Chapter 48: Try me

Third POV

In the adjacent room, Elia was still wide awake, tossing and turning across the mattress. It wasn’t because he had heard something he shouldn’t, well, you know, but because the person he had been waiting to see all day was nowhere in sight, and it was already creeping past midnight.

This was the third night in a row this exact scenario had played out. Ever since they started sharing the bedroom, Orso would vanish for the entire day, returning only in the dead of night. Tonight, however, Elia was hell-bent on waiting up for him, no matter how late it got.

He tried keeping his eyes glued to the doorway, but staring into the dim shadows only made his eyelids heavy. Realizing that lying down was a losing battle, he gave up, swinging his legs over the edge to sit upright in the center of the bed instead. Barely twenty minutes passed before his chin dropped and he found himself dozing off again.

Elia cursed under his breath, threw off the thin sheet, and forced himself up. Standing in the middle of the dark room, he began doing jumping jacks, counting every single repetition out loud until he hit a hundred. By the time he finished, his heart was hammering against his ribs, and his throat was bone dry. He felt as though he might actually collapse on the spot.

"Someone just kill me," he muttered to the empty air, flopping his exhausted body straight onto the floor.

The clock chimed midnight, yet the man was still not back.

"Damn it!"

Elia reached blindly toward the nightstand, grabbed his phone, and dialed Orso’s number. Just like every attempt earlier that evening, the call failed to connect, going straight to a dead end. Throwing the useless device onto the mattress, Elia pushed himself up and walked out of the bedroom, deciding he would have a better chance of staying awake if he waited out in the living room.

He switched on the television, flicking through channels aimlessly, but ended up turning it off in less than ten minutes. The low glow of the screen and the hum of the audio were only making him drowsier.

Elia sat in the quiet dark for another full hour, fighting a losing war against his own body, drifting off into uncomfortable sleep, only to snap awake every few minutes with a start. Before he realized what was happening, his body surrendered entirely, and he sank into a deep slumber right there on the sofa.

***

It was well past three in the morning when Orso finally returned.

He stepped quietly through the front door, slipping into the dark living room, and instantly caught sight of the figure curled up on the couch without a blanket to protect him from the chill.

Without a second thought, Orso crossed the floor, leaned down, and gathered Elia cleanly up into his arms. He carried him down the short corridor back into their shared room. After settling him onto the mattress and ensuring he was tucked securely under the duvet, Orso headed into the bathroom to wash off the night. He took a fast shower before stepping back out.

He had only a towel hitched low around his waist, water still dripping down his wet hair and shoulders. Oblivious to what had changed while he was in the washroom, Orso walked into the bedroom without realizing the man he had just tucked in was now sitting completely upright right in the middle of the mattress.

Thoroughly distracted while rubbing a small towel through his damp hair, Orso had no idea Elia had already slid off the mattress and was silently closing the distance between them.

It was only when Elia was a mere few paces away that Orso’s natural instincts kicked in. His guard surged up and he spun around only to be tackled backward into the wall.

Elia shoved both palms hard against Orso’s chest, slamming the larger man’s back against the wall, and trapped him instantly by planting his hands on either side of his head.

Orso was caught entirely off guard. His dark eyes widened in brief astonishment before he quickly reined in his reaction, smoothing his expression back into its usual unreadable calm.

"What are you doing?" His voice was unusually deeper to the ears, a sound that made Elia’s eyelids flutter involuntarily with an intense, unhidden need.

Elia closed the tiny gap remaining between their bodies, leaning forward until he was almost brushing against Orso’s lips. Yet, he held himself back, stopping just short of making contact.

"Why have you been avoiding me?" Elia demanded, forcing his voice to hold firm, struggling with everything he had not to sound weak or vulnerable.

Orso remained almost completely unresponsive. He made a subtle attempt to push Elia back and create distance, but Elia immediately countered the move by pressing his lower body forward, deliberately brushing their lengths.

Orso the "stoic saint", froze in place, as the muscle along his jaw clenching tightly.

"I have been busy," Orso said, his expression remaining completely stone-cold and unchanging.

Elia nodded slowly, his lips pursing into a bitter line. "Busy. Right." He sounded entirely unconvinced. "Don’t tell me you’ve got some secret lover you’ve been running off to see? You don’t even have a job as far as I know... so what else could possibly keep you busy out there until dawn?"

Orso did not offer a reply right away. The heavy stare locked between them only grew more suffocating as the seconds ticked by.

"What if I do have someone?" Orso asked quietly. "Will you stop?"

Elia narrowed his eyes into sharp slits, watching Orso’s face for the slightest crack in his posture.

"If you do have a lover..." Elia reached out, taking Orso’s chin lightly between his fingers, a smirk breaking across his young almost deceitful features. "...I’ll kill them."

Now it was Orso’s turn to narrow his eyes, studying Elia with intense scrutiny.

"You don’t mean that."

Elia’s smirk widened, though his eyes went completely flat and dark. "Try me."

With that, Elia released his hold on Orso’s chin and turned around, intending to head back to the mattress. But before he could take a full step away, Orso’s hand shot out and clamped firmly around his wrist.

"You must not hurt anyone," Orso said, his tone softening just a fraction.

Elia paused, glancing down at the fingers holding him fast. "And if they hurt me?"

Orso still refused to let go. His grip remained tight yet not strong enough to bruise. "You tell me. I’ll take care of it."

Elia turned all the way back around to face him. For a long, drawn-out moment, complete silence stretched through the room.

Then Elia murmured softly, "What is stopping you from being with me? It’s clear you have feelings for me... and don’t try to deny it."

At Elia’s words, Orso finally loosened his grip and let go of his wrist. He brushed right past Elia without giving a single word of response.

Elia followed him with his eyes, watching in silence as Orso quietly got dressed.

Not long after, the two of them were lying beneath the covers, attempting to catch whatever sleep remained of the night. But rest felt almost impossible to reach. The quiet tension, the unspoken words, and the unanswered questions continued to linger in the air between them.

Aftet a while, when Elia could not handle the physical distance any longer, he turned over on his side, shifted across the mattress, and positioned himself directly into Orso’s arms, closing his eyes.

Orso did not push him away. He waited in the dark until Elia’s breathing turned soft indicating he was fast asleep, before finally wrapping an arm around him and holding him close. He shut his eyes and quickly fell asleep.