Page 21 of Guiding Desire
Orrey sighed. “No allergies. Anything is fine, thank you.”
What do I do with him?Senlas thought as he finished with the coffee, then fed the grounds to the machine to get the drip brew started.
“Do you always walk around the house in your bathrobe?” Orrey asked, his face still glued to the screen.
“I was just downstairs for a swim. I usually walk around naked.”
“Huh?” Orrey said in turning, his face taking on color.
Senlas grinned. “I told you I’d practice my jokes. Still not up to your standards?”
Senlas decided to keep the breakfast simple, just a few sliced tara leaves, fire berries, and the mung bean pancakes he’d defrosted the night before. He piled everything on plates, setting those on one of the serving trays.
“Ha. No, it’s funny. You have a pool in this building?”
Senlas walked the tray over to the couch and put it down next to Orrey.
“The floor below us has three private pools, one for this unit, the other two for the two below us.”
“I see… Are we eating here? Not at the dining table?”
“Oh.” Senlas had not foreseen that the first fault his Conduit would find in his home would be that lack of a dining table. “I don’t have one. It’s mostly me, and if it’s the team, we pretty much hang out here.” He tapped the back of the couch. “We can move to the kitchen counter if you’d like.”
Orrey nodded. “Here is fine. You have a beautiful home.”
Orrey’s screen started ringing with an incoming call before Senlas could respond. “Mom” flashed across the device when Orrey pulled it from his pocket.
“I’ll go check on the coffee,” Senlas said and headed back to the kitchen area to give his Conduit some privacy.
Orrey didn’t pick up right away, and he didn’t move, so overhearing that side of the conversation was unavoidable.
“Hey, Mom. Yes, I know, sorry. It was a long day, I…yeah. Yes, I was, right by the parade path. Oh, yeah? Well. I…hey.” Senlas looked over at Orrey’s tone of voice, and their eyes met. “Do you think I can stop by your place for lunch later?” Senlas saw the question on Orrey’s face and nodded.
This sort of thing should have been discussed yesterday, where Orrey could go, what he could do without getting Senlas’s express permission.Basically everything. I want him to do what he wants,Senlas thought, but there was no way for Orrey to know. When the Grounds allowed any media reports of Guardians who had imprinted on their Conduits, the pair was usually shown side by side, the Conduit supportive to the extreme. If that and the stuff in regular textbooks was everything Orrey had to go by…
Senlas almost pinched the bridge of his nose, sort of aborted the gesture as he went to pour the steaming coffee into two mugs.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just lunch. Right. Okay. See you then.” Orrey ended the call, and Senlas came over with their coffee, handed his Conduit one. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“That was my mother. I’d like to tell her in person. About all this.” Orrey sipped his coffee, and his eyes lit up. “This is really good.”
“Import, not lab grown,” Senlas said.
Orrey nodded. “I don’t think I ever had imported coffee. Maybe once, when my dad took us out to celebrate my graduation.”
That right there was more information than Senlas had been able to gather from his Conduit’s socials.
“School or university?” he asked, taking a swig from his own mug before snatching a slice of tara leaf off the plate.
“School, actually. I went out with friends after my uni graduation.” Orrey savored more of his coffee, actually taking the smallest sips and holding his mug with both hands.
I’ll seduce you with coffee, then,Senlas thought. “You liked uni?”
Orrey nodded. “Studying is fun. How about you?”
“Well, we have fifteen years of mandatory schooling with a mostly mandatory course load, then two years of specialization seminars which we can skip. Coldis actually dared me to do the whole two years. I think he just wanted someone around to keep other people at bay so he could immerse himself. He’s a programmer with a special interest in media dissemination.”
