Despite that, Robin looked over to him. “Like us?”
Lucas didn’t really tease. But he’d never said it before.
Neither had Robin, not to Lucas, anyway.
“I assumed it was that Chester can be unpleasant,” Robin joked, once again failing to be funny. “If he hadn’t been so important, I don’t think they would have cared as much. But he,” and eventually Will, “ruined their plans with nothing more than hearts worn on sleeves. An unforgivable crime, to some of them.” The rest were just easily cowed, perhaps. “It was hard to witness, even as a kid, even at a distance.”
The Blessing-Redferne survival strategy of not getting involved meant they hadn’t, other than Robin asking after Chester when buying ice cream. It might have made a difference if they had, or they might have ended up outcasts too. But since they essentially had relied on themselves in the end, he didn’t think it mattered.
“Is that why you don’t date, Blessing?”
Robin looked up sharply into an eye that saw too much.
“I’m not Chester Sibley,” he answered, then tried a smile. “Who has the time? Not me. Not for years.” He swallowed. “They knew, though. My family. I told them when I was sixteen. I think I told them because of what the coven did. I wanted them to know.”
“And were you still their little Blessing?” Lucas asked, but only to make Robin admit it.
Robin’s smile softened into something genuine. “Yeah. Anyway,” he dismissively waved a hand again because Lucas would know he didn’t mean it, “if you learn the history of my family, you’ll find out that half the time the old ones had to flee a country, it was for charges that had nothing to do with witchcraft. Anyway, the real question is: why don’t you?”
He stared, startled at himself for asking, hoping he hadn’t made it awkward. “They, um, a lot of themlookat you, but it’s a mix of awe and fear and desire for, whatever they call it, your potential future daddiness.”
The silence had returned, and with it, Robin’s need to keep talking.
“In ten years or so, you should grow a beard, and maybe let your hair get long as well. Leave the grays in. Then you’ll have to fight them off.”
He wasn’t lying.
Robin realized he was scowling and sank down in his seat until the seatbelt was at his neck.Sentenced to hanging for witchcraft, sodomy, and impure thoughts, he decided, and stared at the dashboard instead of at a very quiet Lucas.
“I think I need a nap,” he commented at last.
Lucas studied him for another moment, but then, thankfully, put the truck into gear to take them home.
Seven
Robin was embarrassed by the realization that he really did need to take a nap, discovering it only after trying to help Lucas put the groceries away, when he sat on the couch and woke up to Lucas coming into the living room with a food tray for meals served in bed. Lucas must have dug the tray out of one of the closets.
Robin sat up with as much coordination as he currently had, then held still as Lucas arranged the tray over his lap without asking if Robin was hungry.
He was, his stomach growling to embarrass him again at the sight and smell of the vegetable pot pie and side of roasted sweet potatoes and figs. The cup on the tray, his favorite, was filled with what must be more of Athenais’ work. Lucas thought Robin needed it. He probably did.
But Robin’s attention quickly went elsewhere. He reached out to take Lucas’ wrist, then snatched his hand back when he caught himself doing it. He looked up. “Your nail polish is gone.”
He should have made it a polite question, but he’d just woken up from a deep sleep and his thinking was foggy.
Lucas was back in sweatpants. He glanced down to his hands and his bare nails. “You put remover on the list.” He looked up, not quite frowning, but hardly smiling.
“Yeah.” Robin was irritable, sleepy, and confused. “Because yours was chipping and I thought you might want to fix it, or reapply, or change the color.” He did the frowning for both ofthem. “Did you think I was offended or something?” He frowned even harder. “That’s not reason enough to take it off.”
“Itwaschipping,” Lucas explained, slowly straightening up and leaving Robin to tilt his head back. “Persephone has expensive tastes and her polish lasts a long time, but it still chips.”
That was an entirely different point. Robin tried to follow. “So you’ve painted them before?”
Lucas’ expression was briefly shifty, which was so unusual for him that Robin let himself openly stare. “Persephone did it, originally. She was upset and bored and wanted a “Girl’s Night” but Gwynn and my mother are not into that sort of thing, and none of the cousins or other family were around.”
“And you were….” Robin still didn’t know what label, if any, Lucas preferred and decided it wasn’t his place to ask, even if he didn’t think the gay or questioning or bi male relative should be the default ‘girl’ replacement. “Available?”
“It’s an interesting process.” Lucas brightened. “All the steps involved that can seem frivolous make sense if you want a smooth layer of paint that will last, and for your hands and cuticles to not dry out. Dry skin tears easily, so you want to prevent that. A manicure is about maintenance and health. The colors are for fun and self-expression.”
