Page 75 of Sugar

Juno sort of knew what it was. At least, he knew enough to know it was a big deal. He glanced over at Piper, whose eyes had gone very wide.

“I’m sorry. Your husband?”

Adam let out a short laugh. “I told you that you weren’t the bad friend in this situation. But please don’t feel shitty. We didn’t have a wedding. Magnus took a few semesters to teach in Cardiff while he was working on some mapping project, and neither of us wanted to pause what we were doing.”

Magnus. Where had Juno heard that name before? That was…

“Your blind friend?” he blurted.

Piper blinked, looking just as stunned, then nodded. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

“The blind friend?” Adam said, not sounding happy about that at all. “He’s so much more than that. Are you fucking serious about that, Piper? Christ, I thought?—”

“No,” Juno said, interrupting him. “No, he didn’t mean it like that.”

Adam lifted a brow, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s rich.”

“I was freaking out because I’m losing my sight,” Juno said. He hadn’t wanted to share that with a total stranger, but he wasn’t about to let Piper get dragged for something he didn’t do. “I was kind of having a panic attack about being functional at a job. So he told me about, well, your husband.”

Adam instantly softened, and while there was pity on his face, it didn’t feel as bad as Juno expected it to. “Sorry. Shit, I’m sorry, Piper. I know you’re not an asshole. It’s just…you know how people are with him. I get defensive.”

“I know,” Piper said softly. He stepped a little closer to Juno. “You’re allowed to want to protect him. I just didn’t even know you two were together. How long?”

Adam shrugged, brows furrowed. “Three years, now? We got married last spring. We never even told anyone, so you’re not alone.” There was an awkward pause, and then Adam clapped his hands together. “Well. Now that everything’s real fucking weird, let’s see some planets, shall we?”

That startled a laugh out of Juno as Piper took his hand and kissed it. Adam moved through another door, propping it open, and Juno could see a massive circular room with computers along the tables that lined the walls, and though he couldn’t make it out completely from where he was standing, he was pretty sure there was a giant telescope in the middle of the room.

“Thank you,” Piper murmured, leaning in toward Juno’s ear as soon as Adam was out of hearing range.

Juno lifted a brow at him. “For?”

“Defending me.”

Rolling his eyes, Juno sighed and nudged Piper in the stomach. “I told the truth. You weren’t being ableist or anything. You were being kind.” Juno had to wonder how many people had simply never intervened, even when Piper was being falsely accused of something like this. How many people knew the truth and chose to stay silent?

He figured it was more than one since Piper seemed to have expected it. And Juno hated that for him.

Piper just smiled at Juno’s words, then took his hand and tugged him across the floor and through the small doorway. He was right about the telescope. It was massive, extending toward the roof, which was partially open to the night sky. Juno’s heart rose into his throat, beating hard against his Adam’s apple.

It was amazing. He had no words for the way it made him feel except small. Only it didn’t bother him the way it usually did.

“This is…wow.”

Piper laughed. “Yeah. It always gets me right in the gut every time I’m in a room like this.” He pulled Juno toward the wall of computers, where Adam had taken a seat and was typing stuff onto a screen. Some type of code or mathematical formula, maybe?

Juno couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“He’s setting it to the right position so we’ll be able to see the planets,” Piper explained. “It’s not actually very complicated once you learn it. I think that’s why directors like to use it in movies. It looks like something only an evil genius can do, but I learned to do it when I was, like, eleven, maybe?”

Juno blinked at him. “Eleven?”

“I had a neighbor who worked at a lab like this,” Piper said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “He used to take me with him whenever my parents were busy.”

Juno was pretty sure that just spoke to Piper’s genius and not the ease of learning how to set a freaking telescope, but he wasn’t going to argue with him either. He was just there to enjoy.

“So,” Adam said, spinning around in his chair, “sorry for being insensitive, but how much can you see?”

Juno flinched at the question.

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