“Do not, under any circumstances, let Gem snuggle with you!”his instincts begged.
“Fuck you,”Rusty’s dick said when Gem immediately scooched across the mattress to cuddle into his side, pulling the covers over them both so they were hidden beneath them.
Sharing a pillow, Gem captured Rusty’s hands in his top ones as his lower arms curled over his waist and hips. They were so close Rusty could smell the sugar from Gem’s earlier soda on his breath, and their legs tangled together, Gem’s so much longer than his.
“This okay?” Gem checked in, knee sliding between Rusty’s thighs. Not close enough to his groin to be inappropriate but still intimate. Rusty didn’t think friends cuddled like this. Even with Gem’s proclivity for physical affection, he didn’t think this was normal, but his touch-starved heart soaked it in like a sponge.
“Yeah,” Rusty said weakly.
Gem snuggled impossibly closer, and Rusty’s belly swooped. “Okay. You can’t tell a soul about what I’m going to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious,” Gem insisted intensely. “Not anyone.”
Rusty chuffed a laugh. “Who would I tell? You’re my only friend.”
“That’s not true. Ollie’s your friend,” Gem corrected, his mouth pinching as he added, almost grudgingly, “and the Lepid.”
In Rusty’s mind, Enfys was barely a friend at all. They texted, and they’d met up for coffee once in Lust to fulfill the rain check. But beyond friendly chatting, that was the extent of their contact. Not that Rusty didn’t like her; he did. Honestly, he was surprised by how easy it was to feel comfortable with her, but he chalked it up to their shared backgrounds and the fact she genuinely wasn’t interested in fucking him. Unless he paid her, but they both knew that would never happen.
Since Enfys—or as Gem always labeled her, the Lepid—was a touchy subject, Rusty smoothly dismissed Gem’s claim. “I’m sure I’ll manage to keep it to myself.”
“Don’t be cute. This is serious,” Gem sniffed, and Rusty knocked their foreheads together briefly with a smirk.
“I won’t tell a soul. Now, stop leaving me in suspense.”
Gem’s two large eyes dropped to their twined hands as his jaw worked before he blurted out, “Glyma and Quin are expanding the cafe. They found a location in Greed. Tiny place. Standing room only. And they asked me to run it. Well, not just me, technically. Ollie’s coming too. But yeah, I’m gonna be a manager or some shit. Which is crazy and stupid and wonderful, but also really scary.”
Whoa, okay. That was… a lot.
“I get how that feels scary,” Rusty said carefully, stifling the sudden sinking feeling in his gut at the thought of Gem and Oliver leaving him behind. “But it’s a great opportunity for you. It’s amazing.”
Gem grimaced. “Is it?”
On some level, Rusty didn’t think so, but that was selfish. So he nodded and said, “Isn’t it?”
His only answer was a shrug of Gem’s shoulders.
Untangling one hand, Rusty slipped a claw under Gem’s chin and tilted his head up until he could study the Araknis’s expression. “Do you not want to manage the new location?”
“I mean, I won’t bemanaginganything. It’s only me and Ollie there,” Gem hedged.
“Do you want to?” Rusty repeated, gently digging the tip of his claw into Gem’s jaw.
“I do,” Gem whispered, worrying his bottom lip. “But it’s a lot of responsibility. What if I fuck it up?”
“You won’t,” Rusty said.
“I’m forgetful.”
“Not when it matters.”
“I get distracted.”
“Then you refocus.”
“I won’t see you every day,” Gem added, so quietly Rusty would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been staring down at his face.
