Chapter 23

Twenty-Three

BHODI

I wake up with no clue who I am, where I am, or how I got there.

It’s dark, but fading. Morning, maybe. I’m not sure. All I know for certain is that I’m not in my bed. That I’m in Tam’s bed, in his house, and he’s right here next to me.

I touch him to be sure, tucking a lock of his wild hair back from his face.

For a long moment of sheer stillness, nothing happens. Then he stirs and his eyes crack open, unfocussed and tired, and he reaches for me with a clumsy hand. “You’re okay?”

Of course I am. I’m with him, but he doesn’t seem awake enough to hear me whatever I say, so I kiss his cheek and find his hand under the sheets. “I love you. Go back to sleep.”

Tam’s gone so fast it’s hard to believe he was awake at all. I watch him for a while, pondering that it’s the first time I’ve woken before him and the first time we’ve slept together in his bed after fucking so many times I lost count .

My body aches in all the right ways. I shift, breathing through it, stretching out on my back with our clasped hands resting on my abdomen while Tam sleeps beside me, and it’s so perfect I want to go back to sleep so I can wake up to it again. But I can’t find the will. I’ve slept enough. Now it’s time to face the day and whatever it brings.

I need a shower. After hours lost to stroking my fingers through Tam’s hair, I force myself up and out of bed before I remember the power cut blanketing the village the last time I was awake.

It’s still in force. Tam’s cute little Mr Kipling tea-lights have long since died out and nothing else works, leaving me no option but to feed Rudy and let him out before I jump beneath the cold shower spray to wash my skin clean of stale sweat, lube, and other things.

I’m shivering on the landing when the rumble of a vehicle sounds outside.

Wrapped in a towel, I peek out of the landing window.

Sab .

Shit.

I find some clothes and throw them on, dashing downstairs before Rudy can bark up a storm.

He barks anyway, but at least I tried.

I open the front door as Sab vaults the gate.

He spots me and relief floods his tense features. “Thank fuck for that. I thought you’d both carked it.”

“What?”

“Tam’s phone’s off, and the last time I spoke to him, he thought you were dead.”

“Last night?”

“No, the night before. ”

I’ve lost track of my days. I can’t remember when we came back here. Whether it was morning or night. I can’t remember anything except Tam telling me he loves me in every way possible, and I’m okay with that. More than okay.

I’m not okay with the worry lining Sab’s face.

I step back, waving him inside. It takes him seconds to find Tam’s abandoned phone and figure out the power situation. A little longer to jog upstairs and return with a smirk on his face.

“You wore him out.”

“He tell you that?”

“Not with words. I can tell by looking at him that he’s wrecked.”

Guilt threatens the glow I woke up with.

Sab steps closer. “Don’t get in your feelings about it. This happens sometimes when that big grumpy heart gets the better of him. He’ll be fine when he’s slept it off.”

I reach for the teabags before I remember nothing works. “How do you know his heart got the better of him?”

“He called me when he didn’t know where you were.” Sab moves to the log burner and fiddles around with it. “And now you have teeth marks on your neck, so I’m guessing he found you.”

My hand flies to my neck and the deep hickey Tam left there. “Uh. Yeah. He found me.”

Sab snorts and goes back to lighting the fire. It’s kind of cosy. Then he rises and his gaze flickers to the stairs again, and I notice his clenched hands and tight shoulders.

“What’s the matter?”

“Hmm?”

I slide off the stool I’ve sunk onto and pad to where Sab hovers in the middle of Tam’s living space, his entire frame a knotted mess of tension. “What’s wrong?”

Conflict rages in eyes that are so much like his brother’s, but at the same time, a world away from Tam. “I need some money.”

“Okay.” I’m already searching for the bag I dumped somewhere before Tam steered me upstairs. “I have some cash.”

Sab stops me. “Bhodi, I don’t need a tenner. I need a lot of money and I need it today.”

“You were going to borrow it off Tam?”

“I don’t know if he’ll have it, but I was going to ask.”

“So ask him.”

“I can’t.” Sab scrubs a hand down his face. “I know Tam—how he gets when he’s this tired. He’s not with it enough to make that kind of decision, and that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

I absorb that, and guilt does a number on me again. But I’m familiar enough with the progression of acute fatigue to know it’s brought on by more than one sleepless night of stress and worry. That Tam’s been working every hour under the sun to finish his orders by Christmas.

And that I’m a hundred percent going to help his brother. “How much do you need?”

The power comes back on midafternoon. By then, I’m a few grand lighter and aware it’s the day before Christmas Eve.

“I don’t know when you’ll get it back.”

I push Sab out the door. “It doesn’t matter. Go get your daughter. ”

The lights on Tam’s Christmas tree glow warm and white. They sway a little in the slight breeze from his ancient windows, casting jumpy little sparks on the walls, and I stare at them for ages. Hours, maybe, until movement upstairs nudges me out of my daze.

I hear footsteps and the whine of the ancient pipes funnelling water around Tam’s house.

Then he shuffles downstairs and blinks. “Is this a fucking dream?”

I’m standing by the Christmas tree, wearing his sweats and no shirt, the scent of the only food I could find to cook—chicken and bacon—filtering from the kitchen. “Depends if it’s a good dream or not.”

Tam steps forward, but he’s forced to stop as he winces and rubs his back.

I go to him.

He winds his arms around me, smelling of cinnamon and toothpaste. “Bhodi, any dreams that involve you are the best I’ve ever had.”

I don’t realise how much I need to hear that until his words hit me like a wrecking ball, punching the air from my lungs and burning my eyes.

Tam pushes my chin up with his knuckles. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I loved you sooner. It kills me that you spent even a fucking minute thinking everything between us was anything less than it is.”

“I didn’t tell you I loved you either.” I pull him a little closer and notice the bite mark I’ve left on his collarbone. “I had it in my head it was the last thing you’d want to hear and you’d run a mile.”

Honest empathy flares in Tam’s dark gaze. “Maybe I would have in the beginning, but I’d have come back. This…” He presses his palm to his heart and then mine. “…it would’ve caught up with me eventually. You can’t hide from something that burns this bright.”

“Say that in French.”

He obliges.

I think.

In truth he could be saying anything, but as he breaks off to yawn, I know it doesn’t matter. That whatever he’s saying, it’s the truth, and from Tam, it always will be.

He’s still exhausted. I remember what he told me about the fatigue he’s sometimes plagued with, and combined with Sab’s prophecy, I don’t want him on his feet or wasting energy worrying about my self-esteem.

I steer him to the couch and sit him down. I bring him hot food and sweet tea. No cakes, though. He’s eaten them all.

Tam inhales everything I put in front of him. Then he dumps his head in my lap and drowses in front of an animated film he calls L'Enfant au grelot until I remember the phones I put on charge when the power came back on.

I pass him his and turn mine on. Messages and missed calls light up the screen. Some are from work, but most are Tam, and the concern he had for me heightens with every notification I click through.

Love warms my chest again. I lean down to kiss him.

He kisses me back, then pulls back, tilting his head. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” I shake my head. “I’m just not used to someone noticing I’m not home.”

“I noticed.”

“I know. ”

We share a moment. Then Tam goes back to his own phone, frowning as he swipes through whatever he’s missed while the power was out.

I open a message from my boss, but Tam’s rising stress distracts me from taking it in. “What’s wrong?”

His frown deepens. “Was Sab here?”

“This morning. He was worried he couldn’t get hold of you—oh, and he needed some money to pay a family law specialist. Sorry, it slipped my mind.”

Tam starts to get up.

I stay him. “It’s okay. I gave it to him and he said he’d call you later.”

“You—what?” Tam blinks hard. “You gave him money?”

“Uh. Yeah. He seemed pretty desperate, and I had it in my savings so…wait. You don’t think he needed it for?—”

Tam shakes his head. “Fuck, no. Even at his worst, he’d never have done that. It’s just—fuck. How much was it?”

I name the figure.

Tam’s eyes widen. “Shit.”

“What?”

“I don’t have that much to pay you back.”

“You don’t need to pay me back. I loaned it to him, not you.”

“You loaned it to him for me. Because I wasn’t there when I should’ve been.”

“You were asleep,” I counter. “Because you’d been up for days looking for me, then fucking my brains out. And honestly, I don’t care if I never see that money again. What he needed it for is more important than just about anything.”

Tam surges upright without warning.

I find myself on my back, his weight pinning me down in an almost perfect reenactment of how he fucked me last night—yesterday, whenever it was.

He grips my throat and kisses me. “I fucking love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Yeah?”

I flex my hips, on instinct more than anything else, and I’ve learned the hard way that how I feel about someone has nothing to do with how horny they make me. But with Tam, everything’s different— I’m different, and my physical reaction to him means as much as anything I could say.

He feels it too, and it’s a while before we come up for air.

I’m naked and sweaty again by the time I remember the work message on my phone.

I read it while Tam lets Rudy out, my mind still half on how well Tam fucks me, and how lucky I am that I got to find my unicorn lover. It takes a second to compute the words on the screen. Then I’m distracted by Tam coming back and my brain reroutes to fucking. Because he’s still naked, and so am I. “You know, for someone who doesn’t top, you’re amazingly good at it.”

Tam grins and sinks onto the couch beside me. “I said I bottomed most often, not that I never topped. And you kinda sprang your mad skills on me too. I had a lot to live up to.”

I start to scoff, but Tam slaps a hand over my mouth, and he keeps it there until whatever the devil on my shoulder was about to say is gone.

While he’s at it, he peers at my phone screen, reading the email from the nurse manager at the hospital. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Yup. No work until January.”

He nods, frowning like he does sometimes just because his face falls that way, but I’m still extra enough to read too much into it.

“What? What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking…” Tam tugs me into his lap, already half hard again. “…that I couldn’t love you more, but I’m going to try, and that I can’t fucking wait to spend Christmas with you.”