More Than Meets the Eye - Page 140

“You know you got to ask me for my blessing.And I am strict.”She pinched her lips and narrowed her eyes—a facade that lasted barely a second before she broke out laughing.Oh, good.

He couldn’t tell if asking for her blessing had been a joke too, but he’d ask Sami about that later.

“Now.You, Mr.Cook.”Halima beckoned Joel closer with her finger.“You did well on the food.But let me show you a little secret on how to make the hummus perfection.”

Joel, nodding eagerly, was hot on her heels as they disappeared into the kitchen.

“You’d look really good in a white tux,” Eevee said.

He would.Not as good as Sami, though.

“One day,” Baz said to her as much as to himself.

For now, he took a seat on the bench by Sami’s side.Lucipurr had migrated from Sami’s arms to his lap, head on her paws, purring like her life depended on it.

She did look innocent like this.

He snuck his arm around Sami’s shoulders, slowly, so Lucipurr would miss it.Sami met him in a soft kiss before his forehead melted against Baz’s cheek.And although Lucipurr’s yellow eyes were on him like the laser of a sniper, she didn’t protest.Look at who was learning to share.Perhaps cohabiting an apartment at some point wouldn’t be doomed to disaster.

Halima’s loud instructions echoed from the kitchen.Ryan and Jack watched her and Joel at work, trading quiet comments.Eevee and Aya laughed about something by the counter, while Naija told the rest of the gang about how great Sami’s speech had been.

This was not how Baz had imagined his life at thirty to be like.Still an associate with no prospect of a promotion, but surrounded by a community; one big, sometimes messy family celebrating his partner’s success.

It was so much better than anything he had dreamed of.

He brushed his lips over Sami’s temple.“I really love you, you know that?”

Every day, he had been saying these words.Every day, he thought he couldn’t possibly mean them more, that he had reached the maximum any human could feel.But then Sami would reveal another quirk, or he’d rant for an hour about whatever subject he was hyperfixated on at the time, and Baz’s heart would swell a tiny bit more with something that surpassed words.

“I really love you too,” Sami hummed.Baz bowed his head to seal the promise those words held with a kiss—the promise of forever.

Baz would hold him to that.