Even the walls had things hanging from it.
Photos.
Art.
A mirror.
“Let’s go another round,” Corrado said, drawing Alessio’s attention back down the hall again as he set his bag down. Shrugging off his coat, he listened as the two continued their battle of wills about gaming. It never failed to amuse him how seriously they both took their games, and at the same time, it felt just like home to hear them going on about it. “At least give me a chance to save my pride.”
Ginny scoffed. “What pride?”
Alessio made quick work of kicking off his shoes, but he kept his leather jacket on. Heading down the hallway, he turned the corner at the end to enter the living room where he found Corrado and Ginevra sitting on opposite ends of the couch with a game of Tetris flashing on the television.
“His pride, Ginny. The thing that’s always haunted him no matter what he does,” Alessio said.
All at once, two pairs of eyes turned on Alessio. Their smiles matched his own, and the need growing in his chest had him crossing the floor before he could think better of it. He made it to the back of the couch when Ginevra reached out a hand for him. He took it with his own, weaving their fingers together as he leaned down to grab Corrado’s jaw with his other.
“Someone would have come to pick you up,” she told him.
Corrado arched a brow. “What she said.”
“I know,” he replied simply.
Alessio bent down, turning Corrado’s face at the same time to take a kiss from him. He lingered just long enough to feel the way Corrado let him find the taste he wanted before he let him go. Then, Les moved to Ginevra to do the same. Her sweet little hum against his kiss had him feeling like home was exactly where his heart was.
It’s right where he wanted to stay, too.
Forever.
Alessio didn’t bother to round the couch to sit down. That wasn’t really his style, anyway. No, he simply jumped over the back and landed right in the middle between Corrado and Ginevra. Their loud—but fake—complaints settled once he was seated. One of his arms snaked over the back of the couch behind Ginevra, so he could play with the softness of her hair while his other landed tight to Corrado’s thigh.
All over again, he felt good.
Happy.
Right again.
There was something about coming home that filled a void in Alessio’s chest. Maybe it was because he’d never really had what one might consider a traditional or proper home. Even the penthouse in Vegas he shared with Corrado had been more like a hideaway for the two of them than a home.
Now that he had been away from the place he called home more often than he was here, he tended to notice the long stretches of time far more. He didn’t want to be gone.
He wanted to be home.
“Someone is getting their ass beat again, yeah?” he asked.
“Fuck off,” Corrado muttered. “How is she this good?”
Ginevra only grinned.
“How was the flight?”
Les shrugged in answer to Corrado. “Decent. Same as it usually is.”
“So, cramped, long, and loud.”
“Basically.”
Ginevra waved at the television. “Are we beating Corrado’s ass again, or what?”
Laughter filled up the living room. The game started quickly, and while he watched the split screen on the television and the blocks coming down one after the other for the two people on either side of him to make lines with, Alessio had another thought.
“So, if the entryway is all decorated, does that mean the reading nook is also finished?”
“Oh, no,” Ginevra said, never once looking away from the game, “that’s a surprise.”
Alessio tipped his head to the side, giving Corrado a look. His lover only shrugged back clearly not having an answer to his unspoken question.
That was fine.
Les liked surprises.
Mostly.
8.
Corrado
“HAVE you ever thought that maybe Ginny would want to have her stuff in here with ours?” Alessio asked.
Turning away from the hanging bag where he put his suits that needed to be dry-cleaned, Corrado nodded. “I have.”
“And yet, it’s only our things in this walk-in closet.”
“Because this is what we do, Les. Every morning. Every night.”
Corrado almost smiled at the way Alessio had to take a second to consider what he said. He wasn’t lying. He and Les always got ready for their day or night together. Ginevra preferred to do those things separately, and alone in her own space.
Then, Corrado tipped his chin toward the doorway. “Besides, the door’s always open. She knows that.”
“Right. Did Dare call?”
“Gave me the okay on the time off, actually.”
“Good,” Les murmured. “He owes us both.”
“That was not how he put it to me.”
Alessio’s dark chuckles came close to the back of Corrado’s neck when he turned to finish zipping up the garment bag. Just as fast, he felt Les’s hot mouth find the skin of his bare shoulder blade while the side of his hand brushed along Corrado’s.
Soft touches.
Quiet moments.
Amid everything else that had changed in their life, and after all Corrado had done to them that could have ruined what he and Alessio shared together ... well, at the end of the day, they were still the same.
And he liked that just fine.
“Missed you,” Les murmured against Corrado’s shoulder.
“More than you know.”
“Turn the heat up for Ginny, yeah?”
Corrado chuckled as he turned around, cocking a brow all the while. “She still won’t sleep under blankets.”
“Yeah, well ... I think she’s warm enough between the two of us, that’s all.”
“Stop talking about me in there, I hear you!”
Ginevra’s teasing yell from outside the walk-in closet had Alessio winking at Corrado. The asshole looked so pleased with himself—or maybe it was just because he was finally home—that Corrado couldn’t help but kiss him.
He didn’t linger.
Couldn’t.
Not if he wanted to leave this closet because as soon as he got a taste of Les, well, he’d be fucked. A lot like he was whenever he got his mouth on Ginevra and had five minutes on his hands to waste.
“Setting this up to be a good night, yeah?” Corrado asked over his shoulder as he headed for the door leading back to the bedroom.
Alessio grinned, flashing his teeth and everything. He went from playful to sinful in a fucking blink. “You know it.”
“Know what?” Ginevra, already in the middle of the bed with a binder in her hands, glanced up with a curious glint. “Hmm?”
“Just Les and his incessant need to test my self-control every chance he gets.”
“I don’t need to test anything. We all know what your self-control is like, thank you.”
Ginevra glanced up, staring at the ceiling before she just as quickly went back to whatever was in that binder with a nod. “He’s not wrong.”
“See,” Alessio said.
Smug as fuck.
Corrado smirked. “Yeah, well ...”
“Nobody’s complaining,” Ginevra added.