Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

L eo was sitting in the tea room at work, eating pre-made chicken casserole that he no longer wanted but was stuck eating for two more days this week because meal planning sucked, when his phone rang. He didn't recognise the number on the screen but he answered regardless, because Darren had said he'd call him with a date for the renovations to start before the end of the week, and it was already Thursday. It wasn't Darren on the phone, though.

It was Harry.

"Are you selling the house and kicking us out?" he demanded, slightly out of breath.

"What? No, why?"

Harry's voice had an edge of panic to it when he said, "Well why is there a real estate guy here demanding to be shown through the property and saying the owner sent him and it's going on the market?"

" What? " Leo sat bolt upright and dropped his fork into his lunchbox, heedless of the gravy spatters that landed on his work shirt .

"There's a guy here who says he's listing the house for sale," Harry repeated.

Leo felt a lead ball forming in the pit of his stomach. "Is his name Gary?"

"I don't know. I shut the door in his face and told him he's breaching tenants' rights," Harry said. "He keeps knocking, though."

"Don't let him in. And I'm definitely not selling."

Harry's sigh of relief was audible. "I mean, you said you weren't but then he turned up, and I didn't know?—"

"Are any of the Davos there?" Leo interrupted and wondered when he'd picked up Tristan's habit of referring to his tradies as ‘the Davos'.

"Um, yeah. Geoff the floor guy's here." Leo nodded to himself. Geoff the floor guy was built like a prop forward for the Sydney Roosters but was also a nice guy. He was perfect.

"Okay, good. Get him to act as your bouncer and tell Gary to fuck off."

"I…I can't just say that!"

You can take the boy out of preschool, but apparently you can't take the preschool teacher out of the boy , Leo thought.

"Put Geoff on the phone, yeah?"

A few muffled sounds later, and Geoff said, "Leo?"

"Hey, yeah. Harry says there's a guy there? And he won't leave? He doesn't have my permission to be there. I can call the police but?—"

"Nah, I got it," Geoff said. Muffled sounds again, and Leo heard a distant bellow of, "Fuck right off or I'm coming down there!"

A moment later, Harry was back on the phone. "I think he's gone. Geoff is really, um, scary, actually. He was waving a piece of wood out the window and everything."

Leo made a mental note to pick up a slab of VB for Geoff. "I still don't have an official start date for the work, but do you and Jack want to move into the flat today? I don't want you guys getting hassled."

Harry was silent for a moment. "And you're not just saying that to get us out, right?"

"Not to sell the place, no!" Leo rubbed his forehead. "I'm not selling, I swear. Like, I can sign a Stat Dec or something if you want me to."

"Would that count?"

"I honestly have no idea. Would it make you feel better?"

"I don't know."

"I'm not trying to screw you over, but the only way I can prove it is, well, by not screwing you over. But if I was trying to get rid of you, would I be moving you into another one of my properties?"

"That makes sense, I guess," Harry said slowly. "But where did the real estate guy come from, then?"

Leo sighed. "My parents. They think if they keep pushing me to sell, I'll cave."

"But you won't, right?"

Leo couldn't even be mad at Harry for asking, not when he'd only just discovered he had a backbone himself. He knew what it was like to be in a constant losing battle with his insecurities and anxieties. And Harry had every reason to be nervous. If there was even a chance that Leo was intending on going back on his word, he—and Jack and Tris—would be screwed. "I won't cave. I've decided that I'm keeping the house and I'm keeping the shop, and my parents can go fuck themselves."

It felt surprisingly good to say it out loud.

"So, um, are you sure we can move into the flat today? Because I have a day off today, so I can pack, and if I call Jack he can probably scrounge a half-day, but you're still stuck at work and we don't have keys to the new place."

Leo pressed his fingertips to his temples. "I'll chuck a sickie and be there in an hour, okay? You'll call Jack and tell him what's happening?"

"Yeah." Harry still sounded worried—but then, Harry always sounded vaguely worried. "Thanks, Leo."

Leo ended the call. Being a landlord was stressful. Being a landlord with interfering fucking parents was even more stressful. He was definitely going to remember this moment when he turned up to Mum and Dad's bullshit political thing at the yacht club on Saturday. Because if he even had a moment where he second-guessed himself about whether or not he was doing the right thing, he needed to remember this .

He took a deep breath and opened his contacts.

Then chickened out and sent a text message to his parents instead.

Mum and Dad. I am not selling the house. If you try to send anyone over there again, I will call the police on them.

This time next week, he'd have put a bomb under his relationship with his parents and he had no idea what the fallout was going to look like, but he found that he didn't care.

It was an oddly comforting mental space to find himself in.

Tristan was a surprisingly efficient packer. Leo wasn't sure why, but he'd kind of expected Tris to shove everything into Coles bags and dump the contents in the middle of the living room. Instead, he pulled out an ugly set of matching luggage, folded and stacked everything with military precision, and was ready to go inside an hour.

"What?" he said. "You don't think I've ever packed for overseas holidays before?" He looked around the room with a satisfied nod. "The rest of the stuff can stay here till the Davos are done."

"I'm starting to think you really are a spy," Leo said, from where he was leaning in the doorway.

"What? Why?"

"Just…if you had this whole hidden life, it wouldn't surprise me, I guess. You have a matching luggage set. You ." He snorted. "Even if it is ugly plaid."

"Honey," Tris said, raising a brow, "it's Burberry ."

"Wait? What? Seriously? Like Burberry, or ‘I got it from a guy in the pub who said it fell off the back of a truck' Burberry?" He did the air quotes.

"It all looks the same," Tris drawled with a grin. He straightened up and stretched, pressing his palms on the backs of his hips and arching his spine in a way that made Leo want to throw him onto the bed and ravish him… or be ravished. "Anyway, how about you see if Jack and Harry are ready to go, while I raid the kitchen and make sure we're not leaving the Tim Tams behind?"

So no ravishing, then.

Leo sighed and went to check on Harry and Jack. Harry looked a bit like a forlorn orphan standing there next to his belongings, most of which were stuffed into Coles bags. Jack had several duffels and some cardboard boxes, and it looked like they were ready to go.

They loaded up the ute while Tristan ordered an Uber for him and Leo, and Jack followed them to the flat. Harry stood on the footpath looking up at the sign in the window that proclaimed Pleasure Party in foot-high hot pink letters, his cheeks almost as pink as the sign.

Leo felt a flash of recognition at his unease—hadn't he been exactly the same the first time he'd visited? He stepped forward and patted Harry on the shoulder. "It's not as scary as it looks, I promise. Come on." He led the way inside.

"It's not scary at all," Tristan insisted. "Everything here is fun stuff!" He grabbed a bottle of flavoured lube and chucked it at Harry. "Here, housewarming present."

Harry caught the tube instinctively and jammed it into the pocket of his jeans, his face flaming. "Can we just go upstairs?"

"Don't you want to look around?" Tristan asked. Leo knew that given half a chance, he'd be fitting Harry for a chest harness and discussing the best brand of anal plugs. Poor Harry might actually die of embarrassment right in front of the dildo display case.

Leo hastily pulled the keys out. "It's through here." He unlocked the door to the stairwell.

"Oi!"

They all turned as Wei glared at them from behind the counter. She stood there, chin tilted up, a geometric chunk of her hair dyed violently orange.

"I saw you steal that lube and give it to your friend, Tristan!" She pointed at Harry. "You, put that back."

Harry meeped. Leo was sure he was having visions of police, arrest and the end of his teaching career.

"It's fine!" Leo said. "I can pay!" He blinked. "Wait. I'm the owner . I don't actually need to pay."

Tristan gasped. "Oh! You don't! You can take anything in the shop! There's this vibrator I really want to try and?—"

"I don't want the lube!" Harry exclaimed. He held it out with trembling fingers, and Leo took it. "I don't need a housewarming present. Thank you, Tris. And Leo." He pushed his glasses up his nose and squinted at the tube. "What does ‘warming and tingling' mean?"

"Wei, this is Harry and Jack," Leo said, handing the lube back to Tristan to reshelve. "They're going to be living in the flat for a while. Harry and Jack, this is Wei. She's the manager."

"I've met Jack before," Wei said.

Harry's eyes went round.

"I bought your teddy bear here," Jack said, a smile tugging up the corners of his mouth.

"Oh!" Harry brightened. "They have teddy bears?"

"Why don't we go and look at the flat first?" Leo suggested and ushered everyone up the stairs.

He wondered if between Tristan and his ambition to try everything in the shop, and Harry and his love of teddy bears, the place would be bankrupt in a month. Then he decided that was an overreaction. Neither of them would get past Wei.

He pushed open the door at the top of the stairs. "Here it is."

When he got his first glimpse inside the flat, Harry stopped dead. "This is nice," Harry said, a note of wonder in his voice. "Like, really nice."

"I told you," Tristan said as he leaned over and ruffled Harry's hair affectionately. "I said it was nice and that Leo would take care of you."

"Yeah, you did," Harry admitted, stepping farther into the flat and wandering around the living area, taking everything in.

"Let me give you the tour," Leo said. Harry and Jack followed him around as he pointed out the bedroom, bathroom and tiny second not-a-bedroom. "It's only small. "

"But there's no black mould or dodgy floorboards," Jack pointed out. "It's great."

"And the rent's really not any more than the other place?" Harry asked, because Harry and his insecurities came as a package deal.

"It's actually a bit less," Leo said, "since you've had to go to the trouble of moving."

Harry beamed at him. Jack threw Leo a grateful smile and took Harry's hand and tugged him downstairs. "Come on. Let's get our stuff."

Tristan wrapped an arm around Leo's waist and pressed a kiss to his temple before saying "I don't know how to break it to you, but you're failing as a slumlord. You're far too decent."

"I don't mind," Leo said, leaning into the embrace. "Did you see how happy they were?"

"Mmm. Shall we help them unload? The sooner we're done here, the sooner we can go back to your place."

The thought of Tristan being at his flat and waking up next to him every morning filled Leo with joyous anticipation.

" Our place, you mean," he corrected. Sure, it was a temporary arrangement, but Leo could pretend it was more, right? Tristan rewarded him with one of his dazzling smiles. Then he turned and cupped Leo's face in his hands and drew him into a kiss that lasted right until they were interrupted by Jack and Harry clattering back up the stairs with their arms full of boxes.

"Is there a back door?" Harry asked. "This place is great, but I don't want my preschoolers' parents seeing me leaving a sex shop."

"Yeah, I'll show you the side door." Leo suspected that Harry also didn't want to walk past shelves full of dildoes and vibrators on his way to and from work each day. He got it. Hell, a few weeks ago he would have worried about it, too, and he didn't have parents and the moral outrage to worry about. Well, except his own parents. They had plenty of moral outrage to go around. And he and Tristan were going to give it a real workout at the yacht club.

That thread of rebellion that had been twisted around in Leo's stomach since Uncle Jimmy's funeral? It was a core of steel now.

Or at least it would be, with Tristan by his side.