Room at the Top (28 page)

“Beer or something? I’m not going to get trashed, I promise. Just one?”

For a long moment, Liam just looked at him. Then finally he said, “Of course. In the door of the refrigerator.”

It was weird, opening Liam’s fridge and looking inside. Tidy. A lot of lemons. Austin focused on the beer bottles. Somehow just wrapping his hand around one, the glass cold and moist against his skin, was reassuring. There was a magnetic bottle opener stuck to the side of the refrigerator, so he used it instead of checking to see if the cap would screw off without it.

“This house isn’t built as solidly as yours.” Liam used the spatula to flip through some vegetables cut into neat sticks: bright red, orange, and green peppers, dotted with yellow baby sweet corn and green onions. It was colorful and smelled of ginger, which brought back all sorts of memories.

Austin pushed them aside in favor of drinking his beer.

“I heard you two arguing.”

Loyalty warred with the need to get rid of his anger by sharing it. Loyalty lost out. This was Liam, after all. “Jay’s being… He’s making my sister look mature.”

“That bad? Oh my.”

“He’s sulking.” Austin slammed his bottle down on a glossy granite countertop in a deep, rich blue, and watched beer foam up, forced through the neck. It didn’t overflow. He’d drunk too much of it. “I don’t mind him being upset. I
don’t
. But he’s being a complete fucking dick and I… Oh God. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Liam gave him an amused, impatient look. “I swear, Austin. A lot. I just don’t let you when we’re together because it’s not respectful. This is a time-out. We’re not in a session. If we were, you’d be naked and kneeling and I’d be feeding you scraps of food as I cooked.”

Any other time and Austin would’ve given that idea his full approval, but he was too churned up to focus on anything but Jay. “He said I hated his dioramas. I don’t! They’re really good, and I’m proud of him. I might not like how…how obsessed he gets when he’s working on one, but it’s Jay. That’s what he’s like.”

“They were part of his life before you came along,” Liam observed.

“Exactly! It’s not like he surprised me with them. And I like that he has something outside of his job that he cares about—in addition to me, I mean. It’s healthy to have a hobby. I don’t care that it’s dioramas instead of, I don’t know, watching baseball or whatever.” Austin licked his lips and drank some beer. It was a darker beer than he was used to—sour, but not in a bad way.

Liam flipped the food in the pan around. “I’m sure you’d be just as upset as he is if it had been something of yours that was destroyed.”

“Of course I would. I don’t mind that he’s upset. I mean, I
care
that he’s upset, but I understand. I just don’t want him taking it out on me. That’s the part that sucks. I was trying to be nice and supportive, all the stuff a good boyfriend is supposed to be, and he just spewed all this hatred on me.”

“You both need to eat something.” Liam turned off the burner under the pan and reached for shallow bowls he’d set out, then put on an oven glove and slid a broiler pan onto the stove top. “You’ll feel better once you have.”

Austin hadn’t felt hungry until that moment, but the fish fillets and vegetables Liam served him smelled good enough to awaken his appetite. “Thanks. This is great.”

“It’s about the limit of what I can do in a kitchen. I eat out a lot on business, and cooking just for myself seems like a lot of work. I’ve built up a few easy recipes I can do quickly, and I freeze the leftovers.”

Liam watched Austin eat a few bites, leaning on one of the chairs around the table. All the furniture looked brand-new and unused, though Austin knew Liam had moved in a couple of years before.

“Would you like me to tell Jay his meal is ready?”

Austin swallowed what he was chewing before it was ready to be swallowed and choked. He really didn’t want to see Jay again, not this soon. “Uh, he said he was taking a nap, so maybe we should just…leave him alone?”

“Did he.” Liam reached into Austin’s bowl and pulled out a long slice of red pepper, glistening with soy-ginger glaze. “Open up.”

Austin felt arousal shoot through him, unexpected, dizzying. He parted his lips and let Liam feed him the pepper. It didn’t feel flirtatious, though it was kind of a romantic gesture, he guessed, more as if Liam was making a point of some kind.

“Keep eating,” Liam told him and left the room.

Austin took another bite and then another, listening, his hand tense around the fork he held. What would Liam do if Jay defied him? Not hit him. Liam would never do that outside a session, but would it make a difference to the relationship they’d built up?

The minutes ticked by; then he heard footsteps on the stairs. Liam and Jay walked in together, Liam smiling faintly and Jay with a sullen twist to his mouth that told Austin his bad mood hadn’t passed.

Now that his bowl was almost emptied, Austin was feeling better, and he hoped once Jay had eaten, he would too.

“Jay is going to eat something,” Liam said. “We’re going to wait to talk until you’ve both finished your lunch.”

That sounded reasonable to Austin, who slowed his pace but still set his fork down while Jay was barely halfway through his food. He got up and put his bowl and fork into the dishwasher. “I could do these?” he offered to Liam, gesturing at the pans and utensils, and Liam nodded.

It didn’t take long to do the dishes, though it felt like longer because Austin was aware of Jay’s presence and they’d had a loud argument twenty minutes before. The more he thought about it, the more it upset him. They’d had so few arguments, and the ones they’d had had been short-lived and not really about anything important. This one had cut deeper, and Austin didn’t like what it might say about them.

Finally, having cleaned everything, he turned around and leaned against the countertop. He looked at Jay, who at that moment lifted his eyes and looked at
him
. There was one silent moment, and then Jay stood up and came to him and hugged him.

“I’m sorry.” Jay muffled the words against Austin’s neck, and Austin hugged him back. “I didn’t mean any of that, I promise. Do you hate me?”

It was pretty hard to hate someone who was clutching you so tightly you could barely breathe. “No,” Austin managed. “I don’t hate you. You lost something really important. I get that.”

“You’re the only thing that’s really important,” Jay told him. “More important than a stupid diorama.”

“It wasn’t stupid. And it sucks that it got ruined. If there was anything I could do to fix it, I would.”

“I know.” Jay pulled back to look at him, and Austin realized they were alone.

It made it easy to do what he’d wanted to do all day: kiss Jay and lose himself in the feel of Jay’s mouth on his. A slow, sweet kiss to remind them both that love was pretty waterproof when it came down to it.

“Love you,” he whispered because they were so close there was no need to say it any other way. “Love you, Jay. My Jay.”

“Oh God, I love you so fucking much.” Jay looked at him beseechingly. “I was saying all those awful things, and I didn’t even
want
to, but I couldn’t help it. Don’t remember it, Austin. Don’t remember any of it, please. God, I wish you could just forget I said it.”

“Said what?” Austin asked with a grin. It was a forced one because he really didn’t feel like smiling after the truly shitty day he’d had, but he didn’t think Jay would notice.

“I don’t deserve you.”

Austin felt he’d reached his limit on reassuring Jay that he deserved everything good in the world. He was emotionally and physically wiped out. “Probably not, but it so happens that I love you, which I think I just mentioned, and that means you get me anyway.”

Jay frowned, his forehead creasing as he worked it out. “Does that even make sense?”

“In my head, kind of, but everything’s all weird today, so maybe not.” Austin gave Jay another kiss, a quick one this time. “Do you feel up to moving the rest of our stuff from the foyer? We’re giving the place that lived-in look, but I’m not sure Liam will be happy if he trips over something.”

“I won’t be,” Liam said from the open archway leading to the hall. “If you’ve finished billing and cooing, moving it’s an excellent idea. If you like, you can put some of the boxes in the basement.”

“Okay.”

They made a few trips back and forth, putting the bulk of the boxes into the basement since it seemed like a reasonable suggestion. It was mostly a huge room with a couple of half-walls dividing the space, part of which seemed to be designated as a home gym. There was a high-quality treadmill—not that that surprised Austin. Everything that Liam owned seemed to be top-of-the-line—along with some free weights, a Nautilus machine, and a heavy bag.

The best spot for the boxes seemed to be along the back wall, so they piled them there carefully. On the way back toward the stairs, Austin bumped into the heavy bag. “Oof.” It was solid and made him think he’d have a bruised shoulder later when all he’d done was collide with it. He punched the bag. “Ow.”

“Well, don’t do it if it hurts.” Jay shifted to the side and swung his fist into the bag. The
thud
was louder than the one Austin had made, but Jay didn’t complain. “Hang on. I want to try this.”

Austin stepped back to give Jay some room. He realized the weight bench was behind him and sat down, watching as Jay slowly experimented with punching the heavy bag and then, once he’d figured that out, adding the occasional kick as well.

“Feels good,” Jay grunted. He swung low with his left fist, and the bag rocked away from him. “Distracting. Maybe we should get one of these.”

“Maybe.” If they wanted to pull the new ceiling down on top of them.

There was something mesmerizing about watching Jay. It was like watching someone with an innate ability to dance finding their stride and rhythm, and it made Austin marvel that Jay could have such a talent for this and he’d never known.

“Want to try?” Jay circled clockwise and hit the bag three times in rapid succession.

Austin grinned. “No, thanks. I’m good. I like watching you.”

“I don’t”—Jay paused, kicked, punched, and then finished—“look like an idiot?”

“God, no. You look great. Where did you learn this?”

“I don’t know. Took a couple of different martial arts classes when I was a kid, but I didn’t like how the teachers yelled at us.” Jay hit the bag, left-right,
hard.

“You’re going to hurt yourself. Your knuckles.”

Jay glanced at him. “One more minute.”

Austin opened his mouth to protest, but Liam came up behind him, put his hand on Austin’s shoulder, and squeezed it. As nonverbal back-offs went, it worked. Austin sat silently and Jay went to town on the bag, finally, Austin guessed, finding something to hit back at that he couldn’t hurt.

“He needs this.” Liam wasn’t lowering his voice much, but it didn’t matter. Jay was in a world of his own, his mouth tight, small grunts emerging as he landed a particularly hard punch, sweat shining on his brow.

It felt wrong to watch Jay hurt himself, but Austin supposed given what usually happened to Jay in this house, skinned, swollen knuckles were nothing. It was most definitely Jay’s choice to do this, and he had to respect that.

“A pillow works too,” Liam said reflectively. “In fact, in some ways, it’s better. It’s so soft and yielding that it keeps you irritated and you generally have to destroy it completely to feel better.”

Austin turned his head and looked up. Liam was smiling. “That’s one of those jokes I don’t need to feel I’ve got to laugh at, right?”

“At least you recognize it
is
a joke. You’ve missed a few over the months we’ve known each other.”

That made Austin feel guilty for a moment, but not for long. Jay gave the bag one final, solid punch, then whirled around to face them, his eyes glittering with triumph. “Oh yeah. That felt
good
.”

Austin smiled at him. “You looked hot.”

Jay blew air up over his face. “I
feel
hot. The other kind of hot. It’s hard work.” He bounded over to Austin, as lively as a puppy that wanted to play. “You know, that was fun. Maybe we can’t fit one in our place, but we could, I don’t know, join a gym?”

“Or use mine,” Liam suggested. “I try to keep in shape, but most of this equipment gets used once in a blue moon. You’re both welcome to blow the dust off it anytime you like.”

The thought of coming over not for a session, just to see Liam, was one Austin had to turn over in his head a few times before he could decide how he felt about it, but his initial reaction was positive. Liam was older than them, yes, by about fifteen years, but he made Austin feel safe and at the same time stimulated, like standing on the edge of a cliff staring over, knowing he couldn’t fall because he was on a rope.

He grinned. Ropes and Liam went together well.

“Why don’t we go back upstairs and Jay can ice his knuckles—yes, you need to—and possibly shower, then we could, well, watch a movie? Unless you two had plans?”

Liam sounded his usual self until the last bit, when a hint of uncertainty showed.

“I’m exhausted,” Austin said. “A movie sounds great.”

“Do you have popcorn?” Jay asked.

“No, but I have chips.”

“Chips are good,” Jay assured him. “They’re not some funky English chips, are they? I had a friend who went over there, and he said you do ones like prawn cocktail and smoky bacon flavor. That’s just wrong.”

Liam snorted. “And dill pickle and ketchup flavor are normal? For your information, if they were English, they’d be crisps, and no, they’re just salted.”

The chips might not have been English, but the movie they eventually decided on was—after some good-natured arguing, of course. Liam won—definitely not a surprise—and put the DVD into the player as Jay and Austin collapsed on the couch, Austin in the middle and Jay curled up next to him.

“You didn’t dry your hair,” he commented, stroking his fingers through the damp strands.

“Too hot. But now I’m good.” Jay gave him an adoring look. “Liam? Sit with us.”

Liam had been moving toward the chair beside the couch, but he hesitated and nodded. He sat next to Austin as the DVD’s menu came on, then leaned forward to pick up the remote. “You’ll like this, I promise.
Meaning of Life
is a classic.”