“The guest bedroom is fine,” Lucas insisted, only to hesitate again. “I’ve slept in different places before and she’s been all right. She enjoys a hotel balcony when I travel. In fact, that’s where she met her mate. I woke up one morning and there were two of them. They’ve been inseparable since.”
“Well, I haven’t set up the guest room for you yet. If you want to change rooms, you can.” Robin should have taken care of the guest room hours ago. “I forgot to air it out,” Robin admitted on a sorrowful sigh. “I’m a terrible host. If my relatives could see me, they’d be wondering who raised me.”
“No, they wouldn’t.” But Lucas got up, taking his book with him. “I’ll take care of that now, then probably go to bed.”
Robin didn’t think it was that late, but of course, Lucas had spent several days and nights keeping an eye on him, and couldn’t have gotten much sleep if he’d been in that chair the whole time.
He could at leastlooktired, Robin thought with fleeting resentment, but naturally, Lucas continued to look sturdy and untouchable.
“Do you remember how the windows latch?” Robin fretted. “The latches are old-fashioned so it can be tricky. And if you forgot any toiletries, toothpaste and everything are in the upstairs bathroom. I mean, of course they are. The extra packages. Not the open tube, which is still down here. Um. Will you be up early?”
Lucas was smiling now, a real smile, and one so soft it put qiviut to shame. Robin didn’t see what had brought that into being but he wasn’t foolish enough to look away and miss a second of it.
“Tomorrow night, after some rest, I can stay up with you if you like.” Lucas snuck something into that statement too.
Robin chose to ignore it, whatever it was, especially if it was the implication that he was trying to keep Lucas down here with him, which he was not, because that was lovely but impossible and he had just told himself that before dinner.
“Always ‘if you like’ but never whatyou’dlike,” Robin grumbled. “My grandmother’s bed is propped up. The guest bedroom mattress is softer. You’ll probably like that more.”
“Blessing,” Lucas continued to be impossible, “you don’t need to worry. Give me some spare blankets and I’ll be fine.”
“Hmph.” Robin couldn’t even be angry since Lucas had an uncomfortable night ahead of him even with the better mattress.“I should have aired some bedding too. Nimue’s balls—sorry,” he said in response to Lucas’ raised eyebrow. “My grandfather was fond of colorful phrases. Um. Any of the closets in any of the bedrooms should have spare blankets. And if you want heat, just open a vent… although that might need to air out a bit too. The bedding should at least all have been packed away with lavender, which should help. But if I’m wrong about that, just take the blankets off the chair in my room. You remember my room? Where it is, I mean?”
Lucas had never been in Robin’s room, not even for any innocent reasons.
“I think so,” Lucas replied slowly, taking a long look at the living room and then Robin. It didn’t occur to Robin that Lucas was waiting to see if Robin wanted to sleep in his own room and if he would need help to get there until Lucas dropped his shoulders and went to the fireplace to put another log on the fire. He’d brought oak, slow-burning and solid.
“I’ll be okay here,” Robin assured him stiltedly. He’d been sleeping down here so long that going upstairs to his actual bed hadn’t crossed his mind and Lucas must have seen that. But Robin couldn’t do it now without making it a bigger deal than it should be. Anyway, hewouldbe okay here.
“Then good night.” The wish also held a question which Robin chose to ignore.
“Good night,” he wished Lucas in return, and watched Lucas slowly leave the room, then listened to him stop in the kitchen to turn off the light or check the door or whatever he was doing.
Robin waited until he heard Lucas start up the stairs before he put his head in his hands. “You are unwell, and you are tired, and you are very lonely,” Robin told himself sternly but quietly. “Youare not seventeen. You are not going to make this weirder than it already is.”
The fact that it wasn’t all that weird to have Lucas in the kitchen or reading in the chair opposite Robin while Robin knitted on the couch was something Robin wasn’t going to think about. He’d just want it more.
It had been nice, though. Maybe conversation was less important than company. Even Robin’s nervous urge to talk when Lucas went silent had faded after a while. After all, with Lucas here until at least the solstice, they had time to talk about whatever they wanted, if they wanted to.
Now he sounded like Lucas.
Which maybe wasn’t a bad thing. Robin ought to try to take more care and be less pushy where Lucas was concerned. He should keep his distance, and be respectful and polite, and not do anything foolish that might give away hot blood or a reckless heart.
The fire burst to greater life behind him with a small roar and a flare of orange light.
Robin put the knitting aside so he could turn and see the flames safely behind the grate. The heat warmed his nose and then his cheeks. He cocked his head to the side, toward the door, looking for shapes and seeing none. Then he closed his eyes.
He held the name close and worried it between his teeth before letting it go. “Lucas Greysmith.”
Robin was going to be as obvious now as he had been then. If only Lucas wasn’t so nice to look at. If only he were a little less special.
Which, sadly, wasn’t how it all worked.
Robin opened his eyes and turned toward the doorway again. “Did you do this?” he asked the spirits, who sometimes did rather remarkable things for reasons he had never determined. But he already knew the answer. “Did he?”
His long-dead relatives were probably upstairs, fluttering in excitement around their new favorite person.
They were barely more than fragments of personalities and memory. All the same, Robin narrowed his eyes and pointed an accusing finger at the shadows. “You had better be as respectful of him as I hope you were last time he was here.”
