Page 46 of Gratification in Gluttony

They came from different cultures, different dimensions. For fuck’s sake, they were different species, yet they had shared experiences, both rejected in some form by their families, both having found acceptance and connection in the new families forged by choice instead of blood.

In the end, it didn’t matter, not to Toni. He wanted Jude. The why’s weren’t important. Not to him. He liked the human, and he wanted to see where it could go. Maybe it would be nothing. But maybe… maybe it would be everything.

“So,” Toni said when the silence had stretched too far, “you’ve never been in love?”

Jude laughed humorlessly. “No. I’ve never left much room for serious relationships. Life’s easier alone, you know?”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“I know. It gets lonely, though.”

“Well, I ain’t here asking for your hand in marriage or nothing. But I’d like to take you on that date. You know, when you got the space for it,” Toni said casually, even as his blood hummed with hope.

“I can do that,” Jude said, and Toni smiled in satisfaction.

“Excellent. Until then, you got my number. You can give me a call whenever you got the time. And like you said, Ollie’s gonna be around here a lot, so you got a good excuse to cross the veil and hang out.” He traced the jagged edges of his teeth with his tongue. “And I can prove that Gem was lying about my kissing skills.”

Jude snickered. “You’re talking a big game, you know?”

“And I will deliver, of that you can be sure.”

“Friends that kiss?” Jude asked.

“Friends that definitely kiss,” Toni confirmed.

“I may hold you to that,” Jude said.

Grinning like a fiend, Toni said, “I’d be offended if you didn’t.”

Chapter thirteen

Jude is Not an Exhibitionist

Toni didn’t see Judefor weeks after that. They talked, sometimes, but as Jude had warned, he was busy with his summer school. Since Toni was respectful, he didn’t initiate conversation often, waiting for Jude to call or text him first when he had the time.

When he did call, they talked about everything and nothing. Sometimes, it was important stuff, like their families or struggles or ambitions. Other times, it was about meaningless shit, like movies and books and music.

Turned out, they had similar tastes in media, and Toni discovered many great human bands thanks to Jude’s recommendations. And when Jude needed to wind down after a full day, they’d video call as they watched Toni’s favorite Hellian show—a crime drama about a jaded Elas detective and his rookie Gymnot partner taking down a human crime syndicate in the bowels of a human city called The Big Apple.

“It’s like a documentary about my family if my family was human,” Toni said once, which had caused a rather concernedlook to take over Jude’s face. Thankfully, he never asked follow-up questions.

Toni’s favorite phone calls, however, were the ones late at night, when Jude couldn’t sleep. They didn’t talk at all, then. They’d just lay there, listening to each other breathe, until eventually, they’d both fall asleep. It was… nice.

It was also a test of Toni’s self-control, because all the flirting and quasi-innocent sexting had resulted in him being aroused all the fucking time. He’d never masturbated so much in his life, and he swore he was giving himself chafing on both his dicks.

But hopefully things would change this weekend. Sure, Jude wasn’t finished with his school thing, but he was attending the game night Toni was hosting Saturday night. And maybe that would lead to Jude staying over, which potentially could mean sexy stuff would happen.

He was putting the vibes out into the universe—manifest destiny and all that—and hoping for a return.

Since Oliver was already on this side of the veil, Toni planned to meet Jude at Gluttony station so he wouldn’t have to navigate the stupidly complicated tram system. Seriously, with how much Toni paid in taxes, one would think that the bozos in Pride would have figured out a simpler system for public transportation by now.

As it was, it gave Toni an excuse to pick Jude up and get him back to his place with an hour or two to spare before everyone else planned to show up. He didn’t have expectations, but he did have hopes.

At the station, Toni waited just outside the doors, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Summer was half over, but the stubborn heat had sweat prickling along his scalp. Or maybe it was nervous sweat. His palms did feel a little clammy. He hadn’t felt nerves like this in a long time.

The moment he spotted Jude however, dressed in cargo shorts and another button-up—this one bright rainbow tie-dye—the nerves faded to the background as a smile broke over his face. The human looked good, his curly, dark hair flying around his face from the breeze, his skin darker from the summer sun. Toni liked the dark hair covering his exposed legs, and unholy shit, the human’s toes were adorable. They were tiny and rounded, no webbing at all. Toni wanted to lay Jude out on his bed and gnaw on each one of those little nubbins.

Instead of attacking the human and devouring him in front of everyone, Toni pushed up his sunglasses and waved a hand over his head to get Jude’s attention. Those ochre eyes met Toni’s, and Jude smiled, dimples carving into his cheeks. Yeah, Toni liked those too.

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