Page 9 of Sugar

“Literally. It took three showers to wash that crap out of my hair, and my temple was stained blue for a week.”

Juno lifted two fingers and attempted to touch Piper’s temple and missed. He looked devastated, but he corrected his aim and made it. The pads of his fingers were soft and cool. “You sat in my kitchen and dug slushie gunk out of your ears.”

“And you gave me a giant cupcake to take home,” Piper said. It was chocolate and cherry—it was the most decadent thing Piper had eaten in a long time. He’d taken four days to finish it, and in that time, he’d also acquired an orange cupcake, a Funfetti one, and four strawberry mini cookies. Most of them ended up in the trash before he got a few bites in, but he wouldn’t tell Juno that unless he asked.

“It was like fate. Imagine if you’d gotten run over in front of Hot Topic. They’d just take video and put you all over TikTok.” Juno’s smile softened, and he shifted a little closer, turning his head more so his right eye was pointed directly at Piper’s face.

“How bad is it?” He hadn’t meant to ask the question, but now that it was out, he didn’t take it back.

Juno’s eyes cast downward. “It’s…weird. My right eye is compensating pretty well, but my depth perception is off, and everything looks kind of…muted, I guess? It’s not even a black spot, you know? Like, it’s called a blind spot, but it’s just this bizarre, greyish, distorted blob.”

“And how bad will it get?”

“Worst case, I’ll have some peripheral vision left, but I’ll be colorblind. And it’ll affect both eyes.”

“Best case?”

Juno looked up at him. “This will be the worst it gets. But my doctor told me in so many words that’s not going to happen. I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

“What do you want to do?”

Juno laughed. “See space. Know a guy who can get me up there?”

Piper’s gut hurt because he wanted to say yes, and if he pulled enough strings and had enough time, he probably could. But by the time Juno was properly trained and certified and by the time there was a flight out to the ISS—or even out to orbit—he didn’t think Juno would be able to see it. Not enough to make all the training worth it.

“I could make a call.”

“I’m kidding,” Juno said quickly.

“I’m not,” Piper said. “But it would take too long.”

Juno closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. “The truth is, I want to not think about it right now. Tomorrow, I have to do research and figure out how I’m going to keep working because I’m barely making ends meet as it is, and I need to find a new place to live. In the next few weeks, I have to sit around and wait to see if my other eye starts going. In the next few months, I have to learn to live with this new reality. And I don’t know if I can.”

“You can,” Piper said. He glanced around at his big, empty space. “You could move in here.”

“Um…”

“Not as…fuck,” Piper fumbled, covering his face with his hands. “As a friend. As a roommate. I bought this place, and it’s too damn big for me. I don’t really know what I was thinking.”

Juno hunched into himself. “Not right now, Piper. Okay?”

Piper nodded and reached over, taking Juno’s hand. He turned it over in his own, staring at his burn marks, and the lines on his palm, and his thin fingers with big knuckles. Everything about him was so different from anyone Piper had ever met. He turned Juno’s hand palm side up, then lifted it and pressed his lips to the center.

Juno sucked in a breath.

“I’ve told you I want you, but I’ve been too afraid to ask if you might want?—”

“Yeah. Yes,” he interrupted a little too quickly. Juno laughed and shook his head as he moved over until their thighs were touching. “I’ve wanted to climb you like a tree since the first day we met.”

Piper turned his head. “Even all covered in goop.”

“Especially covered in goop. I don’t know what I have to give you right now. I don’t have room for promises, but maybe you can help me forget. Just for a little while?” The tremble in Juno’s voice broke Piper’s heart.

But he hoped his next words could help put them both together just a little bit.

“Come on, sugar. Let me take you to bed.”

CHAPTER THREE

---