Page 15 of A Suitable Brat
He had the passing, annoyed thought that Sun had no call to be angry with him for keeping secrets if Sun had been hiding lovers.But it was the sort of warm annoyance he often felt where Sun was concerned.It was followed by longing, bitter and sweet, and then acceptance of the truth, no matter how much he’d grieve later.
“He deserves to be happy,” Westin said, and meant it.“And spoiled or indulged more.”If Sun had learned to show others his vulnerable side, that could only be good for him.“If he’s found someone, or several someones, to keep him happy, then I’m glad.Or if he’s looking for that, then… then good.”
“What if he looks here tonight?That won’t bother you?”
Everyone kept insisting Westin was generous.He didn’t see why Hely would think him lying now.Westin was not territorial.“Why should it?”
Hely shocked him with a smug grin.“Westin, darling, you are spitting out sparks like a log on a fire.You very mucharebothered.”
“What?”Westin was doing no such thing.He was knitting, or, he was going to.He was breathing deeply and he wasn’t calm but he ought to at leastappearcalm.Very few people would have thought otherwise.One was across from him and the other was probably looking for someone to charm right at that moment.
“Sparks.”Hely was enjoying himself.“Your boy is a gift.”
“He’s not…”
“How long has it been since you two last touched each other?”Hely pressed, more thoughtful than gleeful.
“About two months.”Westin was too surprised to lie, not that he would have; Hely would have seen through it.
“So little?”Hely clucked his tongue and ignored or failed to notice Westin’s displeasure at that.“What I mean by that is that it has only been a few weeks since you saw him last, and yet you looked at him as though you wanted to haul him to you and have him on the table in front of everyone.”
Westin didn’t fumble the needle a second time, but only because he held it painfully tight.“When I first saw him?”
“Pretty much the entire time.”Hely was merciless.“Yet no welcome hug or kiss, not even a clasp of hands.From either of you.I was both confused and intrigued.”
Westin shook his head.“Sun doesn’t want…”
Hely shut him up neatly.“Your brat would have been happy to have been taken on that table.Byyou.He flattered me, and Min, and the bath attendant.Hehungersfor you.Your attention.Your care.Your cock too, I’m sure.Do you truly not see that?”
Westin burned like a flustered youth.“No one hungers for me.”
“Hmm,” Hely said, then nothing else for several long moments, a cue for Westin to think over what had been discussed.When Hely did talk again, it was only to add, “You haven’t been knitting.”
Westin began to knit out of reflex, hands quick, thoughts quicker and far less orderly.Outguards spent a great deal of time alone and all had ways to pass the time, like whittling, or reading, or working with fibers like this.Westin mostly made scarves, which were easy, and outguards always needed more warm clothes for rough travels.Westin worried as well, and maybe many of them knew that and were happy to accept his gifts to appease his anxiety.Sun knew it, even if he hadn’t been wearing the last scarf Westin had made for him.Those cuffs, but no scarf.
“Have you been hiding this from me all this time?”Hely wondered, not giving Westin much of a chance to answer.“Not him,” he explained before Westin got out more than a quiet objection.“You weren’t hidingyour Sun from me; you were keeping your secret dreams about him to yourself.Butthis.”He gestured toward Westin’s furiously clacking knitting needles.“I never expected you to be the sort to claim territory, but you shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”
“I havenotclaimed territory.”That, Westin had never done.Even the family land was for the family and those working on it.It wasn’this.
Hely ignored that.“You think he will charm himself into a bed tonight.To sweet-talk that jewelry from someone, he must have been quite charming indeed.”
Westin couldn’t summon any anger over that, which was more proof that he wasn’t territorial.“Yes.He is very charming when he wants to be.Not with me, but he doesn’t need to with me.”Westin, the soft-touch.“I’ve always liked that.He can be himself with me.He doesn’t have to put out so much effort.”
Hely leaned forward.“He tracked you down here.I would say he thinks you’re worth some effort.He probably thinks that even now despite how you stabbed him with the idea of losing you.What surprises me, aside from witnessing this side of you, is that hehadto track you down.Why don’t you travel together?The Outguard allows that, doesn’t it?”
About to insist that he didn’t need someone else with him who had their own assignments to worry about, Westin abruptly stopped.
“He did say something about that once,” he finally admitted, flushing hot with embarrassment, “in his insolent way.”Sun had found Westin sick in the spare room of a public house in a little village.He had been ranting at Westin at the time.Westin had agreed that he’d deserved to be ranted at; he should have done better.But summer and spring illnesses happened too.Sickness wasn’t only a winter problem.And though Westin had been exhausted when he’d first ridden into that village, and exhaustion made bodies weaker, that didn’t mean he could control catching the sniffles… or something stronger than mere sniffles.
Sun had been furious.Worried, now that Westin knew for sure what that looked like on the brat.Worried enough to let it show.
Fuck, Westin had messed up.
“Hely, if I set it up, could I cover the costs of his visits here if he wants to come back?”
Hely’s eyes widened.Then he smiled, fond but exasperated.“Wouldn’t it be easier to tell him that you want to care for him?He might need to hear that.He might not have ever heard it before.”
A new hurt in an evening of them, but then, Westin hadn’t really come to Solace House for peace.He’d come to settle himself, and that required the truth.That was always a little troubling, but also always worth it in the end.
