Angelo chuckled, a rich, delicious sound. “Perhaps. But I think I’ll stay here, where I can keep an eye on you. And making you sleep in your own wet spot is the least of what you deserve for being such a brat.”
“I am not a brat!” Yuri felt a hot blush go all the way to his ears. “Go. I want to sleep.”
“Then sleep.” Angelo pulled Yuri closer. “No one’s stopping you.”
“I hate you,” Yuri snapped.
“No you don’t.” Angelo yawned. “You think you do, and it would make everything a hell of a lot easier, but you don’t.” He was quiet for several moments then added, “Trust me. I know.”
6
Angelo Meets Lord Dickface
Over the next two years, Angelo and Yuri fell into a strange sort of holding-pattern relationship. Angelo went out with women and had a succession of girlfriends. Yuri went out with men and had a succession of increasingly bad relationships with them. They largely ignored each other, as they’d agreed they would when they got back to Oxford. Then something would happen, and both would be single at the same time, and inevitably they'd be in Angelo's bed or Yuri's, with Yuri bare-arsed and spent and Angelo full of feelings he didn't like labeling, although satisfaction was in there, along with restlessness and a nagging feeling of something left undone. Angelo would either go back to his college, or send Yuri back to his, then take a shower and wank. Every single time, he came almost as soon as he'd touched his cock, and his thoughts never centered on anyone female.
It was messy and stupid and Angelo didn’t like thinking about it, but it had become his existence. He took his irregular visits with Yuri for granted until they suddenly stopped.
He wondered if Yuri had started dating yet after breaking up with Ian, his latest rugby player. Angelo didn’t know the details of the split, but he figured he'd get an earful later that night when he happened to run into Yuri and Jacki at a coffee shop. Without being invited, he sat down with them.
“Hi, Angel,” Jacki said. “How's it going?”
He shrugged. “Fine.”
“No one asked you to sit with us.” Yuri crossed his arms over his narrow chest like a petulant child.
“Doesn't matter, princess. I've got a standing invitation. Goes with the whole betrothal bullshit.”
Yuri glared daggers at Angelo. “You can't just remember we're going to be engaged when it's convenient for you. That's not how this works.”
Angelo picked up Yuri's coffee and drank it. Cappuccino, and cooler than he'd have liked, but beggars couldn't be choosers. “It works however I say it does. You're not in charge, runt.”
“Fuck you,” Yuri muttered, and took back his drink.
Angelo chatted with Jacki for a few minutes then stood. “I gotta run. Tonight, Yuri? Text me.”
Yuri colored deeply and shook his head. “No,” he said, but quietly. Angelo barely heard him.
That “no” shocked Angelo to his core. Yuri had never refused to meet up with him. Not once. Angelo felt like an actor in a play who'd memorized the wrong lines.
“Come again?”
Jacki giggled. “I think that's his plan. Mr. Man here has a big date tonight.”
Yuri fiddled with his napkin nervously. His knee bounced rapidly. Angelo put his hand on Yuri's thigh to stop it. Yuri hissed and flinched away. “That's Prince Mr. Man to you,” he said to Jacki. “And yeah, I've got a date tonight.”
“Another rugby player?” Angelo asked with a raised eyebrow.
“This one is a tutor.” Jacki grinned mischievously. “Philosophy, I think.”
“But he's not one of mine,” Yuri hastened to add. “He's out of All Saints.”
“Oh,” Angelo said. Again, he wasn't sure what his line was. He stood. “Well. I guess I'll be seeing you around.”
“Sure,” Jacki said.
“Maybe,” Yuri added.
Angelo went back to his room at the college and tried to study his economics notes but failed. All he could think about was Yuri being fucked by some much older guy and it left a horrible, sour taste in his mouth.
That night it took him several hours to fall asleep.
Angelo didn't see Yuri again around Oxford for several months. He almost broke down and asked Philippe, but that would've been as bad as asking Jacki. Still, it wasn't unheard of for him and Yuri to go long periods without seeing each other, but he'd been shocked to find that when he went to Mirea for Christmas that year, Yuri was conspicuously absent. Feeling completely at loose ends, Angelo left to go to Tanzhir. His parents were off on some sort of diplomatic trip, so Angelo spent his holiday reading, walking through the gardens alone, bickering with his sister, exercising, and deliberately not texting Yuri.
It had been, overall, a thoroughly shitty holiday.
When Angelo finally saw Yuri, his Yuri, he was holding hands with an older man as they walked along the river. Some devil, likely prompted by the memory of Rebecca Yardley, made Angelo jog over to the pair. The older man was handsome, with soft brown hair and strong, regular features. He looked to be possibly in his thirties, but it was hard to tell. He wore a very good suit. Not new, but bespoke and well cared for. Yuri wore a white button-down and gray slacks, his honey-colored hair longer than Angelo had ever seen it and hanging artistically in front of the left side of his face. His mouth didn't betray any emotion and Angelo couldn't see his eyes because they were hidden in a shadow cast by the older man’s much larger form.
“Hi,” Angelo said, something making his skin prickle. Maybe it was the possessive grip the man had on Yuri's hand. “Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“No,” Yuri said, then flinched slightly.
“Manners, pet,” the man said. Looking Angelo up and down he added, “I'm Blackheath.” At Angelo's blank stare, he added, “the Duke of Arrington’s heir. Not that the old man is planning on dying any
