Page 27 of A Suitable Brat
“Brat.”Westin kissed the top of his head and smiled like the sapwit he was.“I listen to you but perhaps I wasn’t paying attention to what you meant.I didn’t think you, well, anyone, but especially you, could mean it if they said that they will go where I go.But you did say it, and I’m sorry I didn’t understand.”
He expected a snide comment about how the words could not have been more plain.He got Sun pushing out a long, pained sigh.
“You’regood.”
“Too good?”Westin prompted after a moment, unclear if this was like being “too generous.”
Sun shook his head.He continued to cling to Westin, but finally offered the complaint Westin had previously expected.“I would ride with you no matter where you go.I was very clear, West.I was… I was too clear.I didn’t like that.”
Demand next time, Westin nearly said, because possibly the asking was what had confused him.But even without Hely, he had the sense to keep that unsaid.Anyway, he hoped there wouldn’t be a next time.
“I will try to do better when you visit me.I’ve wanted to bring you for a while, though it will be dull for you.We largely farm, although there is some business elsewhere, which is more of what I do.My mother hasn’t been interested in that for some time, and I’m traveling or in the capital anyway.”
“You were going to bring me home to meet your family?”Sun made a funny sound.“Before all of this?”
“I was going to invite you, if I ever got the nerve.”Westin’s cowardice was still bothersome.“I think I was worried you’d say no, and then I’d be forced to confront how much I wanted you to visit.If you visit now,” something Sun still had not agreed to, “and you didn’t mind it, the offer remains for you to stay there.If you need to, or perhaps during the worst of the winter months, for me and my worries.”
“I go the longest without seeing you in the winter.”Sun reached up to card his fingers through Westin’s hair, unraveling the last of the braid before flinging the tie elsewhere.“And the whole time I know you’re afraid.I don’t like it.”That was a declaration.“I offered to travel with you, stay with you.I said I’d go with you, always.I said that, West.”That was a pout.“That hasn’t changed.I can work with you.Farming, you said?”
“As well as some other land and business matters.Dull, to many.”
“I like dull.”It was said slyly.
Westin was strangely not offended.“Brat.”
Sun kissed the side of Westin’s throat before continuing to pull his hair.“You said too much peace was boring.”
“I did say that,” Westin agreed absently.“That doesn’t mean… ah, Sun, there’s something I need to tell you before you decide on any visits.”
“Visits.”Sun scoffed again.“Well, go on.If you can only tell your secrets in Solace House, then you should get on with it so I don’t have to drag you back here.”He sniffed.“Hely would be too pleased.”
Stroking Sun’s back to calm him was reflex.So was tightening his hold to prevent Sun from darting away.
“Lyeth is not my entire name.”Westin nuzzled a frozen Sun for what was hopefully not the last time.At the clenching of the hands in his hair, telling him that Sun had understood what hadn’t been said, Westin continued, quickly.“Corilyeth is a hindrance in my work.It’s an embarrassment around other nobles and yet drags me into noble business.I rarely tell anyone unless I’m back in the family territory.”
When Sun pushed against his chest, Westin allowed it.He deserved Sun’s narrow-eyed stare.
“Are you the landlord here?”Sun demanded, then gasped.“Does Hely know?He knew before me?”
“Sun.”Westin gathered Sun’s hands and brought them up to kiss them, a gesture he’d seen apologetic husbands do and never once thought he’d be one of them.“We are… well, the land the inn is on is ours, conditionally.It depends on other nobles getting greedy or the ruler doing so, though rulers have thankfully have been inclined to peace for years now.Nobles grow ambitious and it only leads to trouble.Which is not what we are after.Not trouble as nobles know it.”He kissed Sun’s fingers again.“Bless the current queen for being peaceful and may all our future rulers continue to be so.”
“So, yes he did know before me,” Sun summed up.
“My mother is The Corilyeth,” Westin answered, then hesitated.“For now.Shewould be the landlord, if you insisted.My sister handles most of the land management.But yes, Hely knows.All the locals know.It wasn’t only Hely.We’re not rich as many noble families are.I can’t offer you that.We have no desire for conquest or pleasing rulers.We farm, and do some business, and maintain an old estate, and do not even really have sworn guards, except for a few kept around because they are older.They were mostly for pride anyway.The heads of noble families often travel with sworn guards, even lesser families.As for anything else, I personally have my remaining Outguard pay.Although, with my sister not inclined to diplomacy,” or tact, Westin silently apologized to Besse but it was true, “or palace goings on, when my mother chooses to finally rest,” Westin tried not to sigh at the rising color in Sun’s face, “Iwill be The Corilyeth.But my money is yours.That is, I will use it to spoil you as best as I can.I can be selfish.”
“You can’t,” Sun protested, but weakly, his mind clearly on other matters.“Thisis why you lend others money and never ask for it back.Oh, Westin.”
“We are content with what we have,” Westin insisted, repeating what the family believed and had said to each other long before he’d been born.“Ihave always been content with what I had.Until you.You made me want more.It worried me.”
“Worried you like the cold worries you?”Sun was among the sharpest and cleverest of the outguards.
“I’m territorial about you,” Westin confessed, basking in what the admission did to Sun.“It makes me feel like a beat-of-four.”
“Youarea beat-of-four,” Sun reminded him without mercy.
“Yes.”Westin breathed out but it didn’t calm him.“I can be selfish.In one area, I can.”
“With me.”Sun shimmied his pleasure at that and then slid back down as if intending to use Westin as a pillow again.Instead, he draped himself over Westin’s lap, his chin propped up in his hands, his ass on display, and wriggled when Westin settled his hands on the backs of his thighs.“I’ve never thought of marriage,” he said with his face hidden.“I think you’d regret marrying me, in time.”
