“It’s more that I want to talk about you,” Arthur admitted, as his arm stayed around Rory like an anchor. “You know you don’t have to be afraid of my family?”
Rory froze. “I’m not—”
“You’ve been avoiding Harry as much as you can. I didn’t know if maybe it was the—ah—money thing,” he said, sounding very awkward, “because I’ll admit, he and Celeste are not subtle.”
Rory hunched a bit. “It’s complicated,” he said guiltily. He’d never meant to upset Arthur.
But Arthur just squeezed him reassuringly tighter. “You don’t have to like him—”
“I like him,” Rory interrupted. “A lot. I wish I’d had a dad like him.”
Arthur groaned. “Thank you, Theodore, thank you for that. I did not actually need a reminder that you’re young enough my brother could be your father.”
Rory rolled his eyes. “I’m not young, Ace. And I’ve been on my own for years. You’re being overprotective again.”
“Maybe. But I couldn’t protect you from sleeping in the basement.”
Arthur’s voice had grown quieter. Rory furrowed his brow. “Basement’s fine. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Everything.” Arthur’s face brushed the back of Rory’s neck in the quickest caress. He already had stubble going, electric against Rory’s skin. “I know it would have been too risky for me to insist you sleep in better quarters. But I never meant for you to think you can’t even speak to my family.”
Arthur sounded genuinely bothered. Rory swallowed. “You didn’t.”
“Didn’t I? The first night you and I spoke on the phone, you told me you never wanted to hear my fu—my name again. I have just as much money as Harry and I didn’t scare you at all then. Why would you be nervous now?”
Rory bit his lip, staring into the dark, the wall only inches from his face. “Because that night on the phone with you, I was mad, and I didn’t have anything to lose,” he said, uncomfortably honest. “It didn’t matter that when I open my big mouth, most people don’t like me.”
“That’s not—”
“How’d it go, the first time we met?”
Arthur fell silent.
“I yelled at you and I ran my mouth, then I told a buncha lies, and you didn’t like me,” Rory said quietly. “Harry’s your brother. You care about your family, and that matters to me because I care about—look,” he said hastily instead. “I just don’t want to mess it all up with him too, all right?”
But behind him, Arthur shook his head. “I didn’t dislike you.”
“Yeah, you did—”
“I thought you were cute.”
Rory blinked and tried to glance over his shoulder at Arthur. “Cute?”
“Very. And I thought you were a little shit, but I wasn’t wrong about that either.”
“Language.” But a grudging smile tugged at Rory’s lips.
Arthur touched his cheek to Rory’s hair. “I’m simply saying that if you think you could ever upset me or put me off by being yourself, regardless of the company, then you don’t know me at all.”
Oh. Rory turned his face into the pillow as his smile grew. Outside the window, the wind whistled almost happily, and he pressed backward, just a little closer into Arthur’s warmth. “I know you got weird taste in fellas. Who thinks someone’s a pain and keeps coming back for more when you coulda left me in the snow?”
Arthur’s arm tightened around Rory again, and when he spoke, Rory felt the ghost of breath. “There was a moment tonight when I thought you were at the bottom of the Hudson.”
Rory’s heart lurched. “I didn’t—”
“I know.” Arthur swallowed. “Just—maybe I can’t put my aura in your magic, but you’re not the only one who’s choosing this. All right?”
His voice was slightly raw and he was still holding Rory tightly, like Rory mattered, like he was something worth keeping close. Like maybe Rory wasn’t the only one who’d lose a piece of himself if he lost Arthur.
Rory found Arthur’s hand with his own, and threaded their fingers together over his own heart. “All right, tesoro,” he said softly. “Anything for you.”
Chapter Ten
Arthur was not too proud to admit a profound sense of relief when Harry arrived in the monastery office just after dawn.
“Jones was gracious enough to bring me over in the boat,” Harry said, as one of the monks led him into the guesthouse’s downstairs hall where Arthur and Rory were waiting, the pair of them sitting at opposite ends of a wooden bench like they hadn’t just spent the night stuck together like two pillows in the same case. “The ice is broken, the river’s flowing, and it was faster to cross over myself than hire a car to drive you forty miles to the bridge and another forty miles home, you complete and utter ass.”
“Good morning to you too,” Arthur said mildly, getting to his feet.
“Don’t good morning me.” Apparently they’d triggered Harry’s angry parent mode. “Calling to say you’re stranded at the monastery across the Hudson, how the devil—”
Arthur pointedly cleared his throat. “Fairly certain that individual isn’t here,” he said, for Rory’s sake, even if he fully sympathized with Harry’s cursing. In Harry’s shoes, he’d also be equal parts baffled and livid.
Harry gave him a dark look. “What on earth were you thinking, going out on the ice without knowing it was safe? I was up half the night worrying—”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
Arthur and Harry both turned in surprise.
Rory had stood too. He’d paled and was leaning his weight on the wall, but he was looking Harry straight in the eyes. “It wasn’t Ace’s fault,” he said again. “I’m the idiot who went out on the ice. Ace was rescuing me.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. “You went out on the ice? Alone?”
“Um.” Rory bit his lip.
Oh, Arthur couldn’t bear that guilty look on Rory’s face. “Harry—”
Harry held up a hand. “I’m sure Mr. Brodigan can answer my question.”
Rory grew yet another shade paler, but he held his chin up. “Yeah, I did, so don’t bust Ace’s chops, okay? I’m the idiot, I’m the one you wanna yell at.”