Niall’s smile is serene. Then, he bends down with the ease and grace that Lance used to admire in him, and plucks the keys off the carpet. He tosses them in the air and catches them jauntily before giving Lance a mirthless wink.

“I suppose you’ll find out whether that’s the case. Take care, Angel.” The door to his hotel room closes with a snap. The phone remains discarded on the floor in the hallway where Lance left it.

Lance looks at the phone lying on the carpet for a few long moments, focused on breathing in and out. Niall didn’t have to specify which series he meant. There’s only one that Lance could claim any ownership of; it’s the one he modeled for and shot himself, the one that he pitched to a gallery himself. He’s been waiting to hear back, but the curator had all but promised their answer would be yes.

He’s not sure what he’s going to do yet, but there’s no way he’ll let Niall strip him of his rights to work Niall had nothing to do with.

He hunches his shoulders and rushes down the stairs, past the hypnotized young woman still fused to her phone and out into the parking lot.

Robbie gets out of the Chevy at the sight of Lance and meets him by the hood, his big, warm hands encircling Lance’s wrists, his eyes pinched with worry.

“You okay?”

Lance nods mutely, trying to shake off the uncertainty he feels over Niall’s parting shot and focus on the jubilation he felt when he was yelling at him. “I’m okay.” He shivers. “Let’s just go home.”

He catches his slip a second too late, but when he freezes and stares up at Robbie, Robbie is grinning.

“Home. Yeah. Let’s go there.” He squeezes Lance’s hands, his touch lingering, before another gust of wind nudges them apart. When they’re in the cab of the truck, though, Lance doesn’t buckle himself in on the passenger side. He wedges himself into the bucket seat, which is much trickier now than it was when he was younger and smaller, but he manages. And once he’s there, the awkward position is worth it; he can feel Robbie’s chuckle through his ribs where they’re pressed together, side-to-side, and Robbie’s arm is the perfect headrest after he snakes it over the back of the seat behind Lance’s shoulders.

They don’t speak until they get back to Riverside. Lance is lulled halfway into a doze by the sunshine coming through the windshield to warm his hair, and Robbie’s arm and body warming him everywhere else. When Robbie puts the truck in park, neither one of them stir at first. Robbie had to pull his arm from around Lance’s shoulders to downshift, and now he splays his palm over Lance’s thigh. Lance looks up at him and finds that Robbie is staring down at his own hand between the parted lapels of Lance’s coat, his thumb grazing the fabric of Lance’s jeans gently, like he’s testing the thread-count.