Wyatt couldn’t help smiling then, leaning into Raph’s warm chest. “You think?”
“I don’t know,” Raph murmured in his ear, his breath warm. “Tell me.”
“I’m not.” Wyatt slipped his arms around Raph’s waist, pulling himself close. “I have you.”
“Good,” Raph whispered, kissing his neck. Then he tipped Wyatt’s head up, and kissed the other side of his throat, where the scent gland was. Hazel watched. Raph eyed her for a moment, before asking, “Your dad told you about bondmates?”
Wyatt held his breath.
She nodded. “Mates for life. Kind of like getting married, but more important.”
“Your dad’s my bondmate,” Raph said, tracing his fingers just along the raw bite mark. Wyatt shivered. “That okay with you?”
“Is it true?” Hazel asked Wyatt.
Maybe they shouldn’t be telling Hazel this. Maybe Wyatt should break the bond. But Raph brushed his thumb along Wyatt’s skin, soothing, and Wyatt realized that he wanted to be Raph’s mate. So he nodded, slipping his fingers around Raph’s hand. “Yes. We’re bondmates.”
Raph drew a quick, sharp breath, his mouth curling into a little smile. He wanted this too, then. They weren’t lovers, not really. But what they had... it was precious. Not something Wyatt wanted to let go of anytime soon.
Hazel scrutinized Wyatt for a moment, then Raph. Then she settled back onto the couch, nodding. “Dad likes you,” she told Raph. “I like you, too.”
Well, she wasn’t wrong about that. Wyatt relaxed. Maybe things would be okay, between the three of them.
Raph smiled, reaching over to ruffle her hair. Wyatt beckoned to her. “C’mon, give us a hug.”
She clambered over the couch, flopping between them in a whiff of shampoo. And as Wyatt hugged Hazel, so did Raph, his strong arms wrapping around them both.
In that moment, they all felt like family, and Wyatt hoped it would always be this way.
11
Raph
Three Fridays later, Raph drove into Meadowfall again. He’d been chatting with Wyatt through text, visiting him and Hazel on the weekends.
It was early June, and the days were growing longer. The sky was still a bright blue when he pulled into his parents’ curving driveway. By the time he stepped out of the car, his grandmother was at the front door, her wrinkled face brightening when she saw him.
His stomach turned. He hadn’t wanted to see her.
At eighty-four, Elizabeth Fleming was the matriarch of the Fleming family. She swept down the grand staircase in her shimmering gown and seventy rings, her white hair coiffed atop her head. Raph shut his car door, locked it, and tried to smile. It probably showed as a grimace.
“Raphael,” Grandma said, smiling down her pointed nose at him. She was short. But he always felt like he was ten years old again, in front of her. “How have you been?”
Not like he hadn’t just seen her at the office in Highton.
“Fine, thanks. What about you?” Raph strode up the driveway and stairs, to cut short the time he had to walk with her. The sooner he got to his parents, the better.
“Very well, thank you. Your supervisor has informed me of your excellent work,” Grandma said, her eyes gleaming, her painted lips wrinkled. Her rings glittered like a mummy’s cursed treasure. She held out her hand as he approached; Raph was forced to accept it, accompany her up the stairs so she didn’t fall. Her bony fingers dug into his palm.
All he could think about was the way she’d looked years ago, back when he’d kissed Wyatt in the piano room. She’d shrieked, and sworn at Wyatt, cursing him to hell and back. Raph had tried to step between them. It didn’t undo the years of hurt she’d laid into Wyatt, the whispers that Wyatt wasn’t good enough, that he was an embarrassment to the Fleming family.
Wyatt had fled. And Grandma had smiled like she’d intended it all along.
Raph swallowed the bile in his throat, walking her through the wide front doors. He’d thrown fits at her when he was younger. But his parents had pleaded for him to stop, and he’d backed down in his fury.
Grandma owned the mansion. When Raph’s biological mom had died of cancer, Dad and Raph had moved in with Grandma, riddled with debt. They hadn’t much say, back then. Raph had grown up learning to yield to Grandma’s word—one wrong move, and he and Dad would be homeless.
It had been stifling. When Dad married a second wife, Raph had perked up. He suddenly had two new siblings—Wyatt and Penny—people he could spend time with, aside from Grandma. Grandma had taken an immediate liking to Penny. Not so much with Wyatt. So Raph had liked Wyatt right away, in quiet rebellion against his Grandma.
“...told the gardener I wanted two rows of lavender by the driveway,” Grandma said. “The neighbors have mentioned how stunning it looks.”
Raph nodded. Had Mom and Dad saved enough to afford their own home? He didn’t know. And so he couldn’t risk getting them thrown out, by telling Grandma about him and Wyatt.
Would be nice to be out of debt, for once.
“You smell different,” Grandma said as they crossed the great hall, with its thick brocade rugs and ancient chaises. She narrowed her eyes, sniffing. Raph’s heart thudded. “That scent is... atrocious.”
And Raph knew she’d detected the traces of Wyatt’s scent, the magnolia that had stayed when he’d kissed Wyatt’s scent gland last week.
He shrugged, keeping his expression nonchalant. “I met someone new.”
“Oh?” Grandma fixed her gaze on him, piercing and judgmental. And Raph smiled like he did with the stubborn people he managed at work, hoping they’d remove themselves from his personal space. Grandma gripped his hand. “I hope it isn’t anyone unsavory, Raphael.”
“It’s someone very savory,” he said. And Wyatt was, too, with that impish smile of his when he’d kissed Raph goodbye at his apartment.
Grandma huffed, satisfied for now.
They stepped into the dining room, where Raph’s parents sat on one side of the sprawling dining table. Mom and Dad smiled. Raph breathed in
