Page 42 of The Princess

“How’s the book coming?”

Nash didn’t usually give anyone a lot of details about what he was working on until it was finished. Until then, he held things close to his chest. Damon still liked to ask, though, and Nash indulged him with vague status updates.

Nash closed his laptop and rubbed his eyes. “It’s not.”

“Plot problems? Writer’s block? I hear adding explosions is a good cure for that.”

Nash laughed and set his laptop aside. “Neither.” He sank down like he was melting into the couch and Damon continued massaging his feet. He didn’t have a foot fetish, but he definitely had a happy Nash fetish.

“Care to share?”

Nash rolled his head, stretching his neck. Damon grabbed one of the throw pillows and tossed it over to him.

“My money guy called today.”

“Uh-oh. Bad news?”

Nash snorted and stuffed the pillow behind his head. “Only that he thinks I have too much that’s just sitting there, collecting interest and not much else. He wants me to invest in real estate. He gave me a few options, but real estate was the most appealing to me.”

“Oooh, are you going to buy a mansion? Hire a pool boy? I could be your live-in maid and I could spend my days fucking my boss instead of wishing he’d go fuck himself.” Damon’s current supervisor was a know-it-all and a severe pain in the ass. But he’d worked with worse.

“I hate yard work, so I don’t want a house.”

“So don’t get a house.” Damon dug his thumbs in deep, running them along the arch of Nash’s foot. The resulting groan had Damon’s cock thickening, but he ignored it in favor of being a good, emotionally available boyfriend.

“There’s a place on the top floor here. Three bedrooms. Two bathrooms.”

The building Nash lived in was only four stories tall and Nash currently lived on the third floor.

“The apartment is on the other side of the building, so we’d get a view of the river.”

“We?”

Nash popped an eye open and gave Damon a sappy look. “Yes, we. What do I need three bedrooms for? The other bedrooms can be turned into a spare bedroom and an office.”

Nash closed his eyes and went back to relaxing. Damon kept his mouth shut even though he wanted to pester Nash about his usage of “we” just now. Did he mean that he wanted Damon to move in? What about Taylor? Him too? Damon didn’t hate the idea, but it was probably premature to say as much. Hell, he still hadn’t told Nash that he loved him.

Damon had realized it some time ago. Before Taylor. At that moment, he thought Nash had been it for him. Which was why it had been such a struggle for him when he realized he had feelings for Taylor, too. According to society, to books and movies and television and even to all his family and friends, relationships were made of two people. Not three.

But Damon was okay with it being the three of them. And, for now, Damon was content to rub his boyfriend’s feet and try to work out whether he’d just asked Damon to move in with him or not.

He probably hadn’t. Nash wasn’t one to mince words. Damon switched to the other foot.

“Any word on Mickey?” Nash asked. Taylor had told Nash about Mickey, the former classmate who’d fallen on hard times that Taylor had taken in for the night. When Taylor went home the next day before his shift, Mickey was long gone.

“Nope. Taylor leaves to-go containers out back for him now, and they disappear. So either he’s taking them when no one’s around, or someone else has discovered them and is capitalizing on Taylor’s kindness. He’s pretty worried about him, though. Said he’d seemed under the weather.”

“I hope he turns up soon.”

“Me too.” The silence between them wasn’t quite as comfortable as it usually was because the gears in Damon’s head wouldn’t stop turning back to that comment about the apartment. About how Nash said we and had included Damon. How he’d confided in him about the conversation with his finance guy.

“I think you should listen to your accountant,” Damon told him.

Nash nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. I mean, I pay him for a reason.”

Nash pulled his feet out of Damon’s lap and sat up. He edged closer to Damon and linked their hands together, lacing their fingers. Damon leaned in and rested his head on Nash’s shoulder.

“What kind of place would you want to live in?” Nash asked. “Because I can suffer with a yard if it’s important to you.”

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