Page 42 of In Frame
“No, I expect not.” Colby looked a bit rueful for a second. “Though I’d love to attempt to cook a medieval banquet sometime…no, not now. There are really only two important questions, right now, aren’t there?”
“Um,” Leo said. “Are there?”
“Yes.” Colby sipped coffee, set the mug down, folded up one leg and tucked arms around his knee, quietly flexible and insightful as a stray bit of telepathy. The extra-blue stripe around those famous irises held hard-won wisdom and delight and care for all the bruised pieces of this room, this world, this story. “Youdon’tneed to have everything sorted out in an instant. I certainly didn’t. I still haven’t. Though we do keep trying.” His glance at Jason spoke volumes: whole movie scripts played out in pain and yearning and the happily-ever-after embrace of joy.
Jason put a big arm around Colby’s shoulders and nestled him back into being cuddled. Colby went on, “First, do you care about him? You don’t have to give it a name, not yet. But he matters to you?”
“Yes,” Leo said, and felt the word in his throat, on his tongue, like a sob or a burst of sugar or a splash of molten caramel. Hot and sweet to the point of searing, it occupied all his senses. “Yes.”
“All right, then. Second, you said you believe he’s a good person. And you want to help. Even if nothing more ever happens—if he wants to simply be friends, not that I think that’s true, I think you’re lovable and he clearly cares for you, but hypothetically speaking—would you still want to help? To do something? To offer, I mean, not to swoop in and solve everything. Life rarely works that way, I’ve found. But to have…perhaps a suggestion. That he could accept, or not.”
A suggestion? What suggestion? Leo accidentally snapped the bacon in half, and said it aloud. “What suggestion?”
“I’m still thinking about it.” Colby batted those long eyelashes at him. “Answer the question.”
“Yes,” Leo said again, answer immediate and instinctive; and then he thought about it for a second, and the pain of it scratched like an echo of breaking in his chest. He knew why Colby would ask; the bittersweetness blossomed under his ribs, and it felt like nothing he’d ever quite known before, all complicated and tangled up with want and sacrifice and hurt and desire, and he’d never be the same. He welcomed the feeling. “Yes. He’s worth helping.”
“And you wouldn’t mind me having an idea? Oh, sorry, three questions.”
Jason laughed. “I’ll spank you later.”
“What—oh. Drat. I didn’t even mean to. Er…sorry?” That one was deliberate, and made Jason laugh even more, arms securely around his other half, a kiss nuzzled into Colby’s hair.
“Yes, fine,” Colby said to his human shield-wall, and patted Jason’s arm. “Leo?” Morning sunlight brushed his cheekbone, his hair, with pale citrine. All that alert intent focuslanded on Leo’s face and waited for an answer, with patience, without hurry.
And Leo remembered all over again just why everyone turned to look when Colby Kent spoke or lifted a hand or entered a room. Those blue eyes could inspire armies, not out of any rush for glory but because Colby would smile and tuck hands into princely jacket-pockets and recall the names of every person under his command and also the favorite ice-cream flavors of their children. Colby as a king would earnestly appreciate, in person, everything his knights did on a daily basis, probably while bringing them lemon bars and asking whether anyone would like to borrow any more books from the royal library, and what they’d thought of the last epic romance, and whether they should invite the next-door kingdom’s entire populace over for a book club meeting, and no one would have to fight anyone over the negotiation of shipping treaties, they could certainly work something out across coffee and scones, he’d heard their queen liked pumpkin-chocolate and he’d happened to bake some just that morning…
Magical. Every time. They’d all throw themselves in front of swords for him. Whatever Colby asked for. Because he’d be the first to jump in front of any one of them, to take an oncoming swing.
Colby, Leo thought,washis friend. Colby, and Jason, and him. And now Sam, apparently. Because he, Leo, had asked. And Colby and Jason cared.
Because his friends wanted to help. To be here.
He for some reason needed to clear his throat. His coffee played along. Hiding emotion. “I trust you.”
“Oh, good.” Colby positively beamed at him, as if he’d been worried that Leo somehow wouldn’t. “Then yes, I have an idea.”
* * * *
Sam, home and getting used to that, stared at the last unused trash bag in the box, sighed, and mentally added that to the list. He needed to do some shopping. Groceries. Dish soap. Some sort of superglue or duct tape for the broken arm on that dining room chair. Not the chair’s fault; it was getting older, like the house, and it tried hard.
They all tried. Cynthea and Diana had done the dishes unprompted and had even made breakfast for him, the day before. They’d asked him about London, about the movie, about why he was smiling when talking about Leo Whyte’s performance. They’d been grinning, teasing him about having a crush.
But his sisters hadn’t pushed for answers when he hadn’t known how to explain. They’d let it go. He hadn’t thought they would.
Growing up, he thought. Not kids anymore. But then none of them were.
For a minute, just for a minute, the weight hunkered down on his shoulders again. Made them sag.
The kitchen, small and outdated but theirs, leaned some compassion against him in the form of an oak-hued cupboard door. It was trying hard too.
He’d gone through his photos, both from the red carpet and from the morning after, at Leo’s. He’d picked out the best. Some excellent shots of Colby Kent with a smile more real and visible than he’d worn at any event Sam could recall, and Jason Mirelli looking at Colby with hearts in his eyes, a tower of soft sappy muscles. Some interesting shots of Sir Laurence and a man Sam hadn’t recognized, who was apparently the author ofSteadfast-the-novel, and who—intriguingly—seemed to be making Sir Laurence laugh.
That one’d be a fantastic scoop: right alongside Sir Laurence coming out, they’d have a love interest for him. Any truth to the suggestion wouldn’t even matter. Jameson had liked that idea, of course.
The photos of Leo…
Those had been harder. And easier. Both, and brutally so.
