It’s almost like—

No, Lance tells himself viciously. You’re not going to slip back into that alternate reality.

But he’s not imagining the look of utter fixation on Robbie’s face. Lance knows that look. He knows it very well, and when he’s seen it on men in the past, he hasn’t hesitated to use it to his advantage. He knows exactly how he’d play this moment with someone he wanted. Well, someone he wanted who wasn’t Robbie. But with a little, terrible thrill, he suddenly has the urge to play it that way for Robbie, too.

Just to see. Just in case.

“God, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a cup of coffee.” He lets his eyes drift fully closed, only half-exaggerating what he imagines as a semi-rapturous expression, and takes the first swallow. After the hot liquid slides down his throat, he lets out a moan of appreciation.

If he wasn’t braced for it, carefully attuned to Robbie’s response, the sudden crash might have made him topple his own coffee into his lap. But as it is, he only flinches, managing to set the mug down without spilling a drop as Robbie swears.

“Sorry. Fuck. Sorry,” Robbie is muttering, grabbing a dishcloth and bending down to mop at the floor. “It just…slipped out of my hand.” He picks up the jagged pieces of ceramic that were previously his own coffee cup and mops up the spilled liquid. The back of his neck is bright red.

Chapter Eight

Robbie

So much for Robbie’s resolve to control himself, despite his inappropriate feelings and thoughts. He blames his discomposure on having slept on the horrible couch, contorted to avoid both the hard places and the cats. He could hardly have run the air compressor for the air mattress with Lance sleeping only feet away, but in hindsight, he would have been better off on the floor with a pillow and blanket.

At least his dropped mug didn’t shatter into a thousand pieces, making him worry about stepping on a stray shard of ceramic for weeks. Instead, there are just four or five big chunks, which he carefully gathers and wraps in an empty plastic bag. When that’s in the trash, Robbie moves to finish cleaning up the floor so that he’ll have a good excuse not to look at Lance.

But, mercifully, Lance doesn’t seem bothered by Robbie’s temporary loss of sanity. He’s drifting over to the couch, where two of the triplicats are rowed up like something out of a modern art magazine, their paws close together and their tails curled around their bodies in a monochrome row.

“What are their names?” Lance asks.

Robbie stands up, coffee-saturated rag in his hand, and sees Lance presenting his knuckles to Two. Before Robbie can warn him, she flattens her ears and tries to sink her fangs into Lance’s hand, but he jerks it back, laughing, just in time.

“Um,” Robbie drops the rag in the sink and rubs the back of his head wryly. “Their names are Two and Three.”