Chapter 292
“I guess I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he murmured. “It’s been so long since we’ve been just fine. We’ve been working at this so long…I don’t know. I feel a bit like it can’t last.”
“We’re fine now and we’ll be fine for a while yet,” Darren said and smirked. “Especially given that, as of yesterday, my sex drive did a Jesus and was resurrected.”
Jayden laughed, the sound harsh and unexpected, and squeezed Darren’s foot between his own on the carpet, tangling them up. “Yeah?”
“Yep. But you’d gone off to work, so I had to take care of the problem on my own.”
“What a hardship for you.”
“By definition, yes, yes it was.”
Jayden smiled fondly, propping his head on his fist. “We-ell,” he said. “I still have vouchers, and you said Ethan’s putting us up in that hotel they’re getting married in, so…”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Mm, maybe,” Jayden said and smiled wider. “I…I can’t say I’m not pleased, you know. I mean, it didn’t matter, not like it mattered that you’ve been so upset and irritable and distant, because it’s just sex, and…”
“Yeah, but it’s not, is it,” Darren said quietly. “It’s you and me.”
“Sometimes. You attacking me in the shower the other week, that was just sex.”
“That was a handjob, not proper sex, and it wasn’t just a handjob for me, even if it was for you, you whore.”
Jayden pinched his elbow; Darren retracted it, smirking. “You really are getting better,” Jayden said, then smiled. “Okay, sometimes it is more than just sex but…kind of pretty sure that you in a suit and playing the piano and all dressed up…that’s going to be just sex.”
“Good. I feel like a bit of just sex.”
Darren scraped the plate clean and dropped it into the sink to be washed in the morning—or rather, later that morning, at a human hour. He held out a hand to Jayden. “Come on,” he said. “TV in bed. Maybe a bit of just sex.”
“You’re tired, and I have work.”
“I did say maybe.”
Jayden took the offered hand, tracing every muscle and callus and familiar line, and kissed the knuckles before tugging Darren towards the stairs.
Lying together in bed like spoons in a drawer with the news playing quietly in the background and Darren’s mouth pressing damp, barely-there patterns into his shoulders, the laxness in his body at Jayden’s back suggesting he would asleep within the next ten minutes, Jayden chased the last of the nightmare’s dregs away, and squeezed Darren’s hands on his stomach, wishing that this moment could be their forever.
Hoping that the pregabalin would work forever, even as he knew it wouldn’t.
* * * *
The wind was up, and Jayden huddled into his coat as it tore icy fingers through his hair. He felt jittery and miserable and wanted to go to London too or not let Darren go at all. Despite Darren’s best efforts, Jayden had slept badly, the nightmare half-returning a half-dozen times and waking him to wrap himself around Darren and check his arms for the thousandth time, and now he just felt…crap.
“Okay.” Darren plucked his tickets out of the machine and paced across the concourse towards the barriers. “You’re coming for eleven on Saturday?”
“Yeah.”
Darren stopped. “What’s up.” It wasn’t really a question.
“Nothing.”
“Pull the other one.”
Jayden shifted and sighed. “I’m just…on edge a little bit.”
“Stop worrying,” Darren said, unusually gently.
“I can’t,” Jayden said flatly. “You’ve been doing so much better that I…I guess I’m waiting for the drop too. And I’m worried this wedding is going to be the drop and I’m not going to be there.”
“It’s three days,” Darren said. “You get to relax and not have to triple-check every lock in the house, I get to pretend I’m normal for a while. We’ll both feel better for it.”
“I mean more…” Jayden worried at his bottom lip. “More maybe that…that you know, Ethan’s going to be married. It’s not going to be lads’ days out at the coast anymore, or…or the pub at Christmas, or camping trips for Paul’s birthday because he hates it…it’ll change. And I guess I’m worried that the change will…unsettle you. And break this good streak, or something.”
Darren simply watched him, those pale green eyes sharp and calculating behind his glasses. Every now and then, he still looked so brilliant that it took Jayden’s breath away, and his throat caught fractionally for a brief second.
“I want you to always be better, or at least nothing like as bad as you were, and I’m worried this wedding isn’t going to help,” he said finally.