Page 21 of Branding the Bat

Trevor grinned. "Fair point. Why do you come to KK alone? You don't have friends there, other than Amani. You don't come with a group. You sit at the bar by yourself and watch, and then you go home. Why?"

It was a good question. It was also an uncomfortable one, because the answer revealed something about Sero that he'd prefer to keep folded up and stored in a dark closet alongside his depression figs.

"Bats are solitary," he said. "In the wild, fruit bats roost in colonies, but they don't socialize the way pack animals do. There's no hierarchy, no bonding rituals, no grooming. You hang near other bats because it's safer, not because you like them. In human form, that translates to—" He gestured vaguely. "I like being around people. I don't like being with them. There's a difference."

"Being around versus being with."

"Around is proximity. With is connection. Proximity is easy for me. I can sit in a casino for eight hours surrounded by hundreds of people and feel fine. Connection is—" He stopped. He was about to say hard, but that wasn't accurate. "Connection is something I want but don't know how to maintain. I'm good atthe beginning part. The meeting, the interest, the first few weeks where everything is electric. I'm terrible at what comes after."

"What comes after?"

"The part where someone has to actually know me. Not the surface stuff, the blackjack dealer, the fruit bat, the high pain tolerance. The real stuff. The fact that I hang in my closet when I'm sad. The fact that my phone has almost no contacts. The fact that every relationship I've ever had ended because the person got bored once they ran out of new things to discover about me." He was saying too much. He could feel it, the exposure, the vulnerability, the bat-brain screaming at him to fold his wings and go dark. But Trevor was watching him with those blue eyes, and the kitchen smelled like quiche and persimmon, and Sero was tired of folding.

"I come to KK alone because I don't know how to come with someone," Sero said. "Not yet."

Trevor reached across the island and took his hand. The grip was firm and warm and said, without words, I'm here.

"For what it's worth," Trevor said, "I've never cooked quiche for someone before. Or researched their fruit. Or bought three persimmons and watched a YouTube video on how to cut them. I'm not good at this either. But I'd like to keep trying, if you would."

Sero looked at their joined hands on the marble. Trevor's fingers were long and precise, the fingers of someone who built intricate things, who tied perfect knots, who knew exactly how much pressure to apply and where. Sero's were shorter, blunt-tipped, the hands of a man who dealt cards and ate fruit and had never held anyone's hand over a kitchen island before.

"I'd like that," Sero said.

They moved to the bathtub.

Not for sex. Sero had been clear about that, and Trevor hadn't pushed. For the bath itself. The enormous tub, thelavender salts, the warm water that rose around them like an embrace. Sero sat between Trevor's legs, his back against Trevor's chest, and felt the tension of the past week dissolve into the heat.

"This is obscene," Sero said. "This bathtub is obscene."

"I know." Trevor's arms were around him, loose and warm. "It's the reason I took this apartment. Everything else is average, but the tub is magnificent."

"You chose your home based on the bathtub."

"I chose my home based on the one thing that mattered most to me. That feels rational."

Sero laughed and tipped his head back against Trevor's shoulder. The ceiling was white. The steam made it soft at the edges, like a watercolor. Trevor's heartbeat was steady against his back, slow, regular, the resting pulse of a man who was, in this moment, completely at ease.

"Can I ask you something?" Sero said.

"Always."

"The workshop. What do you actually do in there?"

The heartbeat against his back didn't change. But Trevor's arms tightened, not much, just a fraction, just enough that Sero felt it.

"I told you. I build things. Custom equipment."

"You said it was hard to explain. But you explained the machine to me pretty easily. The synchronization, the controller, the silicone durometer. You're good at explaining technical things. So what's in the workshop that's harder to explain than a custom sex machine?"

Silence. The water lapped gently at the sides of the tub.

"There are some things about my work that are complicated," Trevor said carefully. "Not illegal. Not dangerous. Just complicated in ways that would take more context than I can give you right now."

"That's a non-answer."

"I know." Trevor's voice was quiet. "I'm asking you to give me time. I'll tell you everything, Sero. I want to. But I need to figure some things out first."

Sero stared at the ceiling. The steam was thick enough to taste, lavender and salt, warm and slightly bitter. He could press. He could sit up, turn around, look Trevor in the eye and demand the truth the way he'd demand a player show their cards. He was good at that. He'd spent his career reading faces for lies.