Page 19 of Missiletoe
He was right. Gareth didn’t put me in timeout lightly. The only tech I could tinker with when I was grounded was in our house. When I was stuck at home, things began to go missing and then reappear later as new and improved versions of their former selves.
Why no one ever bothered to thank me for it was a mystery.
Gareth always developed a twitch by day three of my timeouts. Vale usually barricaded himself in his lab after day one.
“What’s with the jewelry?” Apple asked between mouthfuls of popcorn. “Is it a torture device?”
Apple was far too cute and innocent looking to sound as bloodthirsty as he did just now.
“Yes,” I agreed. “It’s horrible. Gareth, now I’m going to miss the Christmas lights tonight!” There were the tears again.
Sigh.
My douchebag brother went full-on Benedict Arnold on me and said, “Oh, I think you saw plenty of Christmas lights today already. This little fucker wandered right out into traffic because he got distracted by them.” Baz motioned to Apple to hand him the jar of peanuts behind him and glared when Apple gave it to Adam instead.
“Baz!” I stole some popcorn from Apple and threw it at Baz.
My brother is a fickle bastard at times. Yes, he’s ultimately on my side, but he also loves to stir up shit every chance he gets.
“He made a new friend too,” Baz continued shamelessly, and I knew he was sucking up to Gareth because he wanted him to forget about the drone thing.
“Sounds like we need to talk, sweetheart.” Gareth scooped me off the floor princess-style. Before carrying me out of the room, he said to Baz, “We’ll talk about the drone later.”
Gareth took me to a room that used to be a library but stopped being one once he’d turned it into his office. I had made sure it still had the comfy aura of a library though, just minus the bajillion books. Gareth was a minimalist and claimed he refused to clutter up his life with bookcases when he could have an entire library in the palm of his hand.
I know this makes him a monster, but I love him anyway. Sometimes we have to make compromises for the people we love.
Even Gareth does it. Like, Gareth and I have dramatically different tastes in décor. I like to be surrounded by all the stuff I can afford now because it makes me feel secure. Plus, having tangible books all around me lets me remember all the wonderful adventures I’ve gone on without even leaving my home. Gareth’s office would be spartan because everything he personally put in here was functional and simple, but he’d made concessions for me.
I tend to nap a lot. Not just due to stress. I’m just a sleepy guy in general. I’m either hyped up about a project, reading a book, or sleeping. That’s about it.
My first impression of Gareth was that he was a cold, strict bastard, but shortly after meeting him, he and I both learned something new about ourselves.
My day naps were nice enough before meeting Gareth, but after? There was nothing like it. He was big and warm and safe. I was happy because nothing would ever hurt me when Gareth was around. No one was going to steal my stuff or me. Baz was happy because he knew I was safe, so he didn’t have to spend all his time guarding me. It was perfect.
Gareth discovered that he worked more efficiently when I was napping in the same room with him. It took him forever to admit it to me, and he refused to elaborate, but the result ended up being that anytime he caught me napping in the house, he’d relocate me to his office.
It used to be disorienting, but now napping in one place and waking up in Gareth’s office had become par for the course for me.
I loved waking up in Gareth’s office. It felt like waking up Christmas morning every time I did. I loved it so much that I started dragging stuff into his office so I could max out on comfiness. I even managed to sneak in a couple of books so I could enjoy a post-nap reading session when I wanted to.
Gareth took me to the big, squashy couch in my corner of his office and sat down, arranging me against his side until he was satisfied. He didn’t look like it, but Gareth was a serious snuggler when it was just the two of us.
“Tell me what happened,” he said once we were both comfortable.
I burrowed into his side and buried my face into his soft shirt because I didn’t want to admit to him what I had done.
Gareth always wears the same thing—a T-shirt made of the softest material in the world, black cargo pants, and army boots. Even in the winter. Gareth is always warm no matter what the temperature. I think it has something to do with the time he spent in the military, but he won’t talk about it.
Gareth always smells so nice.
I gave a little sigh and stopped trying to hide in Gareth’s armpit.
There is no out-waiting Gareth. His patience is infinite.
I gave him the full version of what happened. There was no point in hiding anything because Baz would rat me out the second it became his turn for a Gareth lecture.
Gareth listened, face impassive, until I finished—even when I told him about Paris entering our inner sanctum. I only left out one thing—my burning need to ride Paris like a stripper pole.
