The Muse's Undoing

I take another sip and shrug.

“You know these are all failed practices. Like train wrecks waiting to happen.”

“You don’t think we could come back from a burning train wreck?” I ask.

“Let me put it this way—if all we’ve ever known is life on the train, and then we jump off it and the train explodes, how do we survive?”

“Couples’ counseling?”

He laughs. “I might need you to be serious.”

I run my thumb over his. “The serious answer is I don’t know.”

“Yeah. Me neither. And I don’t love that.”

“We care about each other, right?” I ask, needing him to remember that I could never knowingly hurt him.

“Yeah, too much on my part, maybe.”

“It’s not too much.” I finish my drink in one long swallow and set it on the bar. “If you’re interested, I think we should have sex.”

Matthew stares at me, a dark flicker in his eyes. “You can’t say that to me.”

I lift my brows. “Sure I can.”

“No, because it feels like a dare.”

“It’s not.” Maybe it is.

That’s the vodka talking.

I need to stop looking at him in that godforsaken henley. I can’t believe we’re talking about this in public at high tea.

“So, the options are we either fuck, or go back to being normal brothers.”

“We were never normal, and we’re not brothers,” I remind him.

“If we’re gonna blur all the lines, I don’t see what difference it makes what I want to call you.”

“Fine, call me whatever you want. Brother, Princess, old man, Daddy?—”

“Too far,” he says.

I laugh.

Suddenly, he wraps a hand around the back of my neck and plants a kiss on my mouth. I stare at him, stunned. “What was that for?”

“That pretty smile. I missed it.” He drags his thumb across my mouth before letting go of me.

I shudder, glaring at him. “Not in public.”

“Aw…”

“I’m on television.”

“Mhm.”

“Just because you don’t watch it doesn’t mean no one else does,” I argue. “What if someone found out who you are?”