His arms lock around my waist and my eyes leap up to his. The smell of him surrounds me, greenery and flowers and spring, vibrancy and growth andlife.
“I love you, too,” I say.
Thio groans, bumping his nose against mine. “We’ll eat fast.”
“But, Thio,” my voice goes up, intentionally bratty, “proper digestion calls for a patient, deliberate consumption of—”
“Sebastian.”
I shiver at his tone.
“Yeah, okay,” I agree. “We’ll eat fast.”
I have Hordon take us to my apartment because I’m almost certain Arasne will be staked out at Thio’s. He checks his phone as we veer through the streets—at a much more sedate pace—and his screen is cluttered with missed calls from her, and texts, and voicemails.
Thio toys with his phone, his other hand looped around my thigh where I’ve got him pulled against me, my arm over his shoulders.
“I should call her,” he says against the hum of traffic.
“Why?” I put my hand over his phone and push it into his lap. “You’re still graduating. You can keep playing along like you have been—”
“No.” Thio sags into me, head against mine, eyes shut. “I’m done with them. That hasn’t changed. I can’t keep letting them think I’m okay with everything they are. Even if it means—” He shudders out an exhale. “I’ll have to move my mom. I’ll have to get a new place to live.”
Hordon had a barrier spell up before we’d gotten back in the car, which I mentally filed as unspoken permission; Thio’s energy was exhausted though, so I was more than content to have him in my arms.
But at the despondency in his words, I unfasten my seatbelt and straddle his lap, wanting to be the center of his focus and break through the dread swamping him. His eyes fly open and he grabs on to my hips, and there it is, a widening of his pupils, a repositioning of his awareness.
“This is what I meant, Thio,” I say, fingers sliding beneath the bun his hair’s in. “You’re not alone. I’ll help you research other places for your mom, somewhere affordable. Or—hell, I have a deep inner knowledge of how to make leftovers stretch multiple days, or how to navigate this city without a driver, or—” I shrug, cheeks hot. “I have a place to stay.”
His eyes shift over mine, memorizing me, and he doesn’t need to say anything. I can see it in him, feathered layers of adoration and relief.
“Only if you let me do something for you, too,” he whispers.
I squint. “I haven’t had a lot of successful relationships, but I’m pretty sure they don’t have to be perfectly even in terms of—”
“Call your father,” he says.
I lean back on his thighs, throat seizing.
He rises up, meeting my retreat, keeping our chests together.
“Move forward with the lawsuit,” Thio continues. His lips brush across mine like saying the words so close softens their blow. “I know it’ll be awful. It’ll drag out things that’ll destroy us both. But I’ll be there for you, every second of it, every moment where you’re taking back the power my family stole from you.”
I scratch my fingers across his scalp, arch his head up, and devour him.
It’s violent and eradicates the numb exhaustion Thio had been cloaked in, once and for all smashing through it.
We part on a shared, knifelike breath.
I nod.
My eyes shut.
I nod again, giving him as much of a promise as I can.
He surges back up, starving, tongue warring with mine and arms dragging me to grind against him. My hips roll and he lets out a hoarse grunt before he clicks his seatbelt, tilts his body to the side, and tackles me on the cushion.
The car rocks as Hordon turns and maybe we’re close to my place, maybe we still have hours in traffic, but Thio’s tugging aside clothes and leaving kisses and bites as he crawls down my body and time stands perfectly still.
