Page 61 of Touch In Excess

Stone wobbled a bit before catching his stride again, and Skye felt a little bad because his friend was prone to falling when he lost his concentration. His prosthetic legs were a damn marvel with the current technology, but Skye knew they took far more effort than Stone made it seem.

“Mm, no. He doesn’t really…you know, talk to them, or even about them all that much. He ain’t close to anyone besides us.”

Skye was pretty sure none of the Sins had relationships with their biological families. Well, except Avan. But his parents had moved back to London when Avan was seventeen, so he didn’thave to really try and hide what he did. He flew back to visit once or twice a year, and they were none the wiser.

But while none of their stories were the same, all the Sins had pieces of shared history—and so did most of their lovers.

Rami was different. He was very, very different, and Skye was just now starting to become worried because eventually, Rami was going to stop his channel and go back to his life as an artist. He wanted his family to meet Skye—and that was great, of course. Skye wanted that. Badly.

But it also meant lying to them.

Skye personally had no moral qualms with lying about his job in order to keep the peace—and to keep people from being ill-informed dickheads about the reality of his own sex work. But he could tell Rami was starting to bend under the weight of deceiving his family.

And he knew damn well that they could never tell Rami’s parents or his siblings the truth about what he did.

Stone tapped him on the shoulder as they rounded a corner in the path. “Why do you ask?”

Skye let out a soft groan and rubbed a hand down his face. “I’m sure Hen had a chat with you about the guy I’m seeing.”

“Yeah. His big PSA,” Stone said, clearly trying to hide a smile.

Skye rolled his eyes, then spotted a bench and signed, ‘Stop now?’

It always took Stone a moment to slow his stride and halt without falling. He passed the bench by a few feet, then walked backward and collapsed on it, breathing a little heavier than Skye was. He was also older than Skye, and he’d been slowing down now that he didn’t have to keep up his physique in his retirement.

“Do you want to talk about him?” Stone asked when Skye eased down onto the bench, then turned to face his friendso he could see his lips. It was harder to catch all the words outside, even if the park was quiet this early in the morning. The ambient traffic noise always fucked him up.

He swallowed heavily. “I’d like you to meet him. But he doesn’t want a big thing. No barbequing with the guys.”

Disappointment briefly flashed over Stone’s face, but it was gone between one blink and the next. “I get it. I mean, how long did it take August before he could handle being around everyone for more than a few minutes.”

“Yeah. They’re a lot alike in some ways.” Skye twisted his fingers together between the gap his knees made. “Anxious artists. Virgins,” he added softly.

Stone’s brows lifted. “Oh? Hen said—well. Never mind.”

Of course he’d heard the rumors—which weren’t really rumors. It was all true. “The FanCore thing,” Skye finished for him. “He still considers himself a virgin for what he hasn’t done.”

“And you two haven’t?”

“We’re following his rules,” Skye said. “That’s not the issue I’m having. What he and I have feels good.”

“So what is the problem?”

Skye shrugged. “I guess there really isn’t one. Not really. I mean, except the fact that his life is pretty normal, and ours isn’t. At all. And I know I’m terrified of some crisis that probably isn’t going to happen, but I can’t help it. Some days, it feels like I’m about to self-sabotage because he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Stone’s smile softened, and he leaned back, lifting his hand. ‘I understand,’ he signed.

Skye scoffed. “Sureyou do. Your perfect relationship and its happily ever after.”

Stone looked a little surprised. “It was the furthest thing from perfect, Skye. I know it was a long time ago, but the two ofus almost didn’t make it. August was terrified of everything, and I was terrified of fucking him up because there are parts of my traumatic past that will never heal. Hell, I’m still dealing with my parents’ bullshit.”

Skye winced. Stone had been embroiled in a legal battle after his brother had come to the Tower. It had been two years now since Onyx had come into their lives, and while he wasn’t a loud presence at the Tower, he was starting to come around more. They’d cleared out the cottage that had been August’s paint studio now that they were closing on a property to both live and work in, and Onyx was officially in training as the next Lust.

And he knew how hard that was for Stone to take. Onyx wasn’t the baby of his family, but he was one of the youngest siblings. He’d come to the Tower full of stories about how their family had gotten even worse after Stone and Flint left, and Stone snapped.

He called child services to come do a sweep, and while he was never in the running to foster the little ones, he’d been paying a good chunk of his life savings to make sure they all went to decent homes that would be able to help them overcome everything.

And that was pain, Skye knew, that would never go away. Pain he’d never be able to relate to.

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