“Okay, I’m going to join them now and deal with the rest,” Beast said, already making his way to the door.
Laurent couldn’t bear his achievement being ignored like that and followed him. He managed to catch up with Beast in the corridor, and the feelings inside of him mixed like water and oil that have been abruptly shaken. Beast had so many cruel words for him yesterday, and yet the connection they had forged before seemed like something more than a man trying to win favor with the one he wished to bed.
“Beast?”
Beast stopped in his tracks, his shoulders stiff even before he looked back. “Hmm?”
Laurent swallowed, now unsure what to say. “I… Please remember not to go away farther than a mile…”
Beast groaned. “Your leg won’t explode. This cuff is just there so that I know where you are. Okay?”
Laurent entwined his fingers with a sigh, his mind at once blank. So he’d been deceived once more. “Okay,” he said, hoping that he was using the word correctly.
Beast stared at him in silence. He licked his lips. And then walked off, leaving Laurent standing in place, disappointed despite this unexpected victory.
“Laurent, you coming?” called out Nao.
He took a few seconds to compose himself and walked back. He smiled at her, and since none of the men seemed to consider the revealing outfits of the women inappropriate, he would try to follow their example. “What else can I help with? Does the chili need more microwaving?”
Chapter 13 - Beast
Two weeks on, Laurent had become a permanent fixture in the Kings of Hell clubhouse. He was everywhere Beast went, now more often than not spending his time out of the room Beast relegated him to, as if knowing that the cuff exploding had been an empty threat somehow made him feel untouchable. He read books spread out on Beast’s sofa in his tightly fitting pyjamas. He loudly chattered with pretty much everyone, no longer afraid of unfamiliar people. And he more often than not left the damn cabinet in Beast’s bathroom open and ready to assault Beast with the sight of his ugly scarred face in the mirror. And yet, knowing that Laurent likely enjoyed looking at his own features, Beast couldn’t find it in himself to tell him off for it and ended up just shutting the damn cabinet each time.
Because no matter what Beast had said, he still enjoyed looking at the pouty lips, the big brown eyes, and he actually shuddered once when Laurent slipped past him in the corridor and his soft long hair brushed over Beast’s arm.
It was hell.
Before, his apartment could get pretty lonely, but now that he had the piece of candy he couldn’t suck on, it was a constant distraction. It made focusing on the task of finding a potential new clubhouse close to impossible. Laurent was even slowly making progress with Hound and frequently talked to the dog in French, as if the two of them kept secrets from Beast.
But every time Beast considered throwing him out, assigning Laurent a bigger room in another part of the clubhouse and relieving himself of the bothersome presence, he could never go through with it. At the end of the day, it was nice to have someone other than Hound or Knight sit with him in his fortress of solitude. He even started picking up on how Laurent looked when he was confused, and he kind of enjoyed helping him out with understanding modern concepts. Laurent was fascinated by movies, but Beast wouldn’t be taking the lying little shit to the cinema. He’d be too tempted to hold his hand again.
And it would have felt too much like a date anyway.
At first Beast had been so furious and hurt by the earlier rejection that he’d wanted to give Laurent the full-on silent treatment, but he’d failed on day one. They usually didn’t talk much, but Laurent had a way of pulling Beast into discussions over the novels he was reading, and he was a freakishly fast bookworm. The talks felt special too, because they only had them when they were alone, as if it was their little secret. It took Beast back to the time when he was still considering leaving for college.
After months in the hospital, Beast had lost all hope for a change in his life. He hated the idea of going to college looking like Deadpool, so his future with the club was sealed. He still did an online course, and King even paid for it, but it wasn’t the same.
And yet there was Laurent, discussing Dante Alighieri’s Inferno with him like they would in a literature class. He loved his brothers to bits, but neither of them shared that passion for reading.
Having someone so inhumanly pretty around him was not only torture but also temptation. Still, he wouldn’t dare touch the boy again. His ego was fragile enough after his last attempt.