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When his mom had told him that she had put Marlowe in his room, whispering it like it was a secret of some sort, Sario's heart nearly stopped. And then when she said Marlowe had fallen asleep almost instantly, Sario felt like nuclear fission was happening inside his body. He acted calm as he walked upstairs and down the hall to his room, pretending to everyone but himself that he was not internally dying at the thought of prickly Marlowe sleeping in his bed like they were an actual couple. He softly opened the door and eased it shut behind himself, making sure to keep the noise minimal so he did not accidentally wake Marlowe up. But as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he was not met with the pleasant scene he had been anticipating.
Yes, Marlowe was asleep on Sario's bed, but his face was screwed up like someone was torturing him. When Sario got closer, he could see tears spilling over Marlowe's cheeks like a waterfall. It was ugly crying, something so vulnerable that Marlowe would never show if he was conscious. His hands grabbed at the sheets, the pillows, anything within reach. Whatever infected his sleep, he was desperate for escape from it.
So Sario did the only thing he could think of to make it better. He grabbed Marlowe's shoulders and shook him. "Marlowe, hey, you need to wake up."
A whimper tore past Marlowe's lips, accompanied by more tears.
Sario wanted to cry too, but he had to be the strong one. He shook Marlowe again and then braced his tear-slick face in between his hands when the shaking had no effect. "Wake up, dammit!"
To Sario's surprise, it actually worked. Marlowe snapped awake, his pupils dilated like he was on drugs again. His eyes shot around the darkened room for a few moments before settling on Sario. He still seemed panicked for a split second, but then he squeezed his eyes shut. "Oh my fucking god," he whispered. "Did you see all that?"
Sario carefully let go of Marlowe's face and backed up, not sure when Marlowe would turn off the self-loathing and turn on the I-want-to-hurt-Sario-for-being-considerate mode. "I saw you were having a bad dream," he answered cautiously.
Marlowe scrubbed the tears off his face with his hoodie sleeve. "Fuck. I'm sorry." He looked around the room and seemed to come to a horrible realization. "Is this your room?"
"Um, yeah. My mom's…ambitious at times."
Marlowe seemed to wither in shame. "Goddammit," he muttered. "Of course it gets worse."
Sario stood about a foot away from the side of the bed, his hands awkwardly tangled in front of him. He had no idea what to say or do. "She just wanted us to be comfortable, and I think she thinks that we're a lot closer than we actually are, you know, like we're…" He trailed off, flushing at just the thought of saying it out loud.
Marlowe glanced at Sario, and the look in his eyes was not angry. It was…something Sario did not have the words for. "Do you want to?"
Sario blinked, stunned at the point-blank question. "Um, would you hurt me one way or the other?"
Marlowe rolled his eyes. "If not, just let me sit in the dark so I can rethink every single one of my life choices." After a moment, he rolled onto his side and turned his back to Sario.
Deciding the best course of action was to leave Marlowe in peace, Sario silently backed out of the room and kept his opening and shutting of the door as quiet as possible. While he was standing in the hall wondering how he could tell his mom that he was going to probably need to sleep in a different room unless he wanted to be murdered before his wedding, he heard a door open.
Rowan stepped out of his and Darius' room, Aiden draped over his shoulder in post-nap sleepiness. He saw Sario and smiled nervously. "Don't tell Mamá," he whispered. That was right, Rowan was not supposed to be getting Aiden up from naps or doing anything possibly stressful.
Sario returned the smile and took Aiden. "Don't worry. I got you."
Rowan's smile turned relieved. "Thanks. You're the best brother." His eyes drifted down the hall and rested on Sario's bedroom door. "What's going on?"
Sario smoothed Aiden's unruly red hair while his nephew stuck a thumb in his mouth. "Did, um, Darius tell you that I'm technically engaged?"
Rowan raised an eyebrow with an attitude that said Darius had. "Yeah. What's up with that? Did you just give up and get with Maya or something?"
Sario glared. "I'm offended that you would ever think Maya and I are more than best friends. Also, bold of you to assume I'm still in the closet."
Rowan's other eyebrow went up. "Say what?"
With the feeling of fire licking up his neck, Sario averted his eyes even though Rowan was the last person he needed to be ashamed in front of. "I tried to get with a girl I'd had a crush on since day one of college, but…yeah."
"But what?" Rowan prompted, eyes gleaming. He was hungry for this drama, and Sario could not blame him since the poor guy was stuck inside 99 percent of the time.
"I guess I realized I wasn't attracted to her at all." Sario chuckled bitterly, remembering what had followed his confession that her being naked had not affected him in the slightest way other than being a new experience for his eyes. "She, um, didn't like it when I told her that."
Rowan looked like he was fighting down a smile. Of course he would take joy in Sario's embarrassment. "Most people wouldn't like it if you got naked with them and then bailed because you suddenly realized the closet you'd been hiding in for 20 years didn't look so comfortable anymore."
Sario had to laugh a little at that. "Yeah, I guess not. Anyways, no, I'm not with Maya. But it is someone I think you've at least heard of at some point."
Rowan leaned on the half wall, his eyes never leaving Sario's face. "Are you going to spill or am I just going to be standing here all evening?"
Sario rolled his eyes. "Fiiiiine," he said, drawing the word out until Rowan smirked. "It's Marlowe."
Rowan's jaw dropped so fast and so far that Sario was concerned about him getting lockjaw. "Say what now?"
Sario grinned sheepishly. "Um, I'm engaged to Marlowe. Or he's engaged to me. Or we're engaged to each other. However that works."
Rowan slowly shut his mouth, looking like he'd just swallowed a large marble or something equally unpleasant. "You're kidding me."
Sario shook his head. "Nope. Not kidding. We're gonna start planning the wedding shortly."
Blinking like he could not process that information, Rowan slowly repeated, "You're planning the wedding?"
With a nervous smile, Sario nodded. "Yeah. And he may or may not be sleeping in my room right now."
Rowan's eyes went huge. "Then what the hell are you doing out here?" he hissed, snatching Aiden back from Sario. "If you got that thorn-walled cactus to even look twice in your direction, why in the ever-loving fuck are you not capitalizing on that?"
Sario flushed. "Maybe because he had a headache and told me in no uncertain terms that he wanted to be left alone. And I, uh, like my head too much to risk it."
Rowan snorted. "That does sound like Marlowe." He quickly handed Aiden back to Sario, likely worried Gabriela would spawn out of nowhere and give him the scolding of a lifetime. "Come on then, let's go downstairs."
Sario followed Rowan down the stairs and out into the kitchen, where the rest of the Holts were gathered. He automatically blushed under his mom's inquisitive look. "Ah, he's, um, still dealing with that headache from earlier. He's not really in the mood to do much else than glare at me."
Darius snorted a laugh and then quickly took a sip of his steaming drink. Tea, maybe, though Darius had never seemed like a tea sort of person. He reached out and scooped Aiden from Sario's arms with a quick, easy movement, balancing the fast-growing baby on his thigh and dropping a kiss onto the hair his son shared with him. "Are you surprised?" he asked, seeming to take great delight in Sario's failure.
"No," Sario replied, letting his annoyance seep into his voice, "I'm not surprised at all." He really was not, not after two months dealing with whatever the hell Marlowe had going on.
Darius grinned and raised his mug as if in a toast. "Cheers to Sario becoming cognizant of other people's feelings!"
"You're a jerk, Darius," Sario muttered, turning around and leaving the kitchen. Sometimes he really could not put up with Darius. He understood that, because of their age gap, Darius had been raised like an only child for six years and still possessed that mentality: that he could do and say whatever he wanted because their parents had had him first and therefore liked him best.
And what was not to like? Darius was the highly successful CEO of the business their dad had started with his own bare hands. He was married to an absolute angel (even though Rowan had a devilish side that had gotten unlocked as soon as he was comfortable), and he had an adorable son, their parents' first grandkid. Of course they liked him better.
Sario was so mad and humiliated and lonely that he was back in his own room before he realized it.
Marlowe half-turned, looking over his shoulder with surprise. "What the fuck?"
Sario realized belatedly that he had slammed the door. "Sorry." He slumped against the door and slid down it to sit on the floor. "I didn't mean to bother you. There's just nowhere else safe."
Marlowe's forehead wrinkled as he fully turned over and stared at Sario. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means Darius is a jerk," Sario spat out, trying to hold his tears back. He was 20 years old, for fuck's sake! He could not go around crying like a two year old!
Marlowe slid over to the edge of the bed and sat up there. "I could've told you that, like, six years ago."
"Thanks," Sario bit out. He crossed his arms over his knees and hid his face there. "You're also a jerk."
Marlowe was uncharacteristically silent. He did not bite back or reply sarcastically. The only sound was him slowly getting off the bed, padding over to Sario's side, and crouching down beside him. "I'm sorry." The apology sounded genuine. "I know I'm really blunt sometimes, but I didn't mean to hurt you or make things worse. Honest." He seemed like he was actually sorry and wanted to make things better.
"I know," Sario replied, hating how it sounded like he was sniffling. Okay, maybe he was. Yeah, he was just a big baby and everyone knew it. Maybe that was why Darius treated him like a kid. Because he was one. "You wouldn't do anything that would jeopardize this protection thing we have going on."
Marlowe poked Sario's shoulder with a finger. "Okay, then get up."
Sario lifted his head. "Get up and do what? I'm not going back downstairs."
Marlowe smiled faintly. "I'm not asking you to. Get up, go take a shower, and come to bed."
Sario blinked at Marlowe's wording. Come to bed. As if it was the most natural thing in the world. He pushed himself to his feet. "Yeah, okay," he said, trying his best to sound nonchalant. He grabbed pajamas from his dresser and shut himself in his bathroom for a quick shower. Midway through, he wondered how Marlowe would have responded if Sario had invited him to get in the shower with him. He immediately shook his head. It seemed like he was going to get to sleep in the same bed as Marlowe, which was huge. He was not going to push it. Not tonight. Even if he got the urge to snuggle in the middle of the night. "Not happening," he gritted out, scrubbing his skin hard to lessen his fucking libido. Why was the thought of snuggling turning him on? He ran a wet hand over his face. "I'm screwed," he whispered, which was not the problem at all. The problem was that he wanted to screw a man who he was still pretty sure hated at least some of his guts.
When he got out of the shower and opened the door into the bedroom, Marlowe was sitting at the foot of the bed, sitting crosslegged like one of the Buddha statues Sario was used to seeing in Maya's dorm room. His back straightened when his eyes met Sario's, and he seemed to get nervous out of nowhere. "Do you have a particular side you prefer?" he asked, his voice barely there. Was he regretting his offer to share the bed with Sario?
Even if it killed him, Sario was not going to push his agenda over Marlowe's comfort. He flicked off the bathroom light. "Would you rather not do this tonight?"
Marlowe flinched like Sario had pulled a knife on him. "I'm fine," he returned stiffly. "Can you just answer my question?"
Sario shrugged, giving up. "I'll take the right side." He complemented his words with action, pulling back the covers and getting into bed on the side he had claimed.
Marlowe got up as Sario pulled the covers back and hesitated, standing at the bottom left corner of the bed fiddling with one of his hoodie's drawstrings.
"You can take off the hoodie if you want. I don't bite."
Marlowe swallowed audibly but shed the hoodie, throwing it off to the side somewhere and getting into the other side of the bed.
It was a queen mattress, so they were not exactly on top of each other, but the space between them was not exactly large either. It was not cozy, but it was not distant.
Sario felt the bed dip as Marlowe turned over so he was not facing Sario and fought back the urge to wrap his arm around Marlowe's waist and pull their bodies snug against each other. That would be bad on a number of levels, the first and worst one being his fucking arousal. So he too rolled over and stared at the edge of the pillowcase until he fell asleep.