Page 50 of Friendly Skies
“I would never do that.”
“Exactly.”
The sound of the bottle sliding across the table roused Darius from his thoughts, and he took hold of the cool glass and gave Greg his thanks. They clinked bottles.
“I know it doesn’t do any good to tell you not to worry,” Greg said, and Darius offered him a wan smile. “Yeah. I didn’t think so. Shit, man, I hate that you’re going through this. But, seriously, tell me how it’s going with Luis.”
Even though he was still worried sick, Darius couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “It’s amazing,” he said. “Better than I could ever have imagined. He’s…shit, he’s everything.”
“Well, you made Jenna really happy and a few hundred richer.”
“A few hun…there was a pool?”
“Absolutely. Been one for years, actually. It got updated whenever we ran out of guesses.”
“We? You were in on this, too?”
“Of course I was. You’d think, being your housemate, I’d have had an inside track, but nope, because no one had this fucking scenario on their bingo cards to speed things along.”
“I guess that’s one silver lining to this whole mess.”
Greg held his bottle up, and Darius clinked his against it again. “Absolutely,” Greg said. His phone buzzed with a call, and he got a goofy grin on his face when he looked at the caller ID. “It’s Holden. You mind if I…?”
Darius waved his hand toward the bedrooms. “Be my guest.”
“Thanks, man.” Greg stood and pressed the button to receive the call. “Hey, baby,” he said as he put the phone to his ear and headed down the hall. “How are you doing?”
The door to Greg’s room opened and then gave a soft snick as it closed again, leaving Darius alone with his thoughts. Fortunately, he didn’t have long to sit there and think before Luis emerged from their bedroom. He tried to gauge Luis’ mood from his expression, but for the first time in his life, he wasn’table to and watched silently as Luis crossed the room to him. Pushing back from the table, Darius reached for Luis’ hands, and Luis came forward, then straddled him so they were sitting face-to-face, Luis’ arms around his neck, his hands resting on Luis’ waist.
“How are you doing, chico?” Darius asked as Luis laid his head on Darius’ shoulder and settled against him.
“I’m as good as you could expect. Scared for you but glad you’ve got a lawyer on your side. That helps.”
“Yeah. So does this.”
“Mm-hm.”
They rested against each other for several minutes without speaking while Darius thought about Greg suggesting he lean on Luis rather than always being the strong one. While he recognized the validity of what Greg said, it wouldn’t be the easiest thing to give up that role. But then, he reminded himself, he’d never thought of Luis as being weak just because he needed Darius’ support.
Darius picked his head up, then tilted Luis’ face to meet his gaze. “This was exactly what I needed, chico,” he said. “Thank you.”
“Yeah?”
“Absolutely. I love you.”
“I love you, too, cariño.” Luis closed the distance between their mouths and kissed Darius.
It wasn’t a heated kiss, one that promised to lead them back into the bedroom, but a kiss of comfort and love, adoration and security. It was a kiss that saidI’m not going anywhere, I’ll be here if you need me, I trust you. All of those things and more passed between them.
“That was nice,” Luis said as he settled back against Darius’ chest. “Would it be weird if we went out tonight?”
“Out as in a club?”
“Yeah. My head is spinning so much with everything that I kind of want to forget about it all for a while.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” Darius said.
“Yeah?”
