Page 21 of High Stakes and Soulmates
“It was actually my fault. I just… had this pop, and then your dog threw his body in front of me and out of terror that I’d pour sticky red pop on his new do, I flung it at Ezio. So can he borrow some pants from you so he doesn’t show up in his underwear?”
“You thought it was fine letting another man display himself in front of you?” Casimir asks.
“Well, my one true love was off doing who knows what, so I had to,” Julian teases.
“I was trying to get shit with the hotel figured out and you’ve already moved on!” he says, shooing me off to his room while Julian laughs.
“Hey, you should only be paying attention to the part where I nearly lost my life by tripping over your dog.”
“Sounds like you were neglecting Gustov and he had to throw his body in front of you for attention.”
“Yes. That’s definitely what this sounds like,” Julian says with much sarcasm as I head up the stairs to his room. I can still hear him laughing. I really am glad that after so long, Casimir finally found someone to share his life with. He really never knew what he was missing out on. It was well past time for him to stop beating himself up over something that happened nearly five hundred years ago.
I find a pair of pants and slip them on before rushing back down the stairs. “Excuse me while I meet the man of my dreams.”
“But are you the man of his nightmares?” Casimir asks.
I glower at him. “You are not funny, Casimir. You’re evil.”
“Thank you,” he says before I dash out the door to my car where I proceed to drive at breakneck speeds. Strangely, it’s so fast that a police car pulls me over right outside of Cyrus’s house.
Cyrus seems oddly horrified to see the whole thing as he comes rushing out and smiling at the officer who knows him. “I’m sorry. We had an emergency, and I told him to quickly drive here… I think he misunderstood how quickly I meant.”
The man, who thankfully isn’t the one whose car I yeeted, doesn’t seem overly convinced, but does let us go.
Cyrus slips into the car, and I beam at him.
The beam is evidently doing wonders as his eyebrows rise higher and higher. “You were in such a hurry that you got pulled over by the police, but now you have time to just sit here and smile at me?”
“I sure do. I just love that you’re involving me to the point where I’m now picking you up. Would you like me to pick you up before work every day? Because I will.”
“No.”
“Understandable,” I say as I start driving with his instructions.
When he reaches forward to turn the air up, I notice he has a different smell to his clothes, so I lean in and sniff him.
“Why are you sniffing me?”
I hesitate as I realize he smells like another man. He seems to use more natural scents and nothing as thick as this. Is Zach already staying at his house? Is Cyrus wearing his shirt? Is that what this is?
“Ezio?”
“Hmm?” I ask.
“You’re acting weird and it’s creeping me out.”
“I’m sorry,” I say as I continue driving while the car falls into a deafening silence. It seems like we really only ever talk if I have something to say. Does he not even want to talk to me?
Julian is right, I need to move on. It’s not like I want to mold him into the image of the man who offered me the world. I know they are very different people, though I really do like Cyrus for who he is. Even if I’d never met Arturo, I would have wanted Cyrus. But honestly… I’ve asked for too much already. Now I’m just getting greedy.
“What’s going on?” Cyrus asks after about ten minutes of silence.
“With?”
“Something’s wrong with you.”
“Ah. Ha ha… nothing. I’m sorry.”
