Page 20 of Touch In Excess

‘Can we kiss?’

Skye barked out a laugh. ‘Yes, please. As much as you want.’

‘A lot,’ Rami said seriously.

Skye felt warm from head to toe. ‘Then it’s a date with a lot of kissing.’

Rami bit his lip, then asked, ‘What if you can’t drive?’

‘Then I’ll still be there, just with an extra person to help us get back and forth.’

Rami looked torn, but after a long moment of stillness, he nodded. ‘Okay. See you soon.’ The call immediately cut, and Skye was left a little stunned, upside down, and full of a sudden need to get his hands on the other man.

He hadn’t been lying at all. The next few days were going to crawl by, but he was pretty damn sure his patience would be rewarded with strong hands and the softest lips.

Six

Ahmed: You can’t ignore Mom and Dad forever.

Rami: I’m not ignoring anyone.

Ahmed: They’re going to stage an intervention.

Rami: I’m not an addict. Those are for addicts.

Ahmed: You know what I mean.

Rami stared at his phone.Hedidn’tknow what his brother meant. He knew what the word “intervention” meant, and he’d seen them on TV shows a couple of times, but he didn’t understand what, exactly, his parents would be intervening about.

He wasn’t an addict. He didn’t have any vices that were ruining his life. He wasn’t part of an organization that made him a danger to himself or others. They didn’t know what he was doing to earn money, so it couldn’t have anything to do with his channel.

Therefore, his brother’s words were confusing, and when he was confused, it was easier to put the subject away. He closedout the text thread and went back into the bathroom to stare at himself. Tugging on a couple of his curls, he debated whether or not it was time for a haircut. He had a routine with it—grow it until it was just past his shoulders, cut it until it sat just over his ears, and then grow it again.

Over and over, and he’d do it until he died. Or his hair fell out, though he had lucky genetics that very rarely led to male-pattern baldness. But it was officially reaching the stage of too long, and he was going to have to worry about finding a place that would do the job right.

The last time he’d had it cut, he wasn’t living in Norwich. He could head back to DC to have it done, but that was a long, long train ride. Although if Skye really was driving and they were something like friends, maybe he’d take him. It would be better if they were boyfriends, but Rami wasn’t going to push that line. Skye seemed perfectly content to date him, even with sex off the table, but Rami was no fool.

He knew how long that usually lasted, and it would be a miracle if they made it a month.

As he began to scrunch product into his curls, he felt his phone buzz against his leg three times in quick succession. He ignored it and grabbed a coiled hair tie, wrapping his long locks around his fist and setting it into the bun he preferred.

He was on the third loop of the hair tie when his phone buzzed again—the secondary notification to let him know he hadn’t read the messages. That was his trigger. He couldn’t ignore the second alert.

Pulling the phone out of his pocket, he saw his brother’s name on the screen. Then, there was a second little tab. He tapped it, and Skye’s name appeared. Rami felt himself smiling wide enough to make his cheeks hurt as he opened it.

Skye: On my way. Fair warning, I plan to kiss you when I see you.

Rami: Yes.

He didn’t really know what else to say to that. Sometimes he wished he could be suave and smooth instead of blunt and straightforward, but even when he was younger and better at masking, he’d never been good at thinking on his feet. The thoughts in his head came out of his mouth or his hands exactly as they were, no matter how hard he tried to be like other people.

But for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t worried how someone else was going to perceive him. He didn’t feel that slight tug of anxiety or stress because so far—in the two weeks and three days since he’d known Skye—the man had never once minded who Rami was.

In fact, he seemed to like him for it.

Rami had no idea how far Skye was from him, so he gave himself one last cursory glance in the mirror, then turned and went to his bedroom. He was already dressed. All he had left were his shoes and socks, and he was going full comfort since they’d be at the aquarium center.

On the edge of the bed, he made sure his socks were perfectly aligned, the seam directly across the knuckles of his toes. He wriggled his feet to make sure the seams wouldn’t shift, and then he shoved them into his slip-on sneakers and stood up.

---