The scent doesn’t dissipate fast enough. He doesn’t have fans to blow the air out, so he hurries back to the bathroom, fumbling through the drawer. Aftershave. Cologne. Air freshener. Window cleaner.
Toothbrush in his mouth, he plods through the rooms, juggling the bottles in his arm. Three pumps of window cleaner in the corners. A splash of aftershave in the doorways. Cologne in the kitchen. Air freshener in every damn room. By the time he’s done, he’s reeling from all the smells, his stomach roiling.
Felix staggers back to the bathroom to rinse his mouth, stepping under the scalding shower. He scrubs himself clean, heart thumping, and drips water all over the floor trying to reach his bath towel. Holy fucking hell, Felix, why do you do this to yourself?
“I don’t know,” Felix says. Will Kade still smell him after the shower? The scent suppressant. He stumbles to the front door, where Taylor’s pill dispenser sits in a crooked, half-full bookcase, plucking today’s tab open. He swallows the round white pill dry. Something rumbles outside, then stops.
Heartbeats later, the doorbell rings.
He almost chokes on the pill. It’s seven minutes to nine! Felix turns to the window, towel around his neck, and peers past the ratty curtains. And there, on his doorstep, Kade’s dressed in a smart red shirt and jeans, his hair combed down, a laptop under his arm.
I can’t let him stand and wait, Felix thinks. What if he gets tired of waiting and leaves? Because he doesn’t want Kade to leave, doesn’t want him turning away. Even if the entire house stinks, and his hair is a mess.
He pads to the front door, his toes wet against the foyer floor, and pulls it open.
Kade meets his eyes. Water drips off Felix’s bangs, sliding down his cheek. “Um,” Felix says.
Mahogany eyes flicker along his body, then coast back up. Cool air prickles along his skin.
Something is wrong. Felix looks down, and realizes the towel draped across his shoulders should be wrapped around his waist. He’s wearing nothing but a towel. Its ends accentuate a vertical strip of his chest, all the way down to his groin.
His cheeks burn. You aren’t supposed to see me like that!
Kade raises an eyebrow. “I interrupted something?”
“My... my shower,” Felix gasps. “You, um, came early.”
Kade’s gaze rakes back down his body, heavy and lingering. Felix should be pulling the towel from his shoulders, holding it over his hips to make himself decent. But that’s where Kade’s attention anchors. Felix’s cock twitches in response.
“Traffic was light,” Kade says, gaze dragging up Felix’s body to meet his eyes. “But I never plan on coming early.”
Kill me right now. Felix spins on his heels, tugging his towel down before Kade sees the telling rise of his cock. But Kade’s attention prickles on him, on the bare skin of his back, his ass, his legs, and Felix can’t decide if this was a bad idea, letting him come over.
The front door clicks shut, sealing him and Kade into the same house. I’m doomed in here, Felix thinks.
Kade coughs violently. “The hell? Stinks in here.”
Felix cringes. Guess you won’t smell me now. Relief sweeps through him. “Really? I was... doing some cleaning.”
“What the fuck,” Kade says. He coughs again, huffing to clear his nostrils. Felix ducks into his bedroom to dry off his wet limbs, his face burning.
I can’t believe I answered the door naked. In front of Kade. He pulls his underwear and clothes out of his closet, stepping into them. They cling damply to his skin, and he squirms, trying to get comfortable.
When the hem of his bulky, knitted sweater falls below his erection, Felix steps out, looking cautiously into the living room. Kade stands in the middle of the unpacked boxes, studying them. Felix winces. He’d said he was going to unpack, hadn’t he? He can’t even be trusted to make promises.
“I’m going to make some coffee,” Felix says. “I haven’t had breakfast yet. Have you?”
Kade turns, raising his brows. He flicks his gaze over Felix’s fresh clothes, lingering on the sleeves falling past his fingers, and the gaping neckline of the sweater. Felix had bought it from the thrift store they visited. “I’ve eaten, but coffee’s fine. Thanks.”
“Right. I won’t be long.” Felix ducks into the kitchen, his skin too tight. Why did he even answer the door? They’ve got nothing to talk about. Things are over between them. And Kade has absolutely nothing to do with the child inside him.
Felix heats two mugs of water in the microwave. While it whirs, he folds his sleeves up and cracks eggs into a pan. Two for me, one for you. Although I’m sure you’ll only need more when you get bigger. He pokes his flat abdomen. It still doesn’t look like there’s a child inside him, even if the tests had all chimed positive.
“Mind if I sit?” Kade says, stepping into the kitchen. Felix shrugs.
Sturdy chairs flank the kitchen table, each chair with castor wheels. Kade plants his laptop over some older burns on the table, his fingers tapping over the keys. While he waits for it to start up, he looks over. It feels as though Kade can read through him, even though his baby bump isn’t showing yet, even though his sweater is far too bulky to reveal anything.
“You look better today,” Kade says.
“Oh. Really?”
“Yeah. You’re not as tense.”
He looks back down, wondering how Kade always sees things he can’t discern about himself. “I didn’t realize.”
Kade shrugs. He connects the laptop cable to a wall socket, before tugging his phone from his pocket. Felix pulls the mugs from the microwave when it beeps.
“Black coffee?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
While the eggs sizzle, Felix turns slightly, peeking at Kade. He hasn’t truly looked at his alpha since he returned to Meadowfall, hasn’t just watched him being busy, because Kade’s attention had been laser-sharp on him.
Now, Kade’s fingers fly over the keyboard. Felix realizes that he hasn’t
