Page 6

“You sure we’re allowed to be here, Robolad?”

Arlo had led the way with a look that did nothing to tame the need growing in Bren’s chest for the last couple of minutes. He’d taken them down into a sort of single hallway basement, then up three flights of narrow concrete stairs that didn’t look like they saw much foot traffic.

“Here? Yeah,” Arlo said as they came out at a narrow landing with nothing but a door with a worn silver knob.

“Nice and private, like, but if someone comes up, isn’t it gonna be sort of obvious what we’ve been doin’?”

“That’s why . . . we’re not . . . staying here!”

He pulled up on the handle like he was trying to lift the entire door out of its frame as he spoke, rattling the thing from side to side between words. Bren was about to ask what the fuck he was doing when there was a soft click followed by a blast of cool air that washed over them.

Bren squinted as Arlo walked into the darkness on the other side, wondering if maybe his boyfriend wasn’t planning on murdering him. With a last look at Arlo’s arse in his jeans before they were swallowed up by the dark, he decided he’d risk it.

“Hey, if you murder me, just do me a favour and make sure you send my body back to Ireland, like.”

It was lucky that the door had clicked shut behind them because Arlo came crashing into him so hard he stumbled back. His focus split between the doorknob lodged against his spleen and the pair of hands fumbling with the button of his jeans.

Unwilling to take his hand from the spot it’d found on the back of Arlo’s head, Bren shuffled to the side so the back of his ribcage stopped throbbing. Their tongues met in a flurry before Arlo pulled away and kissed down his neck.

“I missed you so much.”

Arlo’s teeth scraped his collarbone, and a growl forced out of Bren’s throat. He grabbed Arlo by the shoulders and swung him to the right where he could feel another wall.

“Bren n—fuck. Ow!”

“What?” Bren asked as he fumbled in the dark. His left hand found a piece of metal with a plastic handle, and his right came away greasy after touching some kind of cog. “OK, can we get some feckin’ light in here?”

Arlo laughed and wiggled his way from between Bren and whatever he’d been thrown into. Footsteps traveled away at a pace that told him Arlo was keeping his hand on the wall in the pitch black. A light clicked on and Bren tried to make sense of where they were.

The wall he’d pushed Arlo against was covered in cranks and gears, with cables running up then over to the left where they held up a mess of curtains over a stage that was nearly as big as the main one at the theater back in Glenbridge.

Arlo shuffled back from the other end of the narrow walkway, his cheeks pink.

“Sorry. Probably should have done that first.”

“The hell kind of shag spot is this?” Bren asked.

Predictably, Arlo’s cheeks turned darker by a couple shades.

“I wasn’t going to—I mean.” His eyes darted to Bren’s unbuttoned jeans and a sheepish grin joined the blush. “This is the fly gallery for the theater. I only know about the door because of Yu.”

Bren raised an eyebrow and Arlo looked like he was wishing the lights were still off.

“Because he’s stage manager, dick.”

Bren couldn’t help it. He gave his hips a thrust, mouthing the word.

“I take it back. I didn’t miss you at all.”

He was wearing the kind of smile that Bren had never learned to defend against, and before he knew it, there wasn’t an inch of space between them again. His hands found the back of Arlo’s neck. The lad trembled against him, and another growl escaped his throat. He had just enough sense to break the kiss and flash him a smile of his own.

“You wanna put in your wires?”

Arlo’s hand followed the cord snaking down from the buds around his neck. He pressed his forehead into Bren’s chest and shook his head.

“I want to stay here. With you.”

Then his hand trailed down from the spot where his head had been resting. What little control Bren had managed to hold onto had left him, along with all the blood in his head.