Page 154 of Our Radiant Embers

“Me too,” Liam said.

I grinned. “Should I be jealous?”

“Hardly.” Liam’s laugh was quiet, barely loud enough to carry over the music from the workshop. “I prefer you like this. It’s much better than the polished mirage you used to sell.”

”So you don’t miss the suits?”

“Maybe a little.”

“That’s what I thought.” I walked half a step closer, our hands bumping. “You know, maybe we should introduce Julien and Nathaniel.”

Cassandra had asked me to keep half an eye on her youngest brother, signal that I was available should he ever need to talk. Since her gaydar outshone mine, I trusted her instincts.

“Trying to spread the gay?” Liam’s dry words echoed what some members of the magical community said behind closed doors. Apparently, being open about our relationship equalled flaunting our sexuality.

“Just keeping my promises,” I said.

“Sounds like you,” Liam said. I needed a moment to realise that he was serious when I’d always thought of him, not me, as the kind of guy who stood by his word. Was I that kind of guy, too?

“Does it?” I asked.

“Yes.” Liam stopped me with a hand on my elbow, turning us to face each other. “You’ve sure kept your promises to me.”

“My promises?”

“You chose me. And you stood by that even when it got hard.”

For some reason, it made me feel just the slightest hint misty-eyed. How silly. Still I skipped the silver-platter dick joke. “You’re worth it.”

His smile was slow and quiet. “So are you,” he said, and I remembered his note from all those months ago.

‘Even if it means hiding, you’re worth every second.’

Well. No more hiding for us.

* * *

III.January

(Liam)

The day we moved houses, London decided to throw one of its rare snow parties—because of course. Too bad that the city’s infrastructure hadn’t been invited. It collapsed with all the grace of a double-decker bus on a skating rink.

Fun for all ages.

Our moving crew consisted of five air mages, which wasn't terribly useful when it came to getting four vans safely across icy roads layered in snow. The twenty-five minute drive took twice that long even though Adam and I rode in the front and tried to subtly clear our path—he melted and I refroze. Hopefully the snow-free tracks we left wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows.

Butting up against a park, our new house was hidden from the road by towering hedges and tall trees, bare at this time of year. It was…a lot. The main house came with four bedrooms for my family and an extra one for guests, an office with a separate entrance, and more space than furniture to fill it with. A two-tiered landscaped garden featured a small but fully equipped guest house that would belong to Adam and me. Christ—we’d made it.

Later, as we were unpacking boxes in our new home, I shared that realisation with Adam. “You know how I used to think of myself and my family as the underdogs? Guess we’re a bit past that.”

He sat back on the floor with a smile. “Pretty sure that ship has sailed, yeah.”

In his frayed jeans and a loose hoodie that he usually wore around the workshop, he looked nothing like the polished poster boy of the Harrington family I’d both admired and resented from afar. Oh, he could still activate him when needed. As he had more people skills than the rest of us combined, he’d become our unofficial family spokesperson, and once in a while, he donned a fancy suit to impress a potential client or business partner. I didn’t have a kink or anything, his claim to the contrary notwithstanding, but I would admit to thoroughly enjoying the part where I got him out of them. We could afford the dry-cleaning bills.

He was also training Laurie up as his second-in-command. When she tucked her penchant for sarcasm out of sight, she could be rather charming. With the Initiative’s three pilot areas close to completion, we had some leeway for other projects before the next round kicked off.

“Funny, isn’t it?” I set down the bedside lamp I’d just unwrapped. “Less than a year ago, you and Cassandra were the golden couple, and I thought I hated you.”

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