Page 56 of Balance

I came back to myself realizing that I was carding my fingers through his hair.

“Are you okay?” I asked him. “I wasn’t too rough?”

My voice was raw, hoarse like I’d been the one to get his throat fucked. Troye didn’t sound much better.

“I’m good, Daddy.”

Though we generally only did the daddy thing during sex, sometimes it extended to the lead up or the aftermath, or both. It all depended on what Troye needed.

“Come here. Let me hold you.”

He shuffled up the bed, wriggling his body until he got it in just the right spot. His head on my chest, an arm flung around my waist. He tangled our legs together.

“Better?” he asked me.

“Isn’t that my line?”

I felt Troye shrug. “Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. There’s no rule that says I can’t look after you on occasion."

He shifted around. Propping himself up on an elbow, he looked down at me. “Isn’t that what it means to be in love? I show up for you and you show up for me, and we don’t keep score.”

“If I wasn’t already desperately in love with you, that would’ve done it.” Reaching for him, I pulled him down into a kiss. He smiled against my mouth, and I kissed him anyway. I kissed him softly, like a man in love. I kissed him like the man who would always love him.

CHAPTER 29

TROYE

I wasn’t used to wearing things that weren’t standard gamer attire. Graphic tees and jeans or cargo pants were basically my uniform. But I could hardly go to the big launch dressed in jeans with pizza stains and tees with holes in the armpits. So I might hate clothes shopping a little.

I did, however, don a pair of underwear that were electric blue and had fainting goats on them. No one would see them under my fancy new trousers. Well, Matthew would, but later in the evening after the launch party was over and his attention was all mine again.

The past few months had been hectic. Especially the past few weeks when we’d worked round the clock to get the bugs out of MushMushGo. We ran on fumes and caffeine like people who just brought a baby home. Only we were letting ours out into the world today.

By all measures, the game was already a success. There’d been a substantial amount of preorders, something Jett attributed to me playing early versions on my channel. Once people realized that the developers were actively listening to feedback, the game seemed to take on a life of its own. Suggestions started to pour in, so many that I had to basically make it Charlie’s job to sift through chat and catch suggestions from people. I had a form they could fill out if they needed to go into more detail than they could in chat.

Then, because I could, I made him deal with Jett about the suggestions from chat. Basically, I agreed to hand over all chat suggestions if he promised not to be a dick about it. It was a good system.

Jett and I had smoothed things over. It would do no good for either of us to hold a grudge, not when we both loved Matthew. But thankfully in different ways. Jett was his platonic bestie. A man who was his family through bonds of time and affection instead of blood.

“We’re going to be late.” Charlie called through my bedroom door. “You can’t get any prettier than you already are, Troye.”

“Someone’s impatient.” I pulled my door open and pushed past him, heading for the door. I’d given up my apartment a few months ago. I’d wanted to hold on to my independence for a while, but when I realized I was paying rent and utilities on a place I hadn’t been inside in over a month, that’s when I called it quits and moved in with Matthew officially.

“Someone was told there would be free food at the event, and I’m fucking starving.”

“Dude, you’re definitely supposed to eat before you go to these kinds of things. It prevents you from eating an entire platter of devilled eggs by yourself in ten minutes.”

Charlie scoffed. “As if a pesky thing like being full ever stopped people from ingesting too many devilled eggs.”

“Why do I feel like there’s a story there?” I glanced at him from the corner of my eye as we made our way out of the house and to where Charlie had parked when he came over to get ready with me.

“Because there is. There’s always a story. This one isn’t very interesting. Just me and some booze, and a Christmas party where my aunt brought devilled eggs and I stood there and basically ate the whole thing while my relatives argued over the best way to deep fry a turkey.”

Charlie continued to distract me with tales from his family all the way to the office, where the launch was taking place. Officially, the game had launched last week, but the party was scheduled for today. They were going to announce the amount of the first donation to the charity Matthew worked with.

All the sales from the game would be donated to this organization, but the presales and first week’s numbers had been kept tightly under wraps. I’d worried the secrecy meant something bad, but when I asked Matthew about it, he just smiled at me and moved past the question with such skill that I almost didn’t realize he’d changed the subject.

When I did realize, his smile sparkled a little brighter, and he looked at me a little fonder as if he liked that I caught him. I didn’t press the issue. I let him have his surprises.