“What?! This is a tragedy. While we get dressed, I will play yousome of our biggest hits.”
Luca gasps at the sudden scent of hot vanilla slick, and he gently sits up so he can roll Nix to his side with a rueful smile.
“Baby, you gotta stop. I almost forgot that I’m supposed to be good, and you do not make it easy.”
“Oh.” That feeling of rejection from earlier—with Gideon, Finn, and then Grayson—creeps back and slithers down his spine with an unpleasant heat.
His thoughts from before rear their ugly heads; feeling unwanted and unloved and ashamed all come flooding back, threatening to overwhelm the ground he’d gained through Grayson’s kind care.
“Whoa! No. Hey. Nix.”
Luca tips his chin up, and Nix wants to close his eyes to get away.
“Look at me, please. There you are.”
Shame burns hot, making Nix sweat. “It’s okay. Something’s been weird with me since yesterday.” Nix hopes Luca can’t smell his shame.
Luca’s nostrils flare, and his eyes narrow for a second, but his expression evens out quickly as he replaces it with a small, concerned smile.
“What do you mean ‘weird ’? Are you not feeling well?”
“I’m fine. Really. Just that…um…it makes me feeloffwhen you guys don’t want me. Did I do something wrong? Gray said it’s not me…but then…Gideon in the gym, Finn outside earlier, and now you. Feels….sort of…bad”
Nix cannot find the words beyond that, so he shakes his head. He’s already laid some of it out with Grayson, but not the worst of it.
He’s tackled back onto the bed, and this time, it’s Luca on his tummy.
“Shit, Gray said you were worked up when he texted, but…did you say this to him?”
Nix shakes his head.
“Okay. First, let’s have a snack while we talk, okay?”
He hands Nix a bowl of crackers and cheese and a juice box he’d probably placed on the bedside table when he’d arrived.
Ravenous, he eats the whole bowl of crackers and cheese before he realizes Luca doesn’t have his own bowl and is instead just watching him, mouthopen a bit and eyes wide.
He’s in the process of offering the last piece of cheese to Tsuki, who gobbles it down in much the same way, when he thinks to ask, “Uh…was this for you, too?”
Yikes.
He was starving; he hadn’t noticed because he’d gotten so used to blocking it out.
Luca shakes his head. “Nope. You go ahead. You were hungry, eh?”
“Mmhmm. Was good. Thank you. Makes me feel better.”
Maybe Nix had been a little bithangry.
He hopes the food in his belly will make whatever Luca has to say easier to hear.
“Go ahead, please. Tell me whatever it is you need to say. I can take it.”
Luca puts the empty bowl on the table beside the bed and takes Nix’s hands.
“You can take it? Nix. It’s nothing bad. I promise.”
He squeezes Nix’s fingers gently.
