'tis the season (to love you)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Truth be told, all this stress can't possibly be good for his heart in the long run. The organ's been toiling overtime to compensate; it'll need a good long rest before it can work all proper again.

It's the way it seizes up in his chest, crawls up into the pit of his throat when the question registers in his forehead-kiss-addled brain. Eddy freezes, much like a deer in headlights, and he's not sure he'll survive the impact.

Nana doesn't even look up from her knitting to observe the panic she's induced. "It is not, yes?"

"No," he tells her. It's more a whimper than anything else, but at least he's responded.

All their hard work—albeit less than genuine—over the past few days, and this is where it's going to die an embarrassing, agonizing death? There's no way. He won't allow it. Eddy sucks in air through his teeth, prepares himself to explain, to expound, to (falsely) lay it out in no uncertain terms that they're not just doing this for the promised rewards she'd dangled in front of their noses, carrots on sticks, and—

"Okay."

A pause, in which Helen begins to idly hum Clair de Lune, the notes creaking under the weight of her wizened voice. Eddy's lungs seem to have forgotten how to breathe, those faulty things. "Okay?"

"Yes. Okay." She looks up at him, and the twinkle in her eyes is mischievous but altogether fond. "I know the manuscripts are very enticing. They are good prizes, no? Good motivation. But you came for my grandson, first and foremost. You came for him." A brilliant smile stretches across her lips. "That is more than okay in my books."

And, well, when she puts it that way.

Fuck.

(There's a noise from somewhere near the couch that's out of place here, but he's too busy having an internal freakout to really pay it much attention.)

After a few more moments of silent gaping on his part, Helen nods at her half-finished masterpiece, bundling up the needles and yarn to her chest as she moves to the door. She stops next to him on her way out, patting his shoulder gently. "You are a good man, Edward. I know the way forward may not look very clear now, but trust in yourself. In your heart. It will know what to do." With that parting shot lingering in the air between them and one last sunny grin, she takes her leave of the premises. Eddy's left to stare after her in a silent moment of shock.

Well. Goddamnit. He's that transparent, then. She'd taken one look at him and known that whatever it is he's done, he's done it for Brett. Nevermind the manuscripts or whatever, apparently; his feelings are what she'd honed in on. Shit on a stick.

But—this is a good thing, right? Nana doesn't seem to know anything about their fake relationship, and so their charade continues. They can make it through this production relatively unscathed with their hard-won rewards tucked tight under their armpits on the way back home. Good. A-okay. Nothing wrong with that, no siree.

(How much more of this can he take?)

His feet quietly lead him towards the couch, and all at once, the fight goes out of him, causing him to fall down onto the cushions. He lands on something soft but decisively not fabric. Fleshy. What the—"Ow, fuck!"

"Brett?" Eddy jumps away, watches a familiar crown of hair peek from under the blanket. Shit, he'd been too distracted to notice the human right under his ass before taking a seat? That fact doesn't bode well at all. "The hell are you doing here?"

"I'm taking a nap," comes the indignant reply. Brett swipes a hand over his eyes, shifting his glasses up his forehead. "Or. Well. I was."

God, what a mess. Eddy gives him a placating smile, opting to perch on the armchair as he watches the other man wobble into a seating position with the uneasy grace of a baby deer. "Sorry I sat on you." His attention's snagged by the particular word choice. Was. So, does that mean: "You heard us?"