Slow down. He asked you to slow things down.
I quickly washed up and brushed my teeth. Just because I couldn’t make those advances tonight didn’t mean I couldn’t make them ever. We just needed to focus on the job first.
After cleaning up the tiny space and moving to the bedroom area, I pulled out my phone so we could do another end of the day Instagram story. There was a text from my brother on the screen.
Jacks: Worked a half day at the bakery and didn’t die.
He finished with a winky face. I texted him back.
Cooper: Proof of life?
After a couple of minutes, a photo flashed up with Jacks in bed and his cat, Saffy, curled up next to his head. Jacks looked really good. His color was back, and his eyes weren’t quite so sunken.
Cooper: You look like your hot brother again.
Jacks: Speaking of hot brothers, holy fuck. Nine Winshed done growed up gooood.
That one was followed by a shocked face emoji.
Cooper: I guess. If you like half-crazed mountain man types.
Jacks: Which I do.
I laughed.
Cooper: Well, keep looking since this one’s mine.
Jacks: You wish. Wouldn’t it be amazing if like… “gay for you” was really a thing?
I felt my cheeks warm. Another text came through.
Jacks: I mean those lips… damn. I’d be happy with that beard burn fuckin’ everywhere.
My back teeth clenched so hard they hurt. If Nine was going to rub that big beard against anyone’s skin, it was going to be mine. So I pulled the ultimate brother move.
Cooper: Dibs.
Jacks: Fuck. That’s not fair.
Cooper: Is too.
Jacks: Is not.
The subject of our spat walked in and pulled back the covers on his side. I flicked my phone to mute and snuck a pic of him getting into our bed before sending it to my brother.
Cooper: Sorry, gotta go. Bedtime.
Jacks: Oh Em Gee. JFC. Moar please.
That one was followed by the little praying hands emoji.
I laughed and clicked out of the text window so I could pull up Instagram. “Ready for our bedtime video post?”
Nine looked up from his own phone and gave me a grin that nearly brought my dick back to life. “Ready when you are.”
If only.
We snuggled together and started the recording. I opened up with some thoughts about what we’d gotten done today and was just getting ready to go over what we hoped to accomplish tomorrow when Nine interrupted.
“You have a little beard burn right here.” He put his finger on the side of my mouth and grinned at me with such teasing affection, I wondered if I’d swallowed a hummingbird.
When I dropped my jaw open, he used the same finger to lift it closed.
“It’s kinda hot,” he said in a flirty tone. Didn’t he see the camera was rolling?
“Too bad it wasn’t your beard that caused it,” I said back without thinking. Then I winked at the camera. Nine tackled me on the bed and kissed me again, causing me to yelp and drop the phone. By the time I got my hands on it to stop the video, we were laughing and kissing in a tangled mass of limbs on the bed and Nacho was yipping at us to stop horsing around.
We finally stopped making out long enough to get some sleep, but it wasn’t easy. Meanwhile, during the night, that video went viral. When I woke up the next morning to the scent of brewing coffee, I checked my phone to see an absolute avalanche of notifications.
“Um, Nine?” I called to him in the kitchen while he was pouring cream into both mugs.
“Yeah?”
“We hit twenty-five thousand subscribers to our Insta account.”
He brought the mugs in and handed me one before sitting back in bed on his side and leaning against the headboard. “Twenty-five hundred, you mean?”
“No, it was eleven thousand yesterday after Stallion shared the project intro post. But after our post last night…”
“Shit, what?” He leaned over my shoulder to look at my phone. “All that’s from us goofing around?”
I turned to look at him. “Kissing. From us kissing and being physical with each other. Look. All the comments are about how hot we are together and stuff.”
He reached past my arm and scrolled down with a finger. I took the opportunity to lean back into his chest while I sipped the coffee he’d made for me.
“Some of those comments are mean,” he muttered. “Those fuckers.”
I shrugged. “It’s always going to be like that with LGBT content. Just ignore them.”
Nine looked at me. “That’s not okay. It’s not fair.”
I laughed at his sheer outrage. “True. But the trick is not to give those assholes any more of your time or energy by worrying about it.”
He leaned back again, putting his free arm around my front and holding me against him like it was no big deal, like he held a man against his bare chest any old day.