Page 49 of Full Body Hit: Part 2
Auston looked at Chase. “What’s your favourite?”
Chase had never had a shake in his life, but he said, “Chocolate?”
Auston nodded, and the waitress added it to the list. “Anything else?”
“I don’t think so. Baby?”
Chase went hot all over at the nickname, and he could see Auston’s face twitch as if he’d been surprised too. “No, that’s good. Thanks.”
“Sorry,” Auston said as the waitress left. “I know I shouldn’t be calling you…that.”
Chase fiddled with a napkin. “It’s okay.”
Silence descended between them, stuffed full of other people’s chatter, the clink of cutlery on plates.
Chase started ripping the napkin into strands.
Auston cleared his throat. “So. Remember how I told you it’s my nieces’ birthday in a few days?”
Chase perked up. “Yeah. Six, right?”
“Yeah. Well, my present got there early. I thought maybe you’d wanna see a picture of it.”
Chase couldn’t help but grin. “Ooh, yeah, please.”
Auston swiped through his phone, tilting it eventually so Chase could see.
Chase leaned in and immediately laughed. “Youdidn’t.Oh my God, is that your sister? She doesnotlook impressed.” Auston’s sister was standing beside a massive inflatable bouncy castle, her arms crossed in front of her chest, hip popped out.
“She’s just jealous I always get them something better than she comes up with. It’s the safest one on the market, too—comes with an annual check-up, it’s tied to the ground so it can’t blow away, and it starts beeping loudly if it deflates.”
And there, peeking through the clouds of Auston’s face, was Aunix, buying ridiculously expensive and impractical presents but making sure the people he loved were safe.
Chase bit his lip. “Are there any pictures of your nieces?”
“Yeah, ’course. You can swipe.”
Chase took the phone tentatively and went through a few photographs. “Oh my God, they’resocute.” The girls were chubby-cheeked with massive, dark eyes and dark hair in messy ringlets. They were just blurry blobs in some pictures as they jumped inside the castle. “Well,theyseem to love it.”
Auston took the phone back as Chase handed it over. Smiling at the screen for a few seconds and putting it away.
The biting frost of trepidation that had coated his ribs melted at the sight of that expression—how it softened the muscles around his eyes and high on his cheeks. How it made him human. Approachable.
“They look like you,” Chase pointed out.
Auston straightened, chest-puffing. “Right? My sister and her partner want another one, and my sister says the next one has to look exactly like her wife in order to even things out.”
“Seems fair.” Chase laughed. And then, because his brain-to-mouth filter was shot, “You want kids?”
The humour trickled away, leaving something quieter. “I mean, if you—if my partner wanted them, yeah.”
Chase went hot at Auston’s slip of the tongue. “Only if your partner wants them?”
“Well…no, yeah, I do want them. But I know it can be complicated with, you know. Other responsibilities. Work.”
Chase swallowed. There was a lump in his throat. “So if your partner couldn’t have kids, that wouldn’t be a dealbreaker?”
“No,” Auston replied softly. “Not for…no.”
