Coffee and Tea by K.L. Noone

Author:K.L. Noone [Noone, K.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-20T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 3

The gala glimmered. Dresses and suits, fluttery and lacy and silky fabric, rustled. Champagne fizzed. The eighteenth-century museum walls puffed up with pride, and every quirky painting and antique astrolabe and historical chess-set shone its best. Happy to play host, thrilled to encourage a love of books and history and people getting out checkbooks to support said books and history.

Jason said, “It’s a perfect location.” He had a hand on Colby’s back, not possessive but guarding, with purpose. They’d done the entrance, the hand-shaking, an extensive round of greeting and chatting and saying hello to the donors who’d paid for a moment with Colby Kent. They’d retreated, for a moment. This corner of the room was erudite and sympathetic. “Will anyone care if I go look at that whole collection of games and gaming and dice across the centuries, and will they mind if I borrow some for a Wizards & Wyverns session…”

Colby laughed. “To the former, they’d love it; to the latter, someone would probably notice, yes, but I could ask…we’re very trustworthy, you and I, after all. It is a lovely museum and library; I’m so glad they’ve let us use the space. Fitting as far as advocating curiosity, collecting, reading widely, exploring. You know some of those dice are meant for divination, so they’re magical…I do wonder what would happen if you played with them, my knight…”

“I could summon you a unicorn. Or a dragon. To be your friend, obviously.”

“Well, yours too. Mutual draconic friend-sharing. Some sort of water-dragon, or—” The words hung, unfinished. Jason spun the direction of Colby’s gaze. Kept his hand at Colby’s back, for balance.

The person who’d just come in was short enough to be semi-obscured by other bodies, many of which had descended upon him and seemed to be very enthusiastic. Jason, despite being tall, tried to see. He also tucked Colby into the circle of his arm, because he had a fairly good guess.

“Never mind,” Colby said, and drank almost all of the champagne-glass he’d been mostly clutching as a defense against random hand-clasps, “perhaps he won’t talk to us, and we’ll never have to deal with it—oh, just talk to me more about water-dragons—”

“Totally. We can go swimming with them. Or flying through rainstorms, the kind you like, all bright and splashing and drenched in water and clouds.” He’d keep Colby safe. In all the weather.

The crowd parted enough that Jason could see. And the glint of extraordinary petite sun-spike beauty took his breath away.

“Ah,” Colby said, the syllable quiet, so quiet, accepting it: which was worse. “Yes.”

“I love you,” Jason said. “And he’s tiny and I’d accidentally step on him. And you’re nicer.”

Colby now looked surprised. “You’ve not even met him.”

“No, I know. But…” He looked again. Fuck. So stunning. Right to the gut, a stab of loveliness, beyond rational thought. Steel lines, sunlight on water, glass edges and fine crystal. Simon Ashley smiled like the first-ever dawn and had flawlessly trendy blond hair and shook hands with

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