Chapter 72

His hands shivered with the memory. With the desire to do more for this man. Anything, everything.

He said, “Right, and I’ll care if you don’t eat breakfast, so I want to know you did.”

Colby’s mouth shaped an astonished soundless oh, amid pillow-companions. He’d rested a cheek on one, somewhere between sitting up and settled down; his hair was in one eye again, and he’d moved to brush it back, but paused.

Jason reviewed this sentence. Too forceful? An order? Too much of an order?

But Colby didn’t look upset about it. Startled, but unoffended, finally tucking the hair back behind an ear, and not objecting.

Still, Jason said, “I didn’t mean—”

“I could text you,” Colby said, cautious but not as if afraid or angry, more as if testing those uncharted paths. “If—if you were asking for that.”

Oh. Jason said, “Oh.”

“I don’t deliberately not eat,” Colby said. “I only…but with you…you make me remember that I like food. Is that odd to say? It’s true, though.”