* * * *
Wills forked up a piece of his casserole. “Try this, babe.” He offered it to me. I closed my lips around the fork and drew it off, smiling at him as I chewed.
“This is good.”
“Yeah, which is why I order it when we come here for brunch.”
“Maybe next time I’ll order this. Save a piece of the sausage for Miss Su.” I cut off a piece of mango, picked it up with my fingers, and held it against his lips. “You should—”
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the love birds.”
I jumped, dropped the fruit, and swore. I could have lived without hearing that particular voice.
“Chuckles. How come you’re out in the sunlight?”
“Charles, Theodore.” Charlemagne scowled at me. “I’m on my way home.”
“And you just happened to pass by Charmaine? Lucky us.” A glance at my watch showed it was after eleven a. m. “It’s been a long night for you.”
“I was well paid.” He let his gaze crawl over Wills. “Why are you still with him? I know a dozen boys who’d kill for the chance to show you what they can do.”
“Including you?” I tossed my napkin onto the table and pushed my seat back. My intention was to slug him, but Wills put a hand on my forearm, and that kept me effectively in place.
“I don’t need anyone to show me what they can do.” He had a smile in his voice, but there was no amusement on his face. “I’m with Theo because I love him. As a matter of fact, we’re getting married.”
Charlemagne curled his lip, his disdain obvious. “It won’t be legal.”
“Why does everyone feel the need to tell me this?” Wills complained mildly. “I’m aware, but I’ll do whatever I have to in order to keep Theo at my side.”
“Do I get an invitation?”
“No!” I snapped.
“I…didn’t…think…so.” He sneered at me.
“Why would you even want to come?” I trusted Paul and Spike, Tim and Cris. They’d keep what we’d done all those years between us and not say anything to Wills’s family, but Charlemagne…. I could see him taking Jack Matheson to one side and regaling him with what I’d done to survive. I’d always been discreet, but rent boys could be notorious gossips.
“I don’t,” he said dismissively. “And I wouldn’t have been free to go anyway.”
“You don’t know when it will be!” I did a little sneering of my own.
“I still won’t be free.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Charles?” Had Wills lost his mind? Did he want Chuckles to join us?
“No, thanks. To have Sweets scowling at me the entire time would give me acid reflux—”
“I told you before not to call him that.” Wills’s voice was ice cold. “Do it again and you’ll regret it.”
“Sorry,” he said coolly, although he was obviously surprised my lover would call him on that. “Old habits.”
“It will be healthy if you break them.”
“Are you still with…what was that angel’s name? Michael?” I asked. I had the feeling the angel was a straight boy who’d decided to walk on the wild side. He’d come to the Halloween party dressed as an archangel, and then he’d turned up on New Year’s Eve as well. He and Chuckles had seemed to be really cozy when Wills and I left the affair.
Charlemagne’s eyes shied off mine.
Wills must have thought he saw something in Charlemagne’s gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be.” Chuckles looked down his nose at him. He didn’t realize how close he came to being clocked. No one looked at my lover like that. “I dumped him. I was getting bored with him anyway.”
“The way you would have gotten bored with me?”
“What?”
“I’m not a fool, Charles.” I could make his name sound just as ridiculous as Chuckles. “I knew it would only be a matter of time before you tossed me aside. That happened once in my life. I wasn’t going to let it happen again.”
This time he looked down his nose at me. “You’re saying you’d have stayed with me otherwise?”
“If it hadn’t been for your reputation of loving and leaving whichever rent boy you…tempted into your bed? Probably.”
“You came to me willingly, and if you deny it, that’s nothing but a bald-faced lie.”
Yes, I’d gone to him. He’d been someone to curl up against on those cold days after equally cold nights with men who only wanted my body. But it never would have lasted.
“Charles, why don’t you find him and retire?” Wills’s heart was too soft. In spite of his earlier annoyance, he was ready to take pity on him.
“He won’t want me.” He flicked a glance in my direction. “You of all people know how good I am at breaking off an affair.” He turned his wrist to check his watch. “I’ll leave you to your brunch. It was…interesting seeing you again. I’ll try to make a point of it never happening again.” And he was gone in the Sunday morning crowd.