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The drive back to Saint Paul is a whole new jittery flavor of torture. Jamie can't even call Victor along the way, because Victor's gorgeous old car absolutely does not have wireless capabilities. And okay, Jamie doesn't actually know anyone who's gotten pulled over for holding a cell phone while driving, but the last thing he wants to do is fuck up Victor's night with some Minnesota law that's probably a very good idea. Especially when they have an important discussion to finish once they're both safely home.
He makes it almost a full hour into the drive before finally surrendering to the need for more distraction than music can provide.
"Two phone calls in a week," Sarita says by way of greeting when she answers. There's poorly suppressed laughter in her voice. "You really are in a bad way."
"Nope." Jamie can't keep the grin off his face. "I'm good. Terrific, actually."
"Oh my god, Jamie. What did you do?"
And Jamie can't help it—he can't keep the giddiness locked down a single second longer—he laughs. He should be anxious. He's set himself on a course that will be complicated at best, calamitous at worst. He knows full well the position he's putting Victor in. Jamie refuses to feel guilty for it. The man can make his own damn choices, Jamie's not conning him into anything. But still, someone more pragmatic would surely look at these circumstances with a skeptical eye.
Pragmatism has no place in the delight swirling through Jamie's chest.
"I kissed him," he says now, even though the explanation feels wholly inadequate to explain their heated collision. "Or maybe he kissed me. We just... Look, it was a team effort, okay?"
"I'm probably supposed to feign shock or disapproval here."
"Why bother when you're such a terrible liar?"
"Fuck off, I'm a fantastic liar. I just don't bother lying to you." Then, more gently, she says, "You sound happy."
Jamie lets this observation sink in for a moment before admitting, more serious than before, "I really like him."
"You said you were falling in love," Sarita reminds him, a cautious nudge calling back their conversation on Christmas day.
"Yeah," Jamie says. "Fuck. Can we talk about something else? I've got three hours of driving left before I actually get to do anything about this."
"Three hours? Why?"
"Because my car was still in Mayworth. And that's where I kissed him. And now he's got at least a half-hour lead on me, because he drives too fast, and I need distracting."
"Ohhhkay, so he drove you to pick up your car. You know, if you explained stuff in chronological order, I could probably make sense of everything without needing to ask fifty follow-up questions."
"Too much effort," Jamie says. "Tell me about your newest family drama."
"What makes you think there's drama?"
"It's your family. Of course there's drama."
"How dare you," Sarita retorts cheerfully, and then launches into exactly the detailed recounting Jamie's hoping for. The telling fills the better part of two hours, and Jamie doesn't even have to nudge her along once she gets started.
"You know I love you, right?" he says when she finally winds down.
"Same, you sap," Sarita says with long-suffering fondness. Then, reluctantly, she adds, "I should probably go. You gonna be okay?"
"Yes," he says. "G'night. Thanks for keeping me company."
"You're welcome. And goodnight. Try not to get disowned."
Jamie snorts indignantly, but Sarita has already ended the call. He glances at the clock on the dashboard as his car starts automatically playing the same song that paused when he initiated the call. His heart is racing now, with how close he is to home.
He's ready to find Victor—maybe sneak into his room—and interrogate him very, very thoroughly about where they go from here.
*
It's not quite ten o'clock when Jamie finally parks in front of his parents' house, simultaneously exhausted and energized, restless with the impatience that's been smoldering inside him since Mayworth.
Victor's car must be in the part of the driveway that winds behind the house, assuming he got back before Jamie—a fact confirmed for him when he steps across the threshold and hears Victor's laugh resonating across the ground floor. Jamie kicks his boots off into a corner of the mudroom and closes the front door firmly behind him, then follows the siren song of Victor's voice. Beyond the stairs, along the hall, past the kitchen. All the way to his mom's study, where Victor and Anika sit in a pair of wing-backed armchairs with a chessboard between them.
"Hey, Mom," Jamie says, making himself address Anika first before allowing himself a cautious glance at the man he hasn't been able to stop thinking about, and adding what he hopes is a casual, "Vic."
"Oh good, you made it home in one piece," Anika says, leaning back from her intense perusal of the game board to give Jamie a distracted smile. "How's the car?"
"Sounds and feels completely normal again. Wasn't cheap, but at least it'll get me safely back to Washington." Jamie takes in the game in progress, hoping it's near completion and then devastated to find that only a couple of pawns and one of Anika's bishops have been taken out of play so far. Fuck, what if Victor's an even match for her? What if this game takes all night?
Jamie knows his mom. Anika Phipps does not pause a game of chess for anything short of an emergency, and she brooks no surrender. Never mind that it's a weeknight and she's got a busy morning tomorrow. She'll stay up until this challenge is complete, no matter the cost.
And there's nothing Jamie can do to extricate Victor from the trap.
When he risks another glance at Victor, he finds a wry apology hidden in the man's lovely smile. Victor clearly recognizes the conundrum, and the secret burn of impatience between them will just have to wait.
"Kick his ass, Mom," Jamie says at last, turning for the hall.
"Hey!" Victor protests, but laughter tinges his affront.
Jamie takes the longest, slowest shower he can manage, refusing to feel guilty about being wasteful after seven-plus hours in a car. He stands beneath the spray until the hot water runs out, and then changes into soft sweatpants and a t-shirt before padding barefoot down to the kitchen. Orange juice is no consolation compared to what Jamie actually wants, but at least loitering in the kitchen means being in the right place at the right time, when Victor excuses himself from the chess board long enough to collect a glass of water.
"How's the game going?" Jamie asks the question at normal volume, tone as casual as he can manage. He makes himself keep leaning against the counter by the sink, resisting the urge to crowd in once Victor gets close—resisting the urge to touch.
"It feels like I'm winning, but that doesn't mean much."
"So you're actually good at chess," Jamie observes, offering Victor a wry smile. No one holds their own against Anika otherwise. She doesn't toy with her opponents. If Victor is still in the game, then he's not just good. He's got impressive skills.
"I better be good, after twenty years of letting her kick my ass online." He shrugs, looking self-conscious at the praise, and Jamie senses that he is deliberately downplaying his ability. "I've put a lot of work into improving my game."
"Stubborn," Jamie teases, and it's worth it for the impish smile it earns him.
Victor's voice is soft enough to be discreet when he murmurs, "I'm sorry. I swear, I tried not to get tangled up in anything before you got home, but..."
"It's okay." Jamie keeps his own voice equally low and cautious. "I get it." Victor couldn't very well tell Anika to fuck off even if he wanted to, and there's no way he wanted to, sweet and sincere as he is. This isn't just a question of secrecy and discretion. Victor may not be as close with Anika as he is with Warren, but she's still a friend, and she could not possibly have guessed that Jamie had dibs tonight. There's no world in which Victor would have considered blowing her off without an explanation.
And it's not like either Jamie or Victor can risk telling her the truth yet.
Even in this moment of shared vexation, Victor is watching Jamie with fierce heat, and Jamie makes himself put on a reassuring smile.
"Seriously, Vic, it's okay. Take your time, I'll wait up."
Despite the instant and obvious pleasure on Victor's face, he protests, "You don't need to do that. It's been a long day."
Realistically, Jamie should probably accept the out. But he doesn't care how much of a marathon of waiting he's just signed himself up for. He's not going to surrender so easily. Warmth flares in his chest as he studies Victor's face, and he darts a glance to the empty hallway before leaning in for a fleeting kiss.
"I want to." He feels bold and wild and eager when he backs off. "Come to my room when you're done."
Victor smiles at him, and there is only a faint flicker of heavier shadows behind the smile. "I'll be there." Then he's gone, back into the hall and around the corner—back to his game before Anika has a chance to grow suspicious—and Jamie steadily drains the glass of orange juice, before taking himself upstairs.
He probably shouldn't be surprised that his good intentions don't hold. He does his best to stay awake, reading a book that had him riveted before he started his drive from Washington to Minnesota—though it hasn't much held his attention since Mayworth. It doesn't tide him over now either, though maybe he should have made himself read sitting up instead of sprawled across his bed. With the sleepy ebb of inevitability, Jamie drifts away with his cheek creasing the pages and the light of the bedside lamp sneaking gold through his eyelids.
He wakes, slow and groggy, when a shift of weight makes the mattress creak.
He only remembers the book he was reading when someone plucks it gently out from where it's crushed between his cheek and the pillow. Jamie blinks his eyes open to the sight of Victor leaning past him to set the book on the bedside table.
"Hey." Victor offers a downright sappy smile.
Jamie squirms and adjusts so that he's lying on his back, the better to look up and appreciate the handsome lines of Victor's face cast in soft light and shadow. Victor has one palm braced on the mattress as he perches on the edge of Jamie's narrow bed. His relaxed posture and sparkling eyes tell Jamie an entire story about what's going on in Victor's head, and he doesn't think it's unreasonable to hope those feelings match his own.
"I didn't mean to fall asleep," Jamie says, quiet more from the rasp of sleep than for the sake of caution. They've got the entire second floor to themselves, and at this hour Anika will be at the opposite end of the house below. Yes, they should still be careful, but they're safe enough for the moment.
"It's okay." Victor brushes a lock of sleep-smushed hair back from Jamie's forehead, and the simple gesture is intolerably tender. "It's almost two in the morning."
"Jesus," Jamie groans. "How are you still awake?"
Victor's crow's feet deepen, and his mouth twists into a wry smile. "I drank too much coffee on the last leg of the drive. I don't think I could've slept any earlier even if I wanted to."
"And now?" Jamie surrenders to the impulse to reach out, allowing himself the simple satisfaction of wrapping loose fingers around the wrist Victor's got propped on the bedspread. The bare skin beneath his touch makes Jamie shiver, and he fights off the lethargy still holding his limbs. Not very successfully, but still, he fights. He's too tired to crave anything as energetic as sex, but he'll be damned before he misses a single second of whatever the hell this is.
"Now I'm about ready to hibernate for the rest of the winter," Victor admits.
Jamie grins, sleepy and delighted. "Sounds great. Can I share your cave?"
"Sure." Victor's eyes twinkle even brighter, and he shifts closer on the mattress, until his hip is nudging against Jamie's thigh. "And in the spring I'll catch you some salmon."
Jamie snorts and entertains the barely coherent thought, Oh, he is a bear. It's a silly, giddy detour and it turns his smile soft at the edges. Despite the heaviness of his eyelids, he can't stop looking at Victor.
"Go back to sleep." Victor leans down to nuzzle a kiss to Jamie's temple, then shifts his weight in an obvious prelude to standing back up. "We'll talk tomorrow." He's going to retreat. He's going to walk through that door and go back to his own room, and Jamie's heart gives a defiant stutter of refusal. The thought of any distance at all between them is enough to make his whole body tighten in protest.
He doesn't want Victor to go.
Jamie tightens his grip on the wrist he still holds, a pointed intercept that stops the momentum of retreat. He swallows past a lump of feeling that grabs him momentarily by the throat, holding steady as he meets Victor's curious look and raised eyebrow.
"You could sleep in here."
Victor's other eyebrow rises to match the first, sweeping up toward his hairline. "You sure?"
Jamie nods emphatically before he manages to answer. "Please?"
This time when Victor leans down over him, it's to take Jamie's mouth in a long, languorous kiss. For all the heat humming between them—for all the melting instinct that has Jamie opening for a deeper, delving exploration—there's no teasing suggestion of more in this kiss. No nudge toward sex, when both of them are so tired. There is only this quiet, wondering intimacy as Jamie closes his eyes and slides both hands into Victor's hair.
Finally Victor pulls away and murmurs, "Just let me lock the door."
Jamie barely tolerates the sparse seconds in which Victor's heat vanishes. The brief absence is torture. Completely unacceptable. And yet Jamie makes himself wait patiently while Victor returns, shedding superfluous layers of clothing along the way.
By the time Victor slips between the sheets, he's wearing only boxers and a thin gray t-shirt.
Jamie breathes a contented sigh, already drifting off again now that the necessary warm weight has returned to his bed. He rolls away onto his side, but tugs Victor with him by the arm, making it clear distance is not what he's trying to achieve with the maneuver. Thank goodness Victor takes the hint. He cozies along Jamie's back, cautiously at first, then more surely when Jamie wriggles contentedly against his chest.
Jamie tries to wrap Victor's arm more tightly around his waist, but instead has to let go when Victor laughs and reaches up to fumble with the lamp. Only once the room is bathed in darkness does Victor wrap Jamie up in his arms.
It should be strange. Jamie isn't accustomed to sharing his bed, especially for sleep. He should be wakeful and on edge at having someone in his space—even someone as welcome and solid as Victor.
But comfort and fatigue mingle through him, and Jamie quickly fades, down and down, into pleasantly incoherent dreams.