Chapter 77
Eli knew the warning signs, and backed up just in time to avoid getting the world-record-setting yawn right in the face.
“S’rry.”
Eli laughed quietly and kissed him anyway.
“Quit your job, move in with me, go to art college,” Rob mumbled, eyes flickering once before closing again. “S’easy.”
Eli bit his lip. “Is it? I mean, we’d still fight. My parents would go mental. There’d be—”
The mattress tipped, the sheets rustled, and then Rob’s warm body was pressing Eli down into the bed, heavy and unmoveable, those eyes boring into his own like they were pulling his soul out of his head. Eli’s breath caught, his hands stuck halfway up to touch Rob’s hair, and he lay in the gaze like a mouse paralysed by the stare of a very hungry cat.
“It’s easy,” Rob repeated, his voice a low rasp.
Despite how he’d been woken—raw desire began to burn at Eli’s stomach and crotch again.
“You got stuck after school in that crap job and living at home. Maybe it’s time to tell those fuckers at school to stop holding you back and get on with it.”
Eli hardly dared to breathe, dragged into the near-white burn of Rob’s eyes like he was falling to his spellbound death, surrounded by that deep, unshakeable voice.
“Sign up for art college. Move out of your parents’ place—either in here, or I can help you find a place for just you—and start moving on. You’re not the kid you were.”
Eli swallowed.
“And if you came here, I’d like it. Some days I think you’d like it, too. An’ I can support you through art college if you need it, jus’ like your other stuff. Don’t overthink it, Eli. Just do something, yeah? Just jump, for once.”
Eli’s chest shuddered as he tried to inhale, and nearly failed.
“I—” he began, then the words failed him, and he had to give Rob a wobbly smile. “You’re going to have to clear out some of the bathroom cabinet for me. And the dresser. And…and this’d be my room, too, so those ugly green sheets have to go.”
For a brief second Rob’s face didn’t so much as flicker. Then—like the sun bursting through heavy clouds, like the dash instruments lighting in the dark on a car that coughed its way to life rather than simply started—he smiled. And not just smiled-smiled, but beamed. He smiled the way he’d smiled in Scotland, the gleeful grin that make him suddenly look like Danny, and look as young as he really was, not the thirty his scowl and heavy posture could hint at.
Eli dragged him down by the hair for a fierce kiss, tongues and morning breath clashing almost violently under the weight of a sudden surge of raw desire and feral excitement. Something solidified with Eli’s own words and Rob’s happiness, as real as if he’d signed a rental contract. He suddenly itched anew with the need to touch and be touched, the need to hook Rob in the way he knew best.
He didn’t say, “Okay, I’ll move in,” until Rob’s fingers were stroking his inner thighs again. And then Rob’s mouth pressed open, wet kisses down Eli’s chest and waist, and Eli groaned the final word, the in, as Rob’s tongue found the heavy pulse of his need, and pushed…
Eli pushed his wrist against his mouth to stifle the cry as Rob put his mouth to its best use, and thought—wildly, almost deliriously—that this was not going to go down well at home.
* * * *
“You’re what?” Dad bellowed.
Eli rolled his eyes, thankful that his back was turned, and continued to pack the contents of his drawing desk into a box. He would have to commandeer the desk in Rob’s room properly—it wasn’t like Rob used it for anything other than an oversized shelf after all. The man didn’t even have a laptop.
“I’m moving out,” Eli repeated.
“Moving out. Moving out. Yes. Well. And where do you think you’re going to go?” Dad blustered.
“I found a nice two-bed flat that I’ll be sharing with two other guys,” Eli said flippantly, and shut the box. He added it to the admittedly small-so-far pile, and dragged another empty box over to start emptying the drawers in the bedside table.
“Hawkes.”
“Yep.”
“You’re moving in with Hawkes.”
“His first name is Rob, and it’s really rude of you not to use it,” Eli retorted. He didn’t pause or look round at his father, knowing that if he did, he’d explode. And wasn’t that exactly what he’d punished Rob for doing before Christmas? “And yes, I’m moving in with him. He asked—twice now, actually—and we talked about it. So yes, I’m going to move in with Rob and get myself a better job than the one at the shop, and in September I’m going to go to art college.”
“And just what are you going to do with an art degree?”
“I don’t know yet,” Eli said peacefully. “But I’ll enjoy doing it, and it’ll open up a lot of opportunities. And Rob’s being very supportive of the idea.”
“Oh yes, and how is Rob going to support you? And why is Rob supporting you—what are you giving him in exchange for—”
“If you finish that sentence, I will walk out of here right now, ditch all my things, and I will never fucking come back,” Eli interrupted icily.