But Nix lets himself be distracted when he moves in to give Leo a kiss that’s softer than a butterfly’s wings.
“They’re the best parents. Good people, too.”
Leo pulls Nix in for a hug, feels rather than hears him hum his agreement against his shoulder.
“Hey, I promised to show you my old room. Then the kittens. Okay?”
“Room. Then kittens. Gotcha. Lead the way.”
Nix squeezes Leo’s biceps instead of taking his hand as they use the back stairs instead of the grand staircase in the foyer, and they’re in his childhood bedroom in no time.
Despite the outward trappings of the grand mansion, Leo has been raised to be humble. He knows it’s weird coming from a rockstar who had wealth his entire life, but neither of his moms had come from money, and they made sure he and Maria did their household chores. They learned to keep their rooms clean and to give time to others.
Even though Leo can only drop eggs and not boil them, he can sort whites from colors and do laundry like no one’s business.
Leo’s had always dreamed of making music, even if his dad and momshadn’t wanted that for him. They both knew how a life in the public eye could wear on a person.
The soccer trophies and Math-a-Lete ribbons are testaments to the many non-music-related things he’d been encouraged to try, with hopes he’d change his mind. He hadn’t—because it had always been music—it had always been performing.
Finding his mates had proven that to him, if nothing else. It was fate, and LRH was the culmination of a lifetime of knowing where he was destined to be and who he was meant to do it with.
He knew how lucky he was that, even if they hadn’t approved, there had always been a parent at every single one of his sporting or academic events, no matter how busy they’d been. Even when he’d pursued a life in music with Luca and then Jay and Rowan, they’d been there, too. His mom, Lauren, in an LRH t-shirt at their concert of 30,000 fans, is something he’ll never forget.
When he opens the door, Leo is flooded with embarrassment at the state of his teenage room. It’s like he’s invited the hottest boy in school to his room, hoping he thinks Leo’s hobbies are cool.
There are band posters among the ones of hot actors, long passed into middle age, on the walls, and there’s his favorite stuffed animal—an old green bear with a threadbare tummy—on the table by his bed. He thinks about hidingDarrenbefore Nix can comment.
“You were a sports star? And good at math? Figures. Smart and hot.” Nix runs his finger over a faded green ribbon. “I hated math. I had such a hard time at college, but I needed it for nursing…”
Nix stops, frozen in front of some photos on the shelf of him and his school friends. His scent turns to burnt sugar.
What can Leo say? That he’s sorry for his lost dreams, ground to dust by a psychopath bent on Jay’s destruction?
Leo’s worry over Darren is nothing compared to that. Not at all.
“I didn’t like it much, either. I was just good at it. You okay, Nix?”
Leo puts his arm around his thin shoulders and squeezes. He wants to tell him he can do anything he wants now—be anything he wants.
But how can he?
Leo isn’t an idiot. Nix has a lot of healing to do before he can even think about any of that.
“I’m okay. Honestly.”
His words say one thing, but his scent and pale face say another. Leo wishes his mate didn’t always feel he had to placate them or hide his emotions. Maybe someday he’ll be able to entrust them to Leo—because he wants to know all of him.
“It’s okay if you’re not okay.”
Leo doesn’t know what else to say, and any shared story he’s got will come up sounding ridiculous. What has Leo endured or lost in his life that compares?
Nothing.
They are two sides of the same coin. Leo lived the life Nix could have had, and anything he says would just sound stupid.
But comfort and love—he could give those. Empathy doesn’t need shared experience; it just has to come from the heart. And Leo has a fuckton of that to give.
“Come, lie with me. I’m tired.”
