“We do,” I agreed with a sly look his way. “And we’re damn good at it.”
Laurent’s lips quirked. “You’re not bad. For a straight man.”
I veered his way, but Laurent was too quick. His sudden spurt of speed, pulled enough of a lead that, try as I might, it proved impossible to catch him, Laurent staying, deliberately and annoyingly, a few meters ahead. Because I couldn’t catch him physically, I had to use cunning instead. Pretend to twist my ankle? Nope. Laurent would call my bluff and keep running. “Did I tell you I heard some news about Katrina the other day?”
Laurent slowed so abruptly, I almost ran into the back of him. “You did not.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“She’s been seeing a therapist. Apparently, once she thought about things, she recognized that some of her actions with me were a little out of the ordinary.”
“That’s good news.”
“It is,” I agreed. “Better than hoping that it was just me that brought out the crazy in her.”
Laurent came to a stop, resting his hands on his thighs and peering up at me through his fringe. “I can certainly understand you bringing out the crazy in a person.”
I gave him a mock glare. “It’s a good job I like you in shorts.”
“I thought you preferred me out of shorts.”
“In them. Out of them.” I pulled him in for a sweaty side hug that culminated in a kiss on the top of his head. “I like you any way I can get you.”
“Like?”
“Love,” I corrected with a slight eye roll. “You’re so needy!” When Laurent laughed, I smiled. “Now… speaking of crazy… have you run all the bad juju out of you? Or am I going to be subjected to another round of scrub things until there’s nothing left of them?”
“I’m just worried about what my father’s got to say.”
“I know. Next time, maybe you could admit that instead of acting like a man possessed.”
“Maybe I could.”
It was as good as I was going to get from Laurent, so I left it at that.
Showered and dressed in much smarter clothes, we arrived at Craig’s building five minutes before our designated meeting time. “Breathe,” I reminded Laurent. “Whatever it is, we’ll handle it together.” He didn’t respond verbally, but the squeeze he gave my hand said everything it needed to about his gratitude.
Craig buzzed us up when we pressed the intercom, Laurent forgoing the lift in favor of the stairs, the run only seeming to have energized him while it had damn near killed me. Perhaps I should start going regularly with him, if only to build my endurance more. Letting him be so much better than me at something just wasn’t in my DNA.
After we entered the flat and exchanged greetings, Laurent disappeared for a covert walkaround while I made small talk with Craig. I knew what he was looking for. Bottles. Signs of things being missing that he might have sold. General neglect that showed his father’s priorities had become skewed once more.
Laurent might have thought he was being clever, but it took Craig less than a minute to work out what he was doing. “I haven’t had a drink,” he called through to his son in the kitchen. “Not since before I went to rehab.”
Laurent appeared in the doorway, his expression so carefully non-judgmental that it made my chest ache. “No?”
Craig shook his head. “I’m not going to pretend it’s easy. It’s not. But they’ve taught me to take it one day at a time and consider each day I remain sober a victory.”
“Sound advice,” I commented. “That’s all any of us can ever do. Take it one day at a time.”
“I enjoy having a home,” Craig continued. “It’s not a palace, but it’s mine. It’s just me rather than people coming and going at all hours. I enjoy having a job.” Craig had found work in a bakery, the owner sympathetic to the sizable gap in his CV due to having a brother who’d also had issues with alcohol. “And I enjoy having a better relationship with you. As soon as I drink again, that’s all gone. I know that. I’ve written it all down, and I read it back to myself whenever I get the itch for ‘just one drink.’ Because you and I both know that it wouldn’t be one, and that my brain is just trying to trick me.”
Laurent left the kitchen and joined us in the living room. “So if it’s not about drinking, why did you need to talk to me?”
Craig waved a hand at the sofa. “Can you sit?”
Laurent did, but didn’t look remotely comfortable. Neither did Craig. They’d never looked more similar than they did now, both of them visibly nervous.
