Page 115 of Wear It Like a Crown

Leo threw open the curtains and leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the windowpane, staring out over the cityscape—high-rise buildings crowded together, smog clouding up the view of distant mountains. He closed his eyes and focused on the faint noises that filtered into the room.

He heard Joshua draw close, the thick carpet reducing his footsteps to a vague whisper. Then Joshua hugged him from behind, moulding himself to Leo’s back, and Leo leaned into him with a little gasp. His throat felt raw.

“You okay?” Joshua asked, sticky-slow like a dream.

Leo considered it carefully, tipping his head back onto Joshua’s shoulder and covering Joshua’s hands on his stomach with his own. Holding him in place. “I’m okay,” he replied eventually.

“I’m so sorry,” Joshua told him. “So, so sorry you have to go through this because of me.”

Leo turned in the circle of his arms, leaning back against the window as he looked at Joshua. “I’m not sorry. I guess it’s kind of… liberating, even. Coming clean to my closest friends, and reclaiming a good part of my past in general. Or it will feel liberating very soon, I’m sure.”

The brightness that filled the room made Joshua’s eyes seem luminescent. His embrace had loosened so Leo could turn, but he tightened his arms again as he shuffled closer to cage Leo’s feet with his own, voice low. “Have you thought about… When we go public, you’ll be famous. There’ll be things you won’t be able to do anymore. Like, of course you can still do investigations for James, but undercover work when everyone knows your face—just, that doesn’t make much sense. And regularly trespassing on private property is also… not good. Your work with those kids, it would need to be turned into something more…” He bit his lip and shrugged, appearing helpless and a little sad. “Something more official, I guess.”

Leo exhaled around the tight pressure that radiated out from behind his sternum. Joshua was right: Leo’s life would change—but it would behislife, more so than the half-arsed game of hide-and-seek he’d played before. While there would still be aspects of his past that he’d keep awayfrom the public eye, he’d reclaim his name, his heritage, would own up to the years he’d spent scrounging for food and a safe place to stay, never knowing whether he’d wake up to torchlight shining into his eyes or where he’d end up the next day. Those experiences had shaped him just as much as the times he’d negotiated the price of a blowjob or a fuck. Probably more.

And whatever the future held, Leo would face it with Joshua right by his side.

“I know things will change,” Leo said, only just a whisper. “It’s not like I haven’t thought about it before I came to Brazil, you know?”

“You have?” Joshua asked, a glint of relief shining through the question.

“I’m not stupid, Princeling. Of course I realise that things will change. Massively and in ways I probably can’t even imagine.” Leo lifted a brow and shot him a smile that felt foreign on his face, not fully at home in the serenity of the moment. “But I picked you anyway, which should tell you something. Remember what you told me, that day in my flat?”

I’m scared, but I’m doing it anyway. You’re just scared.

While Joshua didn’t repeat the words out loud, Leo could tell that he understood. His nod was faint, and they were quiet for a short while, simply watching each other, pressed together and so close that details were beginning to swim in front of Leo’s eyes. He was the one who picked the thread of conversation back up.

“James already mentioned redefining my role, making me the public face of the team or something. And…” He pressed his lips together before he continued. “Well, yeah, I suppose I couldn’t be as directly involved with the kids anymore. It would have to be Kylie running the show, maybe with Carole’s help. Or we would need to find a place that tolerates us.”

Joshua dipped his head to nose at Leo’s cheek, his breath fanning out in a warm gust of air. “I could help,” he offered. “Not, like, buy you a place because I know you wouldn’t let me, but… I know people. And obviously, I can do something with my name, so if I declare myself a patron, there’s a good chance some businesses would offer up their premises for the great promo. Win-win.” A second of silence followed, then Joshua chuckled, the sound so quiet it hardly registered. “Actually, as my boyfriend, you’ll probably have the kind of impact that means you can be the patron yourself. You don’t need my name.”

That was…

Kind of true. Huh.

The sudden onslaught of possibilities made Leo’s head spin. He could use this, take advantage of the connections that came with his new role—not only to procure a place for his kids, but also to provide James’ team with direct insight into opinions and rumours circulating within high society. It would be a different kind of undercover work, something like recon in plain view. Leo would have to discuss it with James, but even more importantly, he’d have to discuss it with Joshua.

Later, though. They didn’t need to have all the answers just yet.

Angling himself so his lips caught the corner of Joshua’s mouth, Leo brought one arm up around Joshua’s back and pulled him in. He kept his voice low. “That’s a good point, but how about we postpone this? Right now, I need you close and with me all the way.”

“I am,” Joshua murmured, turning further into Leo’s touch. His mouth curved up, and Christ, Leo hoped he’d never get over the raw punch ofwantjust at the sight of him.

“Thank you,” Leo said quietly, and Joshua’s heavy gaze fixed on Leo’s face. His words were slow, but firm.

“No, thankyou.” He paused, expression smoothing out into something calmly hopeful. “Hey, we can do this, right? We’ll get through this. Together.”

“We will,” Leo whispered. Most of him believed it.

Their remaining time in Brazil rushed by in a blur. The five of them visited subterranean lakes of an iridescent blue and stared at the astonishing natural spectacle that were the Iguazu Falls; they hiked through a tropical rainforest and bathed in a plunge pool, water the colour of Pepsi rushing around them; they canoed through black-water-flooded Amazonian forests and jumped into one of the lagoons hidden between the sand dunes of the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park.

“This is our intermission,” Joshua had murmured one night, low like a secret and brushed against Leo’s skin. While Leo had teased him about his posh choice of wording, he couldn’t help but agree. This was their time to learn each other by heart and touch, before the world would come crashing in.

Fourteen days. It would have to do.

Leo spent most of the flight back with Joshua curled into his side and dread a bleak weight in his bones. Fortunately the others were in a bantering mood, and Leo was jolted out of his anxiety by Tristan bragging about having taken the lead in their tipping game a couple of matches ago.

“Brazil will kick Germany out in the semis,” Leo told him, “and you’ll be done. No wine for you.”