Page 118 of Gratification in Gluttony

“Surprise,” Jude deadpanned, and Toni chuckled.

“A very nice surprise.” He ducked down and kissed Jude firmly, practically purring when Jude immediately reciprocated, clasping his hands behind Toni’s neck. As they parted, Toni glanced at the doors, and several heads ducked out of view of the windows. “We have an audience.”

“Well, let’s keep it PG, seeing as they’re children,” Jude said, yelping when Toni scooped him up and sat him down on the steel table. “The, uh, snake demon nearly stopped me from coming back here.”

Toni didn’t know what a snake was, but he assumed Jude meant the Sypent, since they were the oldest of the closers and had a bit of an attitude problem. “The Sypent? With the long hair?” he asked, just to be sure, and Jude nodded. “Yeah, they enjoy pretending like they’re in charge.”

“Adorable,” Jude said flatly.

“I just gotta finish this up, but—”

“Take your time.” Jude pecked his mouth chastely as he settled more comfortably on the table. “I got my class schedule for this semester figured out today.”

“Oh? Do tell.” Toni resumed chopping as Jude swung his short legs.

“Thanks to summer school, my course load this year is pretty light. I signed up for mostly online classes.” He drew absent designs on the metal, stealing glances at Toni. “Which means that, as long as I have internet access, I can attend my classes from anywhere. So I could, maybe, be here more often.”

Toni paused in his chopping. “For real?”

“I mean, if you want me to be,” Jude rushed out, staring down at his lap. “I know you’ll be working, and I’m trying to see if there’s some sort of internship with an architecture firm I could do that would pair with my classes well. So maybe that would mean I couldn’t cross the veil as often, but as of now—”

“You can use all my internet if you want,” Toni said, lifting Jude’s head with two fingers under his chin. “But are you sure? I don’t mind coming to Chicago.”

“It’s a long commute,” Jude said, and Toni snorted.

“Ollie does it all the time.”

“True.” Jude chewed on his lip and shrugged. “I like it on this side of the veil. And Oliver’s here a lot, and all your friends are here. I don’t have much in Chicago, you know?”

Abandoning his knife, Toni stepped between Jude’s parted knees and placed his palms flat on the cool metal, angling his head to catch Jude’s wandering gaze. “I want you around all the time, baby. So, if you wanna do your school at my place or here in the cafe, then I would be fucking ecstatic. But know that if you find an internship or another job or whatever, I’ll come your way. I’ll be around so often, you’ll get sick of me in your bed.”

“I won’t get sick of you,” Jude said, fingering the collar of Toni’s t-shirt.

“We’re in this together now, Jude. We’ll figure it out and make it work. I’m all in, remember?”

With a pleased hum, Jude leaned forward until his forehead met Toni’s chin. “I know.”

“And you know, my family has connections. I could put some feelers out to see if there’s some internships you could apply to on this side of the veil. You know, if you want,” Toni said carefully, not wanting to overwhelm him.

Jude lifted his head. “Really? You could do that?”

“Well, yeah, if it means you’d be around more and wouldn’t have to travel back and forth so much. I mean, I don’t know if architecture jobs are different here, but, like, if you wanted—”

“Yes,” Jude said quickly, kissing the underside of Toni’s jaw. “That would be—thank you.”

“Of course.” Toni kissed him sweetly, and Jude sighed into the caress.

“If there are architecture firms willing to hire me, let them know I’ll be taking language classes to learn Hellia. That should make me less of a risky hire, right?” Jude said, and Toni blinked down at him in surprise.

“You signed up for a language class?”

“Of course. It seems rather one-sided for our relationship to only exist in my language and not yours.” Shrugging like it was no big deal, Jude fingered the purple apron Toni wore. “I’m trying to get Oliver to come with me, but he was all, ‘I’m not good at languages; I’ll look stupid.’”

Jude’s terrible impersonation of Oliver made Toni laugh, but he was honestly touched that Jude was willing—and apparently, eager—to learn Toni’s language. He wouldn’t have cared if their relationship remained in English, simply because Toni had been speaking English most of his life anyway. But the idea of conversing with Jude in his own tongue—maybe even Elani if Jude wanted to learn that too—had Toni choking up a bit.

“That’s really cool, Jude,” Toni said, voice cracking pathetically.

“Toni,” Jude said fondly, cupping his face in his hands. “Why are you—you emotional weirdo.”

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