Pax Asteriae

@paxasteriae.northsky.social

442 Followers 340 Following

M/M fantasy romance and erotica author. Also known as Aphna. Midlands, UK. Transmasc non-binary, they/them. No AI. #MMRomance #GayRomance #AmWriting https://www.paxasteriae.co.uk

Cover to The Night Fair by Pax Asteriae. The cover features Iphre, a pretty man with long brown hair lightly tied back. He wears a silver chain around his neck with little silver stars on it, a loose and open blue tunic top with gold trim, and a purple robe with gold detailing. He is looking up at the purple sunset sky and smiles, while surrounded by fair tents.

This was worth investigating. The svartalfa was short, even by human standards, and looked pointedly away as Marcus stared. An open suit jacket hung over a plain grey t-shirt, and his grey hands were buried deep in the pockets of black jeans; a glance up and then away again revealed a set of glittering black studs in his left ear.
Definitely not a lawyer.
Or maybe he was underestimating the other man, and maybe the legal firms in the building too; Camille had warned him about his assumptions and prejudices. Only one way to find out. “Going to court or coming from it?”
Another glare, this time with such anger behind it Marcus only just stopped himself recoiling a step. But no actual answer: after a moment, the svartalfa’s glare returned to the elevator doors.

For the first time in eight hours, Blake was finally alone again.
He took a breath, then another, just to check it was true and that Marcus wouldn’t come bursting back into the apartment again. He shouldn’t — he couldn’t, not with the locks Blake had — but it would just be his luck. When five breaths had passed, he realised he could relax: a tenseness he hadn’t realised existed drained from him in a rush. His earphones hit the desk; four running steps and he threw himself onto his bed. It smelled faintly — irritatingly — of Marcus, but it was soft where his chair wasn’t and for a moment sleep threatened to claim him.

It looked like the other man had got the measure of him already. It was all Marcus could do not to duck his head, and that was mostly because if he moved again, he might vanish entirely down the back of the sofa. Just a pair of legs sticking out like he’d been thoroughly chewed.
Blake would probably be thrilled.
No, actually: he probably wouldn’t, because then Marcus would be a permanent fixture, even if it was just a pair of shins he had to shove aside every time he sat down. And there was nothing Blake had made plainer than his wish for all this to be over and done with.

3D render of Marcus, a pale elf with short, spiky blond hair and blue eyes. He is smiling flirtily at the camera, leaning his chin against the side of his hand, and wears a chain over his nose, a feather from one ear piercing, and bright star-decorated fabric wristbands on his wrist. He's probably promoting something.

It's not a great render, but it was for the background of another image entirely so it wasn't vital. In the end you couldn't even see it...

Photo of a small ereader with a greyscale image of a fluffy cat on the screen, with a light green-blue cover. It sits beside a larger black Kindle Paperwhite with text on the screen.

Photo of a small black and brown Miniature Pinscher laying on a grey rug with a small brown stone in front of her, between her front paws. She is looking up at the camera with bright, wide eyes.

Photo of a beautiful blue sky over a field with houses to the left. The sea is in the distance.

Photo of a bright setting sun taken over grassland. To the left is a row of houses; to the right is the sea and a set of offshore wind turbines. There is a lot of sky, with very few dotted, fluffy clouds.

Wildfires and Snakes
@trending.bsky.app

Chris Kerr @kerrblimey.bsky.social - 50m

New: Unions in the U.S. and Canada are have filed unfair labor practice charges against Microsoft for allegedly mishandling its latest round of mass layoffs.
CWA Canada president Carmel Smyth claims Microsoft "unlawfully" fired Bethesda Game Studio Montreal workers without notifying the union.

[A photo of people protesting, holding up various signs such as 'We don't run from boss fights.']

Unions take legal action against Microsoft over Xbox layoffs
CWA Canada president Carmel Smyth claims the company 'unlawfully fired people without giving notice to or discussing it with the union.'

www.gamedeveloper.com

Private Schools
@trending.bsky.app
See Through Canoe @seethroughcanoe.bsky.social - 50m
A Manatee swimming with a HUGE group of rays in Tampa Bay, Florida. Manatees are found in freshwater but are mostly saltwater aimals. Freshwater habitats aren't big enough to support a breeding population of manatees.
#nature #animals #amazing #florida #wildlife
An image of many, many rays skimming over the surface of green water or swimming beneath it. There's a big clear arc behind them, and in the centre is a manatee, relatively massive compared to the size of the fleeing rays.
White text overlaid at the top left reads, "Manatee Swimming in a HUGE School of Rays"

Screenshot of the Bunny webcomic.
Title: v1.5
Bunny - bunny.frozenreality.co.uk - 06 Jun 05
guest strip by drunk welshy
The Pink Bunny is sitting on a red grid with a green lightcycle trail to its left and a blue spiky sphere between them.
"the Bunny was sure it could hear the deep doom drone of recognisers..."

Screenshot of Microsoft's World Cup coverage from the widget menu thing in Windows.

At the top it shows today's match: France vs. Spain. FRA 0 - 2 ESP.
Below that, it shows tomorrow's semifinal: England vs. Argentina.

More concerningly, below that it shows the matchup for the final, where one team is To Be Decided and the other is, inexplicably, France. Who have just lost to Spain.

Not that Microsoft had their own favourite or anything...

Milos turned to him; for one instant Alex thought he was finally going to get the pathetic attempt at a cuff he'd been expecting. When the elf wrapped both his arms around Alex instead, hugging him so tightly he almost slapped Alex across the face with his ear and burying his nose against Alex's neck, it was more than just the force of the hug that took his breath away. "This is incredible! I can't believe it!"
By rights he should be shoving the elf away. This sort of thing — in public, even! — was ridiculous.
His arms encircled the elf without his permission. That they always felt so right around him was Milos's fault, of course. Couldn't be Alex's, he'd never hugged a man before Milos, so obviously it was Milos's fault.
When Milos released him Alex barely had time to take a breath before the elf grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him through the door, without even a pause for them to take their shoes off. They came to a halt in the living room, a space that looked far larger inside than it had from outside and led through an archway into what was probably intended to be the dining room. Patio doors at the end revealed a long strip of green: Milos froze, staring at it with wide eyes. "There's a garden?"
"Apparently so," Alex said drily. He'd seen Milos experience a lot of emotions, but this one was new and Alex found he liked the wide-eyed wonder. It wouldn't last; he'd savour it now, while he could. "If you think I'm mowing it you're sorely mistaken."

Photo of a small black and brown Miniature Pinscher in a blue collar laying on a grey sofa. Her eyes are tightly closed and she's fast asleep.

Photo of a small black and brown Miniature Pinscher sat on a train station bench beside a blue suitcase and slightly on my combat trouser-wearing legs.

3D render of Caeso, a pale man wearing a red shibari rope around his chest and a red leather wrist cuff. He is biting on the arm of a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and is smiling.
Text on it reads, "A little hard work never did anyone any harm, and for Caeso, it's not only the work that's hard..."

Photo of a slender grey ball-jointed doll wearing a loose, long sleeved white shirt and jeans. He has white hair and red eyes, and is sitting on a bookcase looking forlornly off to the right.

Milos wouldn’t have cared if it was; a glance up at Jaska made him kept his mouth shut. Something about the way the man stared down at his meal made him think Jaska took food seriously, rather than just being glad it existed at all. Well, of course he did. The tailored cuts of his suits, the immaculate quality of his shoes; Milos had seen people like Jaska before. They owned the glossy shoes that kicked him when they thought no one could see. They wore their expensive jackets loose and their ties undone as they propositioned him in the street after business nights out, and he didn’t want to remember what those ties got used for if he was stupid, or desperate, enough to accept. A shudder rattled through him.

Screenshot of the Bunny webcomic.
Top line is "its name was alber," dated 02 Feb 05
The comic shows a cute and rounded punk Bunny looking at an equally cute fluffy orange thing sitting in front of a bowl with 'ALBER' written on it.
Text underneath reads, "After months of searching, the Bunny had finally aquired a pet Peev"
Bunny © H. Davies, All Rights Reserved

3D render of Caeso, a pale man with white hair and dark brown eyes. He is smiling slightly at the camera, his head tilted somewhat to one side, and he's wrapped in red rope with his arms behind his back.

Probably a blessing, he decided as he took his place at the platform. Funny how much faster it was to get a ticket even when it was crowded when there wasn't a god magically stalling the machine. The only downside to fast receipt of a ticket was that the train was, as ever, inevitably late. Well, late trains were the only reason he'd managed to catch it last time and even as he stood with hands shoved deep in his pockets and shoulders slouching, thinking grumpy thoughts about late trains and mouthy gods, he could feel the subtle vibration through the soles of his feet that indicated the train in question was approaching. From a distance he could hear the train's horn as it approached the bend.
A hand-shaped pressure between his shoulders. A hard shove. Caeso stumbled forward over the yellow line and face-first over the edge of the platform and toward the track; the train breasted the corner, still going far too fast to stop before it hit him—
A hand seized the back of his jacket and hauled him backwards onto the platform again. Fresh air under his feet became reassuring slabs once more.
He twisted to look over his shoulder and thank his rescuer.
Already vanishing into the crowd, the tall and slender form of Mercury gave him a brief wink before he was swallowed by the throng.

Chapter One

He’d had a long, long time to practice his calm nerves and steady hands, but when Mercury strolled unannounced from his living room into his dining room one morning, Caeso’s morning tea tried to leap out of his cup and over his hand instead.
“Hi,” Mercury said, somewhat redundantly, like he hadn’t just meandered through Caeso’s house without even having the grace to knock. “How are you?”
“Why are you here?”
Mercury frowned. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how this conversation is supposed to go.”

A little ginger kitten cuddles up to a little black and white kitten and rests its head on the other's side.

“I think,” Luke said with a grin, “that was more about not scaring off the customers.” Then he sobered, running his thumb in circles over Caeso’s palm. “You mentioned a curse earlier. I know you both dismissed it, but now you’re here, can you tell if there is one?”
Caeso closed his eyes, tried to feel the way Kita had tried to teach him in the past. All he could sense was the unrelenting beat of his heart and the sound of his and Luke’s breathing in the too-quiet café.
Finally, reluctantly, he opened his eyes again. “Despite everything I’m still mortal, you know. I have the magical ability of a brick. Probably even less than that.”
It was a little disconcerting to see Luke smiling at him. “But you’re much prettier than a brick, so it was still worth it.”

A blonde woman in a brown apron came over and placed a small white box in front of him. “Your cream horn to go,” she said with a smile, then returned to the counter.
Caeso stared down at it, then up at Lee, who was failing so spectacularly to hold back his smirk he might as well have not bothered.
“What?” He asked, all innocence. “It seemed apt. I’m sure your boss would love to share a nice cream-filled horn with you.”
He stared a moment longer, then shook his head and laughed. “You bastard.”

Screenshot of an Android news feed. The central article reads, "Government pushes forward with conversion practices ..."
GOV.UK 21h

Lee waved at him, grinning broadly, as Caeso entered the café. “Looking smart! How’re you finding the job?”
He slid from his suit jacket and settled into the seat opposite, scrubbing one hand over his face. “It’s tiring.”
“Tiring, or tiring?” He dragged out the last word with heavy emphasis, like Caeso could miss the innuendo with the way Lee’s eyebrows wiggled enthusiastically. “I can’t believe you’re working for Syrinx! But he did seem to like you when he was a regular.” Another vigorous wiggle of the eyebrows.

He recited it perfectly, enunciating every word clearly just in case another indirect insult might be forthcoming, and it seemed good enough for the official. "Thank you. I hope you both realise what I'm doing for you," he added as he tidied his desk again while his dark eyes remained locked on them. "This is supposed to be decided by a court, not by me. I'm only doing this as a favour, and because you're both sure of this. There's no argument to it so by rights there shouldn't be any objections. But if you," he nodded to Caeso, "are able to pay off your debt prior to the term ending, you can do so without penalty or restriction. Remember that."

3D portrait render of Caeso, a pale man with short, neatly styled white hair and dark brown eyes. He wears a grey turtle neck sweater and is looking at something just beyond the camera.

Photo of a cute blonde Asian ball-jointed doll with a demure white dress and white cap with red decoration. She is smiling and her hands are raised elegantly, and she has three long red articulated tentacles rising out of her dress.

For a few moments, blessed silence reigned.
All too soon shattered. “How was lunch?”
He dropped his face to the desk and groaned. “Too much talking.”
“You actually held conversations?” Geoff’s voice was laced with amusement.
Caeso raised his hand, finger and thumb a short distance apart.
“And you’re trying not to have another one?”
He rearranged his gesture into a thumbs-up.

Geoff’s grin turned predatory. “If you could see the colour of your ears right now…”
“It’s embarrassment. Someone could be along any minute.”
“Mm-hmm.” The finger edged higher. “I meant it when I said you look good. I think this is the most dressed I’ve ever seen you.”
He refused to dignify that with an answer.
Again the finger shifted higher, to tease the line between his thigh and groin. Caeso shifted against the leg beneath him, trying to escape, but all he succeeded in managing was to move nearer to Geoff. “A nice suit jacket too. But no tie. Shame,” Geoff hummed, each word hot against Caeso’s tender ear and sending sparks along his neck and shoulders. “I had some interesting ideas for a tie and your wonderful compliance.”

This was a terrible idea: the moment anyone walked through the door, the first thing they’d see was the temp secretary on his boss’s lap, halfway to getting fucked on someone else’s desk. He was pretty sure he hadn’t made a great first impression yesterday; this would be an absolutely awful second one.

“—so I assume that means you’ll say yes?”
Caeso stared at him until Mercury fidgeted, just slightly, then returned his attention to his tea.
From just above the rim of his cup, he saw the other man pout, fold his arms on the table and drop his chin down to them. It was going to be the puppy eyes, he just knew it. He drained the last of the cold liquid, because he’d be damned — again — if he was going to microwave it, put down the cup, and stared into the god’s big, brown, and beseeching eyes. “You know that won’t work on me.”
“Yes, I know.” Mercury sighed and sat up again. “Thought it was worth a try.”
Caeso resumed his Stare.
“Oh, come on. It’s just one job. One little job. It won’t take you more than a week—” He hesitated at Caeso’s continued silence, then added, “okay, maybe two weeks. Three at the most. But you’re good at this, and it’s a job I can’t really ask Dea or Kita to do.”
“Why can’t you?” He hesitated. “You said no brothels.”

Poster for the TV show Eternal Law, featuring two angels returning to earth as lawyers to help mankind (and two human women, and a demon who is also a lawyer).

Mars pouted. It looked handsome on him, of course. It did nothing to stop Caeso wanting to slap it from his face. “You took a job for the first time in over a month today.”
“Kita offered it.” Caeso thumped the heel of his hand experimentally into the machine. It still refused to divulge the ticket. “She looked tired. I was worried she might overwork.”
“I'll have to give her more jobs if it'll get you working again.” He folded his arms, crossed his legs and smiled at Caeso like a male model; two passing women stared, wide-eyed and immediately smitten, and almost fell down the stairs to the platform. “But really, why haven't you taken any? Orcus was worried for you, and you know how he frets.”
Caeso closed his eyes briefly and would have prayed for strength ... if he thought it'd actually get him anywhere. “Please don't try to guilt-trip me.”
Mars' gaze flicked from Caeso's head to his toes and back again, and a more neutral expression settled over his refined features. “Orcus was worried. So was I. You've barely spoken to anyone in months. If you're going back into a decline—”
“What, now you're worried about me?” Caeso asked bitterly. “A good couple of millennia after you ruined my life in the first place?”
Absolutely no expression whatsoever stirred those placid features. “You've had time to adjust.”

What are friends for, if not moral support?
That was one word for it.
Anyway, she added, looping her arm in his. I just wanted to tell you that you look good. She paused. Your clothes. Not you. You still look terrible.
Despite himself, he couldn’t help his laugh.
They parted company by the old oak on the corner of the churchyard, Kita giving him an enthusiastic two-handed wave before she headed off towards whatever task awaited her on the edge of town, and it was only when he was almost at the office that he realised he hadn’t thought once about why he took the long route around.

Official artwork of the Pokémon Salandit, a greyish black salamander type Pokémon with cheerful purple eyes and a red stripe along its tail that leads to an almost floral pattern on its back. It has pointy little toes, pointy ears, and pointy teefs. It looks uncannily like a Miniature Pinscher, but salamandery.

Photo of a small black and brown Miniature Pinscher wrapped in a blue blanket with red and grey foxes on. She is squinty and sleepy and one ear is curled back. The angle gives her even more snoot than usual.

3D render of Milos, a dark elf with long pointed ears, hazel eyes, and untidy blond hair. He wears a white T-shirt and has both his hands raised to the camera in a frame shape, his right hand shaped like an L and pointing down, his left hand also shaped like an L and pointing up. Through the frame he smiles at the camera.

“There’s also some mandatory counselling sessions—”
Milos almost choked on his own tongue. “What?!”
“—and at least one hour’s time spent in the gym a day, at least at the beginning.” It was like he hadn’t just shouted a word loud enough he’d heard it echo around the sparse room. “Once your fitness levels are fully assessed, your instructor will let me know how we can best adjust your schedule to support you.”
“But—”
“And when you head back to your office, tell Alex I’d like a word with him.” The big man smiled up at him, the expression far too innocent for Milos’s liking. It was a smile that told him there’d be no arguing with it.
But he’d be damned if he wouldn’t at least try. “I don’t need counselling!”
A soft sigh. “I think I said mandatory, didn’t I?”
“But—!”
“If Alex says he’s too busy, please remind him that I can always ensure he’s even busier.” Nazarian returned his attention to his desk, flipping open a manilla file like Milos had already left, and he just knew that he could stand there all he liked, refuse to leave the office, even shout until he was hoarse, and the big man would simply act like he didn’t exist. Gripping the schedule hard enough it creased beneath his fingers, he muttered, “yes sir,” backed out of the room again, and closed the door.

Photo of a very small cucumber plant with several nascent cucumbers growing, and one anyway growing to a decent size (relatively speaking) on the left.

Please ignore the dirty windowsill outside the window. It's not the ground floor and if I lean out the window to clean it, I'll probably fall out.

Taiwanese movie poster for the film Breaking and Re-entering, showing a heist crew of four men and a woman, all in dark clothes and all standing in relaxed poses as they look up at the camera, on a floor of blueprints and surrounded by money in stacks and floating freely in the air.

Warm fingers touched his jaw, angling his head up and toward the scientist; he flinched and shuddered, but the fingers were implacable. Behind his lenses the human’s eyes were enormous. “You should be proud to help us with this important work.” Another quick glance up and past Milos’s face, probably at Jaska. “After some... incidents in the past, we have decided to be open with you about what will happen. You may or may not be aware of this, but you were passed to us by your legal guardian—”
“I don’t have one,” Milos snapped, successfully jerking his head upwards and away from those too-warm, too-close fingers.
The fingers retreated. Milos initially took it as a small victory, until the human turned toward the trolley. When he turned back, it was with a neat sheet of paper held at just the right angle for Milos to read. His heart sank at the recognisable signature flourished across the bottom, the only legible signature he’d seen in months. “As you can see, this is your name,” a finger nudged a neat script in a different hand that read Milos London, “and this is your legal guardian’s.”
That was definitely Robin’s full name. “He isn’t my guardian.” The words were suddenly hard to speak and rang hollow in the still air.

The day was already shaping up to be terrible. Alex raised an eyebrow at the plastic bags in Milos’s hands, containing two sets of three snacks and two bottles of fruit juice. “Remind me to teach you to cook.”
“Remind me to feed you my fist,” he snapped back.
A lazy smirk spread across Alex’s lips. “You want to walk?”
Milos stared at the sleek grey car just beyond Alex, then at the bags in his hands, and tried to remember exactly where it was Nazarian had picked for this nightmarish endeavour. His motorbike notably lacked a cargo box these days. Eventually he muttered, “No.”
The smirk became a full-blown, incredibly punchable grin. “Get in the car, then.”

3D render of a handsome tanned young man with unruly black hair and brown eyes. His arms are jet black up to the elbow, including his fingernails. He stands side-on to the camera with his hands pressed to the small of his back, and looks over his right shoulder.

Was it just him, or did the man beside him relax ever so slightly? Blake’s gaze slid from the phone over to his computer, and Marcus guessed he’d quite like the conversation to be over now. He winced internally, because if Blake hadn’t been happy about an innocent photo, he was going to be furious with the next bit. There had to be a way to put it tactfully, to ensure Blake didn’t go ballistic…
“There’s an award ceremony tomorrow night I forgot about, and you have to come with me.”
“You what?” Blake swung straight back to Marcus like his glare could laser Marcus’s soul from his body, and this time he winced externally.

Old pen drawing coloured with Kurecolor markers of Blake, a brunet dark elf with green eyes and multiple black studs visible in his left ear. He is glaring slight off-camera, and wears a grey T-shirt under a black suit jacket.

“…And attendance will be mandatory.” With a cheerful smile, Nazarian left their office again.
Milos could just see Alex counting in his head until he thought it was safe to—
“This is bullshit.”
—complain. He smiled to himself and arranged the folders into a neat stack at the corner of his desk.
“Do they have a quota for how much of our time they waste on extracurriculars?” Alex growled, giving his own, significantly taller, stack of folders a glare. “Or are they so underemployed they don’t have the first idea what it’s like for the rest of us?”
“I think they call it team building.”
“There’s three of us,” Alex said witheringly. “And two of us are fucking. How much more team building do we need? Because I am not sleeping with my supervisor.”
Milos almost choked on his own tongue.

Photo if a nursery planter, showing a tall green sprout growing its second set of leaves on the right, and a smaller seeding with its first set of leaves behind it on the left.

Luke mumbled something, then raised his head and said blearily, “Why is there a man in our room?”
Then he stiffened, his fingers finding Caeso’s arm and digging in, almost vibrating with terror. “Caeso, *why* is there a man in our room?”
Caeso sighed, covering Luke’s hand with his own. “You’ve met him before.”
“That isn’t really answering my question.”
“It’s Mars.” He glared up at the god, who just smiled innocently back. “This is his idea of fun.”
For a moment Luke glanced down at the bed, and Caeso just knew he was thinking of very different ideas of fun. “And still... *why* is he here?”
“Because he’s an arse.” He pressed a kiss to his lover’s mouth, soft and gentle, and revelled just for a moment in the very physicality of him. It was still almost too much to believe, too much to bear. Maybe Fortuna had actually graced him, just once, even if it *had* been hard fought for. “Don’t worry. I’ll go downstairs with him. Go back to sleep.”
Luke’s face was full of misgiving, but he settled back down again, giving Caeso’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Don’t be too long.”
He had no intention of spending any longer with Mars than was necessary; he nodded and slid his legs free of Luke’s — and froze. “Ah... where did we leave my underwear?”
If Mars’ grin grew any wider, it would have split his face.

3D render of Caeso, a pale man with dark brown eyes in his late 20s, with white hair cut in an early-2000s curtains style. He wears a white sweater with black collar, cuffs and stripes across the chest, and is frowning at the camera with his right hand raised in a 'No' gesture.

At the fourth floor landing he hesitated — pull or push? he’d get the hang of it, but not soon enough — and froze as Geoff leaned past him and pulled the door open. “After you.”
He forced himself to say, “Thank you,” as much a show of normality for the people inside the office as anything else, and slid through the door as fast as decorum would allow. He was going to be stuck in an office with the other man for however long it took for him to find out what was happening. The last thing he needed was to inspire rumours on his first day.
Judging from the raised eyebrows, quickly lowered again, on the faces of the manager and the woman standing beside his desk, that was entirely what would happen. Great. He willed the most bland, unassuming smile he could manage and nodded to them on his way into Geoff’s office, and at least he could open that door by himself.
Like he needed it held for him, like some damsel in distress; he snorted to himself. In the day his knife weighed little, but it’d been a reassuring presence in the dark winter afternoons when anyone could grab him from the shadows.
And he’d been prepared to stab Geoff with it scant hours ago. Satyrs might be long-lived but they weren’t invulnerable, and starting out a job by wounding his boss, potentially the wrong person, would be embarrassing. He didn’t really want to imagine Mercury’s disappointed stare.

3D render of Iphre, a somewhat tanned, bare-chested man with long brown hair and brown eyes. He is laying on his back in the long grass, his hands above his head and his long purple robe open and rumpled around him, and he wears a thoughtful expression.

This is two renders and almost an hour spent carefully trimming the edges of the top one in a layer mask... and then carefully trimming them again once the two were overlaid. *sulk*

After a few moments of fiddling he withdrew again, a somewhat battered camcorder in one hand. A jaunty sticker of a laughing shark grinned from one side. “Sorry, just need to get ready. I stream on my phone, but I have this to pick up unusual sounds. Sometimes low-tech has its advantages.” He tapped the sticker, and Jude realised that what he thought was the body of the camera was actually a tape compartment. “So, are you ready?”
As ready as he’d ever be. He nodded sharply.

You always check your watch. It’s like you’re desperate to get rid of me.
Another thing they’d argued about; he’d checked it twice that whole evening and it still wasn’t good enough. The last thing he’d needed was for them to argue about it again, alone in a strange house a cold twenty-minute walk from home, so he’d left it on the table by the door. His phone was in his bag, he could check if Ricky had texted—
His bag was gone.
Jude stared blankly down at where he was sure he’d put it for a heartbeat or two, before panic took root in his stomach and bloomed throughout his chest. “No…”
Immediately the Influencer was by his side. “What’s wrong?”
Could he have…? But no, it was impossible for the Influencer to have taken it. He’d never come near enough, and his own bag didn’t look big enough to contain Jude’s too. “My bag…” The words came out more faintly than he liked; he fought to speak up. “It’s gone.”