Tell Me Our Story

Jonathan clamped a hand on O’Hara’s thigh; the seat belt just didn’t seem strong enough to handle all that. Unexpectedly, O’Hara’s frenetics slowed under his touch. Jonathan was tempted to keep his hand there. For the peace.

“You’re good at balancing me.”

“. . .”

“Oh hush. You know you are.”

Jonathan’s grip tightened on the wheel and he shifted in his seat.

O’Hara’s grin lit up as bright as the quarter moon ahead of them. “You’re steady, unwavering, resolute. You’re all control. I live off emotion. I’m a social butterfly—”

“—with no indoor voice?”

O’Hara blinked and doubled over his lap with a laugh. When he pulled himself up, he preened. “What else?”

“Always dancing the line between confidence and egotism.”

Another laugh coincided with a sudden dip in the road, rolling through Jonathan in a gravity-chasing shiver.

When they arrived home, he scooped up O’Hara’s abandoned bag from the backseat and followed the bundle of excitement inside.

“This is very light,” Jonathan said, dropping the bag on O’Hara’s bed in the study.

“Fresh underwear and Plato’s Phaedrus. What else do I need?”

Need. Now there was a question.

But not one he was ready to philosophise. “Laptop and chargers?”

O’Hara tapped a pocket bulging with his phone. “I thought I’d maybe borrow yours?”

Jonathan turned and headed to the kitchen.

“Where’s Savvy?” O’Hara asked, right behind him.

“Staying with a friend until Sunday morning.”

“It’s just us?”

There was a husky note in O’Hara’s voice that had Jonathan whipping around. Green eyes clashed with his, and Jonathan suddenly felt . . . crowded. He ducked briskly into a cupboard. “Tea? Then we should probably get to bed so we’re fresh in the morning.”

O’Hara leaned against the fridge, arms folded. “Come on, Jonathan. It’s barely nine. You can’t get that many nights off.”

Barely nine . . . God. But . . . bed meant separate rooms, and separate rooms meant . . . separate. Jonathan cleared his throat but O’Hara’s expression suggested he saw too much into his unease already. And there were things he could be doing. He’d stay right here in O’Hara’s company, and be fine.

Just fine.

He reached for his laptop, sank onto the couch, and tried to focus.

In his peripheral vision, O’Hara put his hands on his hips, shaking his head. But just as Jonathan thought he’d pinch the laptop away, O’Hara scuttled off down the hall.

Perhaps to grab his book.

Jonathan hovered the cursor over the file he’d been working on since he returned from Sydney. His mind wanted him to double-click, open, and start, but his heart stuttered. What if O’Hara noticed? Took interest?

Jonathan grimaced, and opened. It was just a work in progress. It didn’t mean anything.

O’Hara returned—sans Phaedrus—giggled at Gingernut pushing her fluffy head through the gap in the window, and flopped onto the couch to tease the kitten with his wristband.

When ohhing and yumming hit Jonathan’s ears, he glanced up. Remote in hand, kitten now draped over his leg, O’Hara had flicked through the channels until he landed on a baking show.

“God, what wouldn’t I give for pasteis de nata!”

He was practically drooling over the remote, his belly emanating suspicious growling sounds.

Jonathan frowned. “What have you eaten today?”

O’Hara winced.

Jonathan calculated. Maybe he’d eaten before he left the house, but he’d needed to get to the airport a few hours before the flight; then there was the flight, which perhaps provided a small snack but not enough to fill a grown man. Then he’d arrived and expended all that energy being bright and bubbly, and they’d driven home and Jonathan hadn’t even made dinner.

Another belly rumble. O’Hara laughed, hugging himself, and—

Jonathan cast his laptop aside and raided the freezer.

Ten minutes later, he slid a steaming ready-meal onto the coffee table in front of O’Hara, and returned to his scene . . . Lips rakishly red, close to chapped and bleeding. He licked them over and over . . .

A shadow loomed over him. He glanced up to find O’Hara peeking at his laptop screen. “What are you up to?”

Jonathan hurriedly lowered the lid, which only fuelled the sparkling curiosity in O’Hara’s eyes. “Are you writing something, Jonathan?”

“If you figured that much, why ask?”

“Is it a romance novel?”

“. . .”

“Historical? Or mystery?”

“. . .”

“Can I read it?”

Jonathan shut the laptop with a little thunk and set it on the side table.

Laughter. “You’re no fun at all.”

“You should be used to that.”

O’Hara lunged over his lap toward the laptop. His body thumped against Jonathan’s thighs and squirmed as he reached for the side table. Jonathan froze instinctively.

O’Hara sensed his sudden stillness and clambered back with an ‘oopsie’ grin and the laptop. “What’s your password?”

Jonathan rose slowly. “Funny.”

O’Hara sighed and set the laptop aside, replacing it with Gingernut. “Bedtime, I guess?”

Something gleeful flittered over O’Hara’s expression, and Jonathan couldn’t shake the image as he showered and brushed his teeth. When he left the bathroom, the living room was empty and Jonathan found himself pausing at the gap of the study door. “Night, O’Hara.”