out and tapped the account details into the computer. “How do you know that?”
“Does it matter?”
“Wankers. Tosser. Probably not.” It did, though. Tom did everything he could to ignore Jake’s TS, but Cass was the opposite, and it had been a long time since Jake had talked about his condition so frankly. It felt refreshing, and he liked it, but the sensation of Cass hovering unnerved him.
Wind your neck in. It’s his bloody house.
“What are you doing today?”
Jake jumped, lifting himself briefly right out of his seat. Cass looked like he wanted to ease him back down, but he didn’t.
“Um, working,” Jake said. “You?”
“DIY, probably, when I’ve got my arse in gear. That’s how I usually spend my days off when Tom’s not home.”
Cass’s grin dimmed, reminding Jake that neither Tom or Cass had managed to take Monday off that week, and despite Tom’s best efforts, he was absent now for Cass’s only free day before Christmas. “Tom told me Mondays are your Sundays.”
“Manday Mondays,” Cass said. “We go for a walk, drink some beer, eat, and fuck. Best day ever.”
Jake choked on his tea. Cass seemed to realise what he’d said and shifted, his easy candour fading to the awkwardness Jake had always feared.
“Um, anyway.” Cass backed away from the table. “I’ll leave you to it. Come find me if you need anything.”
And then he was gone.
Jake stared after him in consternation. He knew Tom and Cass had sex, of course he did, but hearing Cass talk about it so bluntly had caught him off guard. Being fucked by Tom was the best sex Jake had ever had, the kind of sex he’d dreamed about when he was alone in his crappy flat in Kentish Town.
But he wasn’t in Kentish Town anymore. He was in Berkhamsted, with Cass, the man Tom had been in love with for nearly a decade. Thinking about having sex with Tom felt . . . wrong? Maybe? Who knew?
Jake didn’t know how he felt. The paranoid part of his brain told him to pack his bag and run for the hills. With Tom gone for the day, he wouldn’t have to see his face as he walked away from him. Instead he could remember the kind smile Tom had given him that morning when he’d crept into Jake’s room to touch his cheek and whisper good-bye.
But Jake didn’t move. Instead, he stared at the HD screen of Cass’s laptop, and spent the afternoon listening to him crash around. It would never take him long to find Cass in the big old house. Tom was a quiet man, often found in the corner of a room, silent and working. Cass was different. A trail of chaos, mess, and music followed him wherever he went.
He checked on Jake a lot too. Sometimes overtly, and sometimes not so much. Sometimes he padded quietly to the kitchen doorway and stared at Jake’s back until Jake thought he would explode.
The fourth time it happened, Jake lost his cool. “Stop bloody staring at me.”
Cass chuckled, low and easy. “Can’t. Tom told me to keep an eye on you.”
Jake glanced over his shoulder. “Why? I’ve been here by myself every day this week and I haven’t pinched your family silver.”
Cass blinked, clearly taken aback. “Easy, mate. I think he meant in case you needed anything. You are in a strange town, after all, miles from the last place you called home.”
Jake felt like a tosser; he knew why Cass was keeping an eye on him . . . had known all along. “Sorry. I slept like shit last night, and I’m a twat when I’m tired.”
Cass ventured into the kitchen as Jake cracked his jaw on a massive yawn. “Something bothering you?”
“No.” But it was a lie, and one punctuated by a bruising punch to his chest, his third that day. “Fuck.”
Cass winced. “Do you do that a lot?”
“Only when I’m sleeping most of the time, but it’s coming out in daylight today. Must be something in the air.”
“Anything make it better?”
Jake looked away. He wasn’t about to explain to Cass what eased his nighttime tics, and it seemed he didn’t have to. Cass put yet another mug of tea on the table and squeezed Jake’s arm. “You can sleep with Tom if you want, Jake. I’m not going to get back every night, and I know you don’t like sleeping alone.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I don’t like it either, and Tom would love it if you slept in our bed.”
A strange disappointment crept over Jake. Hadn’t Cass promised he’d come home to Tom every night? To both of them? “What about you?”
Cass thought on it a moment. “Tom likes his space when he sleeps. I like a proper snake pit, and you’ve got epic legs.”
“You’ve got epic legs.”
What the fuck did that even mean? Jake had no idea, and he understood the way Cass’s throwaway comment made him feel even less. Cass had meandered, unconcerned, out of the kitchen after turning Jake’s head upside down, but Jake had found himself unable to sit still, and with his tics having a party, he’d retreated to his room.
He thought he heard Cass start up the stairs a few times, but it was 5 p.m. before Cass knocked on Jake’s bedroom door. “You don’t have to hide up here, you know. And how the hell are you comfortable, lying like that?”
Jake glanced up from his s
creen. He was on his stomach, his chin on a pillow he’d wedged under his arms while he typed away. “I always lie like this, and I’m not hiding. I’m working.”
“Yeah, well, you look like a drunk cat, and it’s late. Even Tom’s calling it a day. The butcher’s is open till eight o’clock tonight. I’m going to run out and get something for dinner. Coming?”
After their awkward afternoon together, Jake wanted to say no, but something in Cass’s expression told him he was probably fighting a losing battle. Besides, he was using Cass’s laptop. What was to stop Cass from taking it back? “What are you going to get?”
Cass waited for Jake to shut the laptop and pull a sweatshirt from the open bag he had under the bed. “Something nice for Tom. He’s been stuck in meetings all day. You know, there’s some drawers in the garage we could bring up here for your stuff. You don’t have to live out of your bag.”
“It’s fine.” Jake buzzed and popped a few times, before he pushed past Cass and jogged downstairs.
Cass followed him, unfazed. “It’s bloody ridiculous,” he said. “We have drawers. You might as well use them.”
“Wankers. It’s fine.”
“Suit yourself.” Cass went to the cupboard under the stairs and retrieved Jake’s coat along with his own, but avoided looking at Jake.
Jake chewed on his lip. Cass had been nothing but nice to him. Did he really deserve to have it thrown back in his face? Besides, they had much in common, and one thing most of all.
“Cass?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s Tom’s favourite meal?”
Cass tossed a smile over his shoulder.
Jake frowned. “What?”
Cass shook his head. “I know it’s mad, but I love that you want to know that, that you give a shit. That whatever this is means so much to you.”
Jake felt heat flush his cheeks, unnerved that Cass had seen through him. He tried not to let Tom see how he felt. How had Cass read him so easily? How did Cass know that Tom’s gentle kisses—their only physical interaction since Jake had come to his home—meant the world to him? “He’s been good to me.”
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