Page 116 of Gratification in Gluttony

“Is this the part where you threaten to kick my ass if I break his heart?” Toni asked, and Oliver snorted.

“If you break his heart, he’ll kick your ass way harder than I could,” Oliver said, and Toni chuckled.

“You ain’t wrong.”

“But, no, that’s not what I wanted to say.” Oliver stepped closer, uncharacteristic somberness thickening his voice as he said, “Be gentle with him, Toni. He acts tough, and he is. He’s probably one of the strongest people I know. But he doesn’t trust easily, especially with his heart. So just be careful with him.”

Not wanting to betray Jude’s trust by saying too much, Toni chose his response carefully. “It ain’t nothing to me, the fact that Jude chose me too. I know what it means. I may not know everything he’s been through, but I know enough to understand that him loving me is a gift. I don’t plan on squandering that.

“If anyone’s getting their heart broke, it’s me. I’ve been head over heels for him from the start, from the moment he did a shot from between an Orc drag queen’s tits.”

Oliver laughed, and Toni rolled from his heels to his toes and back again. “I just wanna make him happy. Whatever that means, for however long he’ll let me.”

The smile on Oliver’s face softened, along with his eyes. “That’s good. He deserves to be happy. You both do.”

“I agree.”

“But if you break his heart, I’m gonna kick your ass,” Oliver said with a frown that was far less intimidating than Toni assumed he intended.

With a chuckle, Toni clapped Oliver on the shoulder. “If I break his heart, I’ll let you.”

As they headed back inside the cafe, Toni hooked an arm around Oliver’s neck, and the human grinned up at him, giving his back a pat. “You really love him?”

“What’s not to love? He’s, like, the best.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“It’s not gonna be weird that we’ve slept with the same guy, right?” Toni asked as they entered the main kitchen area, causing Glyma, Willow, and Zef to turn toward them.

Oliver flushed bright red and shoved Toni off. “Well, it is now that you said it!”

Shrugging, Toni sauntered over to his side of the table and retrieved a cutting board. “Meh, it’s only weird if we make it weird.”

“You’re making it weird!” Oliver cried as he practically fled the kitchen, Toni’s laughter chasing him out.

At the end ofGem’s shift, before he could leave for the evening, Toni snagged him by the wrist and dropped his voice sothe younger workers out front couldn’t overhear him. “Hey, so you know that pretty shit you buy?”

“I buy a lot of pretty shit. You need to be more specific.”

“You know, the pretty, sexy shit.”

Several of Gem’s eyes widened. “My lingerie?”

“Yeah, where do you buy it?” Toni asked, doing everything in his power not to blush like a teenager.

“Toni,” Gem said with a conspiratorial smile, “are you going through a sexual awakening?”

“Perhaps.”

Gem’s fur vibrated, his pleased hum mixing with a squeal from his throat as he squeezed Toni within an inch of his life. “That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you. I’ll send you the store address.”

On Toni’s way home, he stopped by the store Gem had shared and picked out a few things. Since Jude wasn’t crossing the veil until the weekend, Toni had a few days to try the clothes on to make sure they fit—and to make sure he knew how to wear them. Some of them had many, many straps; Toni ended up so tangled at one point he had to call in reinforcements.

“First, let’s get you out of it. Then we’ll figure out how to get you back in,” Gem said as he tugged and yanked on the delicate fabric.

“Watch it,” Toni said as Gem twisted his arm at a painful angle.

“How did you even get like this?”

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