Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
He had no decorations on the walls. Not even pennants from past team wins, or his own trophies from his high school football days. He’d left those with his parents when he’d moved out, mementos of the boy he wasn’t anymore so they’d have something to keep when he wasn’t there. The only other things in the room were the small coffee table, the laptop atop it, his nightstand, and a row of bookshelves stretching beneath the window, along the wall opposite the bed. With the minimal furniture choices and most of his belongings in the closet, paired with the fact that he was lucky to get a corner unit in one of the narrow towers, giving him windows on two out of four walls...
Somehow, the space always just felt clean and cozy, instead of cramped.
But he still couldn’t help wondering how Rian—with all his airs and little decorative fripperies and that sense of refined elegance that said he came from a life accustomed to more—saw his space.
If he saw someone who preferred simplicity...
Or if he just saw a man with a barren, empty life, devoid of nearly all trappings save the little subtleties he doubted Rian even noticed.
But rather than the thin judgmental smile Damon expected...
Rian let out a delighted gasp, stepping deeper into the room, standing on the oval rug with its concentric circles of rainbow colors, turning in slow arcs. “You have your own room? How did you even manage...?”
“Luck and timing,” Damon said, after a startled moment. “There are only four cupola units, and they’re all this small; the rest is all staircases. Most people would rather share a room to have five times the space, but a few of the grouchy cranks like me prefer our privacy.”
Rian laughed, and it lit his face up as if someone had touched a match to the sparking wick of a candle inside a lantern. “Oh, I’d kill for this. Especially rooming with Walden. Though I’d probably cram myself in a tiny corner and fill the entire place up with art supplies. I admire your restraint.” On a light, dancing step that made his shawl swirl around him, Rian turned toward the bed, reaching out to run his fingertips lightly along the edge of one quilt. “...these are Mashpee designs, aren’t they?”
“Uh...?” Damon’s brain blanked. He—what—what? “I...yeah. I picked them up at the annual pow-wow up in Cape Cod a few years ago.”
And then never went back.
He’d stood so awkwardly on the edges the entire time, wishing he knew what he was missing in every graceful movement of the fireball ceremony when it was like watching a foreign show without the damned subtitles, wondering how the hell he could be one of the People of the First Light when he was so goddamned much in the dark.
Before he’d bought blankets like some kind of fucking tourist just to say he had something from his people.
And then run the fuck away.
Rian lifted his head, looking at Damon with a curiosity so frank it almost looked innocent; Rian looked so entirely different when they weren’t scowling at each other, his face open and fresh and sweet, freckled and warm with unspoken laughter. “Do you go every year?”
“I...no.” Damon averted his eyes, dragging a hand over his wet hair and mussing it. He really didn’t know what to do with Rian bright, enthusiastic, interested. “I just... I don’t.”
He couldn’t get the real answer out.
That he felt like he didn’t belong, and every time he walked the fringes of spaces claimed by the Mashpee Wampanoag nation he felt like an outsider looking in at something that should have been his, but had been taken away from him.
And he didn’t know how to get it back.
Fuck, he didn’t want to be thinking about this right now.
Or trying to figure out what to do with the weird flutter-hot feeling in his chest, watching Rian dance around his suite like it was the most delightful thing he’d ever seen.
Fucking hell.
Damon cleared his throat, turning away and reaching up to open the cabinet over the range. “You eat dinner?”
“Ah?” Rian’s sandals rasped softly on the old wooden floorboards, hinting he was turning toward Damon. “Oh, no. I, er, was thinking about ordering in after we were done talking.”
“I can make enough for two.” Damon drew down a wide, deep Teflon-coated wok and set it on the range. “You okay with stir-fry?”
“Sure.” Rian’s steps skipped closer, and then he was just a burst of color and pale skin in Damon’s peripheral vision, peering over at him curiously. “How do you make stir-fry? Maybe I can help.”
“You cut up whatever you want...and then stir...and fry it together. That’s what stir-fry means,” Damon said, and jerked his chin toward the mini-fridge. “There’s some vegetables and mushrooms in there if you want to wash them off and get started.”