An Unexpected Gift by Daisy J. Morgan

Author:Daisy J. Morgan [Morgan, Daisy J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The world seemed a little brighter. Time did this odd, queer thing of flowing too quickly. Because Ezra was happy.

He was having fun discovering that human who’d shown up at his workplace and demanded to become his friend.

It was a complicated, ridiculous thought. He was twenty-two, an age that felt like adulthood despite being one step out of adolescence. His adult side reminded him that it wasn’t normal to grow so attached to someone, and his teen side just wanted to be happy to have found that someone again.

And so, Ezra found himself looking in the mirror with critical eye, wondering why something as stupid as dressing well to meet with friends felt so important.

Sky blue was definitely not his color.

“You look good,” Jonathan poked, sinking into what was, by all accounts, a wardrobe in the shape of a red armchair next to the bed.

“You don’t get it. He has a strong bond with his sister. They’re a real family.”

“Not to mention she’s married to his best friend, who knows you,” John said, rubbing salt into the wound. “And whom, if I remember correctly, you did not treat in the best of ways. I dread to think of what he might have told her.” John’s grin grew wide enough to gain an edge of cruelty.

Ezra acknowledged that he looked terrible in blue and that maybe a white shirt would be best.

With a sigh, his guest plucked a navy shirt from the bunch and threw it at him.

“This one. It suits the deathlike pallor of your office-drone skin.”

“Uhh… Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.” John gave a quick wave with his hand, rolling his eyes. The dimple on his chin deepened with held-back laughter. “It’s so weird, seeing you like this for Kyle Lewis. Tell me, are you actually on drugs? You can tell me if you are!”

“Maybe,” Ezra admitted. “Why would I feel so goddamn nervous if I wasn’t?”

They looked at each other. Ezra waited for his sentence. John straightened his back and rested his elbows on his knees, joining his hands in a meditative pose.

“How is he?” he asked after a while. “Health-wise, I mean.”

That question swept away Ezra’s obsession with appropriate shirt colors. He looked at himself in the mirror, buttoning up the navy blue one, which seemed perfect. Because it was just a stupid shirt and a hot pink one would’ve served him just as well.

“Fine,” he answered.

“Who knows what he must’ve gone through”, John insisted. “If you hadn’t been there…”

“He’s fine,” Ezra repeated with some harshness, then breathed in deeply. “And enough with dredging this thing back up. Neither one of us likes being judged by our past. We decided we wouldn’t think about it anymore, and it suits us just fine.”

His friend’s eyes studied him carefully. “Your relationship is weird as hell.”

“I know.”

John rose, walking up to him to fix his collar. “He barely left you a choice, and you grew attached to him way too quickly. I don’t like this, Ez. At all.”

That summary hurt. “I know that, too.

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