Page 41 of Pucked Up (Punk as Puck #2)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

HUGO

We slept. I wasn’t sure either of us meant to, but as our kisses gentled and the sensations began to fade, darkness crept in. The last thing I remembered was his arms going around me and him muttering something about needing to clean up.

I knew I should have gotten up to help—that I’d regret it in the morning if I didn’t—but before I could form a coherent thought, I was out.

I woke to Boden trying to peel himself away from my stomach. Soft pinpricks of pain from pulled hair dragged me to consciousness, and I groaned before reaching between us and using my nails to scrape the dried streaks of come away.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

“Mm, s’fine.” I got us detached and managed to open my eyes just enough to see the grimace on his face and the stream of sunlight coming from the window behind him. It lit up his wild hair like a halo, and I couldn’t help a tiny smile as I stroked my fingers through it. “Good morning.”

“Your morning voice is very nice,” he said. “I can hear it really well even without my hearing aids.”

My smile widened as I pinched his chin with my thumb and forefinger. “You are so beautiful. Unless you’re trying to escape.”

“Would I be ugly then?”

I laughed. “No. Not possible. But I would be too hurt to compliment you.”

Rolling his eyes, he dipped down and smudged a kiss over my jaw. “I have to piss, and it’s going to take me a minute to crawl to the bathroom because my legs are not going to work well today. Please don’t watch.”

I covered my eyes, and he scoffed, smacking me on the chest.

“Just…I want to stay sexy for a little while,” he said when I dropped my hand.

“You are sexy. And I think you should know by now crawling does not turn me off.”

His cheeks pinked, making his freckles stand out. “I—well.” He cleared his throat. “Please don’t make me hard before I empty my bladder.”

I made a zip motion over my lips, then waved him off. At his request, I didn’t watch, though I really wanted to make sure he knew that it wouldn’t bother me. I was long past the need to have a man look sexy for me all the time.

I didn’t require some bullshit idea of perfection. I just wanted him. I didn’t care how he came to me or how he existed. I fell in love with every single thing about him—even the antagonistic parts that lived to get under my skin.

And I would make sure not to just tell him, but to show him every single chance I got.

BZZT BZZT!

My phone started jumping around on the nightstand, and I snagged it, blinking at the name.

It was my dad. We only talked every now and again.

Normally, he sent emails—like the fossil he was—with jokes or random articles about how beets are great for the liver but terrible for the kidneys. His retirement sounded boring as hell.

Which was the dream.

“Papa. ?a va?”

“Ouais,” he said with a chuckle. He sounded older, a rasp in his voice that hadn’t been there a year ago. “Where are you at right now?”

In Montreal, naked in bed after fucking my lover silly . But there were things you just didn’t tell your parents. “There was that benefit?—”

“Ah. For Reid.” My parents had always loved Reid. They hadn’t come to the funeral because flying for them was always a chore, and my mother needed a full-time caregiver now that her aging body was failing her, and she’d given up walking about ten years back—just shortly before Reid passed.

I knew it gutted them.

“There’s something you should know though, Papa.

” I stopped when Boden appeared in the bathroom doorway wearing boxers, his hearing aids in, and a pair of bleached-white athletic socks went halfway up his calves.

For a moment, I felt safe. I would speak French, and I could say whatever I wanted.

Except no. Because that was his mother tongue too.

“Hugo?”

I cleared my throat and turned my attention back to my dad. “I’ve met someone. I’ve fallen in love.”

“Ah, ouais? How long?”

I looked back at Boden, who’d gone a little pale. He nodded at me like he was giving me permission to give the details. “Less than two months.”

“Ah.”

“Please don’t tell me it’s too soon.”

My dad laughed. “Did I say that with Reid, hmm? When you brought him home two weeks after meeting him to tell us he was the man you were going to marry?”

“Uh, yes?”

He laughed harder. “But you were right, and I was wrong, yes?”

“True.” Something settled in my chest. “I know it’s hard to understand?—”

“Hugo, your love doesn’t have to follow a timeline. You don’t have to force yourself to cut off those feelings in your chest because someone with an invisible checklist told you that’s how it was meant to be.”

God, I loved my dad. I loved both my parents. “Right. ”

“Your mama is here. Say hello to her.” There was a shuffle and some swearing and a clatter as the phone hit the floor.

As a little person, my dad’s hands were small, and he struggled to keep a grip on his phone.

It was a running joke between my parents.

I heard my mom’s familiar laughter and my dad swearing more as he most likely used his grabber stick to pick it up off the floor.

“My love,” my mom said as her voice came on the line.

She sounded the same. There were parts of her that were timeless.

I was lucky to still have her here. Doctors reminded her of that every chance they got, and if she could have gotten away with it, she would have spat in their faces. “Who is he? Tell me everything.”

“Maybe another time.”

She scoffed. “Is he there with you? Are you both naked? Did we interrupt your sex?”

“Oh my God, Mama!”

She laughed harder. “We did. Put a sheet on. I’m going to put you on a FaceTime.”

“I—” The call disconnected, and I looked up at Boden, feeling a bit frantic. “My parents want to meet you.”

“Oh. That’s…”

“Right now.” The FaceTime began to chime, and I grabbed my sheet, pulling it up toward my chest.

“Right now?” He looked like he wanted to throw up.

I answered the call, holding it close to my face so they couldn’t see anything. “I will ring you back in two minutes.” I ended the call before either of them had time to say a word, then dropped my phone on my lap. “My love?”

Boden took a huge breath. “Yeah. Yes. I’m alright.”

I held my hands out toward him and watched as he slowly made his way over, his arms slightly out for balance as the sides of his feet dragged over the floor. He didn’t fall until he reached the bed, his arms bracing his body on the mattress.

It took him a moment to pull his legs up, and then he crawled up toward me and collapsed on his side, curled into mine. “Hello.”

He scoffed. “Hello? Really?”

“They’re going to ring me back in a moment. They’re terrible about boundaries sometimes, but I won’t answer if it’s not something you’re ready for.”

He took a deep breath. “Will they like me? I mean, did they love Reid a lot?”

“Yes, and yes. They also want me to be happy, and no amount of loving or missing Reid will bring him back.” I brushed a collection of bedhead curls off his forehead. “They’ll like you because I do. Then, later, when they have a chance to know you, they’ll love you because you’re worth loving.”

He bit his lip, then said, “Will you turn the captions on so I don’t miss anything?”

“You never have to ask twice.” I opened my settings and turned on the captions, then looked at him one more time. “Just say the word.”

“Call them. ”

It rang only once before my dad’s face filled the screen. His brows were high, his eyes squinting behind his glasses.

“Pull the phone back, Papa. We can see everything you have up your nose.”

“Oh.” He sat back, and then my mom squeezed her face into the frame.

Boden made a soft noise. “You look just like her.”

“He speaks French!” my dad said, looking like Christmas had come early. “You speak French? Did Hugo teach you? Your accent is very good.”

Boden’s ears reddened. “Ah. I spoke French from birth. I was born in Quebec.”

Both of my parents looked delighted. “So no awkward English at the dinner table,” my mom said. “It was never my best subject at school, you know.”

Boden laughed. “Yeah. My mom doesn’t speak more than a few phrases in French, and she hated when I’d come home after a long summer in Montreal and hardly spoke a word of English to her.”

My parents beamed at me. “So, you’re the man my son is in love with,” my dad said.

“Thank you very much for that, Papa. I didn’t need this morning to be more awkward.” I held Boden a little closer to me. “It’s new.”

“Then we won’t ask about rings,” my dad said.

I was going to murder them both. Living as an orphan would suck, but needs must.

Boden, however, just laughed. “Ask me in a year. ”

“I will,” my dad said with a grin.

I leaned in toward Boden’s ear. “He means it. One year from now, you’re going to get a very invasive phone call.”

Boden looked up at me for a long moment, then smiled. “I don’t think I’d mind.”

“We love him,” my mom said.

I held Boden’s gaze and nodded. “Me too, Mama. He’s perfect.”

The call went on another twenty minutes where my parents managed to get details about Boden’s former job as a college advisor, his new job as a player for Boston, and I made a note that he and I were going to discuss that later.

My parents talked wheelchair tech with him, then invited him over for the summer, which I quickly shut down and said we could discuss that later.

We’d only just decided to stop hate-fucking in my office. A phone call with my parents was not on the agenda, and neither was a goddamn summer vacation in Dijon. Though I didn’t hate the idea of bringing him back home.

I hadn’t been in so many years.

“I liked them,” Boden said in the silence that followed me hanging up. He was shimmying into his formal trousers since he hadn’t been down to his room yet.

I sighed as I pulled my shirt over my head and tried to order my hair. “I’m glad. I love them a lot. I haven’t seen them much in the last few years, and I feel terrible about it.”