Free Blackbird Knitting in a Bunny's Lair by Amy Lane Page A

the same.
    Yes, Aiden had seen all of these things in the hospital. He knew they were true. But here, in this place Aiden was trying to think of as home, they were even more apparent.
    It didn’t make Aiden want him less. When Jeremy had first moved to Granby and into Craw’s little room in the barn, Aiden hadn’t really thought all that much of his looks anyway. He had a small nose when Aiden sort of preferred bold noses, and a sweet little pillow mouth, and Aiden had always thought he’d fancied a lean mouth. He had also had eyes that had always seemed to gaze far, far away, and that, of all things, had turned Aiden off the most.
    After their first week of working together, after Aiden saw that all of the complex little pieces of Jeremy were in no way close to being revealed, he realized those faraway eyes pissed him off because he wanted Jeremy’s eyes on him.
    Once Aiden had kissed Jeremy for the first time and he’d focused his big brown eyes on Aiden and Aiden alone, all of those other features just fell into place. The entire package—surprising strength, the cleverness, the “aw, shucks” patter—that was Jeremy. Aiden could not pretend he chose to love Jeremy. After the first six months of watching the man try so hard to be a good person, he had no choice at all.
    Aiden wished he did.
    Standing here in Ben’s sweet little house with the newly painted walls and the sparkling double-paned windows letting the darkness in, Aiden could only remember that terrible moment, the one he’d been pushing into the back of his mind for the past two months.
    As he looked at his nervous, uncertain lover, Aiden saw Jeremy on his knees, bloody and half-conscious with a gun pointed at his head, and he wished he could choose not to love him at all.
    That seething he’d felt the day before boiled up to his groin, to his stomach, to his chest. Oh God. Jeremy had just… just set himself out like a lamb to the slaughter! Where was Aiden’s rabbit, the one who bolted when Aiden’s mother looked at him funny?
    I admire the hell out of him. He’s a hero.
    He almost died.
    Yeah. Maybe when Jeremy wasn’t so tired, so spacey, so terrified of this new house with all of his stuff in it—then Aiden could forgive him for almost being beaten to death.
    Because Aiden’s chest still ached just thinking about it.
    But forgiveness had waited this long, hadn’t it? Besides, it was dinnertime.
    Craw had made dinner for them and welcomed Jeremy to Ben’s house, and then he’d done Aiden a solid and disappeared, probably to go coo love poems into the phone, since Ben was still in Boulder until the morning plane. Aiden and Jeremy lingered over the chicken casserole, and a heavy silence fell.
    “Was nice of Craw to make dinner,” Jeremy said into the quiet.
    Aiden grunted. He still couldn’t quite believe that the gruff asshole he’d known for much of his life in Granby had gone all gooey over Ben’s cold hands. But then, Ben had stared at Craw the way Jeremy stared at Aiden, like the object of their affections could reattach frostbitten fingers with a few heated breaths. There wasn’t much Aiden wouldn’t do for that look—he knew that now.
    “I never knew the old bastard could cook,” he said, although by now he’d had Craw’s chili and his eggs and whatever he made for Thanksgiving.
    “This is plain cooking,” Jeremy said, but he wasn’t criticizing. “It’s good to make you fat.”
    “Hm.” Aiden swallowed his last swig of milk. “Well, have another bite, Jer. You could use some of that.”
    It was Jeremy’s turn to grunt. He stared at his half-full plate for a few minutes and pushed some food around.
    And then he brought up the valances. Again.
    Aiden realized he was about asleep as he sat.
    “Yeah, Jer,” Aiden said quietly. “We brought the valances. We brought the books. We brought the floor safe, may it rust in peace. This here is our home. Your name and my name on the rental agreement, and later on the