Page 14 of A Suitable Brat
“I would have missed you, Hely.”Westin said to make it as plain as he could.“I will visit.You and your husband could even visit me.I’ll be happy to have you.”
“You will be, more than likely because you will be a little bored.”The candlelight made Hely seem briefly wicked, as he might have been when much younger or when not working.“Before tonight, I would have said a completely quiet life would suit you, but now I’d say the perfect amount of danger and worry excites you.Well, perhaps notexcites, but keeps you sharp.That is probably another reason you stayed in the Outguard so long.It wasn’t only him; it was having something to do, problems to solve.Although,” Hely was wicked again, “you like doing him as well.”
Westin sighed loudly in exasperation.
Hely was undeterred.“Yet he doesn’t know about you, your family, your home.”He clucked his tongue.“Westin.”
“I used to imagine bringing him home to meet everyone.I should have recognized that dream for what it was, not that it matters now.He’s hurt.”Westin shut his eyes.“I hurt him.”And Sun had let Westin see it before he’d tucked it away and swanned off to enjoy some comfort at Westin’s expense.Westin hoped he spent a small fortune in there.Because Sun deserved it, and because it meant Sun was showing Westin that he was angry—hurt.
“He cares enough to show it,” Westin realized aloud.“He thinks he’s losing a friend.”A close friend.Perhaps even a best friend.
Hely raised his voice ever so slightly.“He thinks he’s losingyou.You are, if you don’t mind me saying so, anexceptionalfriend to have, Westin.And I’m not even a regular lover to enjoy the rest of you as well.”
Westin went still, inhaling candle smoke and fading perfume from whoever had used the booth last.He had only just put it in those terms to himself, but of course Hely had already seen it.
“I’ve never had a regular lover,” Westin confessed, barely above a murmur.“Never thought I did, anyway.”
“Because you never asked for one?”Hely had that despairing tone again.“Westin.You’re not your family name.You’re more than that.The land wouldn’t fail because you wanted to take something for your own, especially not a companion to love you.Isn’t your sister married?Don’t your brothers flirt with anyone and everyone at the markets?”
“It’s different,” Westin argued stiffly.Responsibility mattered.Sense and duty mattered.Westin was not exceptional and that was what people liked about him.He was steady, and somewhat boring, and only likely to get more so over time.That was what made him so suitable for his role.No one was going to reach for him and he certainly was never going totake.
Unless pushed to, repeatedly.Then he would grow hot and start to snap back before finally reaching for what had been so consistently offered.
Westin swallowed dryly but left the tea where it was.
Regular loverimplied deeper friendship, deeper connection.Implied frequency.Implied that Westin should have discussed his worries with the person who was closer to him than anyone else before he’d made the decision.
It did not imply what Westin wished it did.
“I’m reliable,” he answered after a revealing silence.“And a friend.And safe for him to be himself around.”Soft, Sun had said, with something fond in it.“A soft-touch,” Westin corrected himself out loud, “who gives in to his ridiculous requests even when I know they’re ridiculous.”
“You’re generous,” Hely countered with a little smile.“Those are your qualities—as you think he sees them.I might disagree there, but even if what you imagineweretrue and those were the only good traits you possess, those aren’t small things.They would be especially important qualities for someone who likely grew up without anyone like that in his life.He charmed Min at the bar.He might have charmed me if I hadn’t seen him with you.”
“He snarls at me.”Westin was resigned to it.
Hely shook his head.“Hetrusts youto snarl at you.And you, as might be expected by anyone who knows you even slightly,aresafe,aregiving,arereliable.Until tonight, I’d bet that you passed his every test.Enough that when you hurt him just now, he was so genuinely surprised that it showed.”
Westin realized he was gripping the needles too tightly.
“I was also hurt,” Hely reminded him.
“I said I was sorry.”Westin paused, then tossed his head.“Well, I’m saying it now.Iamsorry.But Iwasgoing to tell you tonight.And I was going to tell him… but I should have discussed it with him when I first began to consider it.I shouldn’t have been embarrassed.”
Hely granted him a warm smile.“Westin, you are, at least in part, what nobles ought to be.You are also, and I speak from experience, the sort to make an excellent husband.”
Westin let a needle slip from his hand and had to fumble for it.“Husband?”His thoughts crashed together.“That’s….”He’d never dreamed of anything that far, and if he hadn’t, he doubted Sun had.“Sun is a survivor, and he’s young.I don’t think his greater future has even crossed his mind.He’s certainly never spoken of it.”
Hely was unruffled by that argument.“Maybe he doesn’t know what futures are available to him.”
“I didn’t know Solace House also offered matchmaking services,” Westin joked hoarsely, or tried to joke, although he was probably giving Hely ideas.He took a deep breath, which did not a thing to calm him.“The younger ones, the ones who join the Outguard because they have no family or few options, like Sun.They don’t think theyhavefutures.But they eventually realize they are welcome to stay in the barracks to teach or to count supplies—tasks will be found for them, if they’ve nowhere else to go.Or they discover love or a different calling on the road.Thoseare the sort of futures they might think of.”
“Love on the road.”Hely made the words sound different.“I see.So you have been waiting for him to do that.What if he has?”
“What?”Sun and Hely had not been alone that long.They couldn’t have grown close enough to discuss something like that, no matter how good Hely was at cultivating intimacy.“He didn’t mention that.He would tell me if he’d met someone.I’d hear all about it.”
“Except that jewelry surprised you,” Hely pointed out.“He has no family and not much money.So where did those cuffs come from?”
Westin had fallen from a roof once, thankfully onto soft ground.Even in pain with the wind knocked out of him, he’d felt better than he did after Hely hit him with that.
