Page 33 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

Gwen shook her head, but the way Bridget felt when she was permitted to kiss her again did nothing to disprove the theory.

Fifteen

Gabriel’s efforts to put Lord Fentman off were not going well. He tried to involve Cardinal Richards and Master Buchanan in the conversation, in the hope that they might find some kinship of age that he and Arthur could be left out of, but the Wizard and the archbishop were bickering gently about theology, and enjoying their argument too much to be dragged away from it for long.

He and Arthur made eye contact a few times, the corners of Arthur’s mouth twitching as Lord Fentman talked at length and without pause about how horses were too expensive these days, and couldn’t Gabriel do something about it? It felt so good to be sharing a moment with him that Gabriel almost didn’t want the horse complaints to end.

“Thank God,” Arthur said, when Lord Fentman went to relieve his bladder, after explaining in detail what a struggle this act would be. Why did older men always want to tell you about their bladders? It seemed very high on the agendaabove a certain age. “Do you think if we leave, he’ll forget we were ever here in the first place?”

“Probably not.” The mutual feeling that had sparked between them sputtered and died. In the silence, Gabriel swallowed, too loudly. “Your speech was… good.”

“Oh, yes. I thought so.Justthe right amount of piss.” Another awkward pause. “And yours was…”

“Horrible,” said Gabriel, feeling the shame of it flush his cheeks again. He picked up his goblet and looked at Gwen’s empty seat, just to give his eyes something to do. “Whereismy sister? She was going to help me, we were going to talk about… local relations.”

Arthur glanced over at the door. “She’s having local relations with Bridget in that antechamber,” he said matter-of-factly while Gabriel choked on his drink.

“I— How could you possibly know that?”

“Ohhh yes, the mysteries of youth, the unknowable rituals of two girls who burn for each other behind a locked door. HowcouldI know that? I might be blessed with second sight. Watch out, or I’ll say more sooths.” He swirled his drink in his hand, but it was more like a tic than theatricality. “For example: Adah and Leclair definitely kissed on the mouth, at least once, probably ages ago when they were practically infants. And Sir Bowen has his hand on Sir Leonard’s knee, under the table.”

“No he doesn’t,” Gabriel said. He looked down the table. Sir Bowen’s hand was not in evidence. “Oh. Maybe he does. I didn’t think they were… together.”

“I think they’re sort of together in a broad sense, but perhaps they take it hour by hour with the specifics.”

Gabriel gulped. “What does that mean?”

“Only that there are many ways of beingtogether,” Arthur said, his gaze wandering the hall. “Unfortunately, only one way of being apart, really. Not so much scope for interesting configurations.”

Gabriel glanced sharply down at Arthur’s cup. “That’s not… you’re notreallydrinking…?”

“Oh, bore off,” Arthur said mildly, with a touch of real acid lurking behind it. “Of course I’m not. I’ll let you in on a secret: If you’re tired and sleep-deprived enough, it’salmostlike being drunk.”

Gabriel thought of late nights in his room, neither of them acknowledging the fact that they’d left midnight behind hours ago, mumbling nonsense to each other in the candlelight. A foolish ongoing game involving Merlin Lucifer: Arthur giving him a role on the council, inventing arguments he’d have with Lord Best. Gabriel laughing so hard he wept.

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “I know.”

Arthur looked at him, and softened slightly. “Yeah. Course you do. Forgot who I was talking to.”Ouch.

“You’re not sleeping?” Gabriel asked, searching his face for telltale signs of fatigue. He just looked handsome. He always looked handsome. There was perhaps slightly more stubble on his cheeks than usual, but it looked good. Rugged.

“Only at night,” Arthur said, with a wry smile that made Gabriel want to ask for more, to know the intimate details of Arthur’s sleep schedule and the contents of his bed, the whens and wheres and whos of it all, as if he had any right to the information. Looking at him this close up after months of mostly seeing him at a distance made Gabriel feel odd; almost tearful.

“Sorry to hear that,” he said, with such stilted formalityArthur might as well have been a stranger. Arthur must have heard it too, because something shuttered in his face, and he cleared his throat and got to his feet.

“Excuse me,” he said, with a hand to his chest like he might have been about to bow. “Sidney’s having too much fun, I’m going to go and ruin it for him.”

But instead of going to interrupt Sidney, who did seem to be enjoying himself overmuch, he skirted around Sir Florian’s chair on the end of the high table and then paused to tap him on the shoulder and indicate the door to the courtyard with a jerk of his head. Of course. Of course! That had been Gabriel and Arthur’s signal, once upon a time; when Gabriel was overwhelmed by the day and wanted the two of them to sneak away somewhere private, he would tap Arthur twice with two fingers—on his arm, his shoulder, whichever part of him was in reach—and away they’d go.

Now Florian put down his cup and got up, smiling back at Arthur with tentative fondness, and the two of them exited together, a pair of dark-haired and dashing knights on the move drawing fascinated eyes from all corners of the hall.

Gabriel couldn’t tear his eyes away from them either, no matter how embarrassing it was.

Had they gone to havelocal relationstoo? They’d only known each other a couple of weeks, but Arthur was quick to charm. It couldn’t have been much more than a week into their reacquaintance last summer when he’d taken it upon himself to kiss Gabriel in the mews, a few seconds of contact that had changed Gabriel’s life forever.

He wondered, miserably, where Arthur and Florian’s first kiss had been. They hadn’t had much time to squeeze it in, so perhaps the tried-and-true classic, behind an outbuilding? A corridor? In one of their chambers?

Gabriel hadn’t had any room in his head to feel jealous when he and Arthur had been together. He’d felt inadequate instead, and sure that there was someone out there better suited to the job of courting somebody as brilliant as Arthur Delacey. Someone who wouldn’t spend half their conversations mentally elsewhere; who didn’t disappear for hours at a time with no explanation, because the explanation was that he’d been standing in a dark room waiting for his heart to stop pounding. Someone who knew how all of this was supposed togo.