It was as perfect as Jonah’s wildest dreams. He didn’t want to blink, in case he missed a moment, and they lay in companionable silence until Jonah’s phone invaded the bliss.
Jonah groaned. “I don’t even know where it is.”
“In your pocket?”
“Thanks, Sherlock. I’m naked.”
Sacha chuckled and sat up to lean over the side of the bed. He found Jonah’s abandoned trousers and retrieved his phone from the pocket. “It is your mother,” he said.
The call rang out before he could straighten up and pass it over.
Jonah winced. “She wants to know if you’re coming with me tomorrow. I never gave her a straight answer.”
“Oh.”
“I know. But she’ll be fine.”
“Fine? About what? I don’t understand.”
“Fine about you not coming. I’m sorry about that. When we went to the ball, I never factored in all this…” Jonah waved his hand. “Complication.”
Sacha snorted. “There is nothing complicated about it. Give me your thumb.”
“What?”
Sacha lunged and snatched Jonah’s hand, pressing his thumb to the button on his phone in a smooth takedown a wrestler would’ve been proud of.
Jonah’s phone flashed to life. Holding it out of Jonah’s reach, Sacha tapped out a message with one hand, then dropped the phone on the bed with a satisfied smirk.
“There,” he said.
“There what?” Jonah fumbled for the phone. “What did you just do?”
Sacha shrugged. “I tell her the truth.”
“Which is?”
“That I will be there, Jonah Gray, wherever you are, because I do not want to be anywhere else.”
20
Christmas Day
Sacha sat back in the aged chesterfield armchair, a wrapped present in one hand, a glass of something sweet and alcoholic in the other. At his feet, a small, red-headed child played with a carriage from the huge wooden train set Jonah had gifted his collection of nieces and nephews, butting it into Sacha’s ankles.
“Sorry,” Jonah whispered. “I warned you it was rowdy.”
Sacha smiled. “Don’t apologise. I like rowdy.”
“Yes, but only in—”
“Dear god.” Jonah’s friend, Lily, silenced him with a dainty hand over his mouth. “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t. I don’t need to hear that.”
Jonah wriggled free of her grasp. “Since when? You only ever call to grill me about my sex life.”
Lily tossed a mince pie at Jonah. It missed and landed in Sacha’s lap. Sacha scooped it up and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth before Lily could claim it back. He’d never eaten them before, but since Eleanor had brought the first plate of them out yesterday, he hadn’t been able to stop.
Jonah laughed. “You know you’re making my mother’s year right now, don’t you? The amount of those you’ve put away? They’re the only part of this spread she ever makes herself.”