Wax

Ten

A/N: Many many apologies for the late update ;-; this chapter turned out pretty long, featuring the awaited miiiini date and our first glimpse of mommy lion hehe. Next week, the action starts picking up and I am excited to show you Beans what I have in store for. 

Hope you like the new covers for the Taste series! Hehe. I thought long and hard again because I felt the current red/grey/blue cover didn't exactly suit the minimalist, simple nature that Vanilla would have preferred. 

Enjoy.

____________________________

[Leroy]

For some reason, it felt like I'd slept on a bed of chamomile last night. The pillow smelled of him when he was embarrassed; averting his gaze like he did when I caught him staring, red dusting his ears and leaving a faint floral scent of something shy. Adjusting his glasses would sweep that aside and replace the flowers with something deeper. Slightly bitter, like the taste of tea on lips but when he left at midnight to return home, all that remained on the tongue was something I once remembered as sweet.

I'd forgotten what it tastes like. Sweet.

The dream was soft and smelled like the past; it was a rare, pleasant dream that did not have him in it and yet when I woke, he was everywhere.

Chicken had slept at the foot of the bed on top of his favourite towel and memory cushion. The rest of the room was empty except for the morning sun slipping past the gaps in the blinds and leaving streaks of bright, blinding light across the floor. Second day off.

Usually I spent them back in the firehouse hanging around, if there weren't any odd jobs on my plate; today, I was to pick him up at eleven-thirty. His office.

He was expecting the bike, of course. Said something about calling for an Uber while I rode down to the garage and waited for him there to pick a ride together but that didn't sound very fun.

I'd driven sedans and hybrids the last year. A couple of luxury cars too, mostly for event chauffeuring and as an escort driver for government or civil officials running to and from Heathrow. They paid well so I'd apply for those on my days off. The owner of the company that supplied those rides was the kind of lady who had a thing for firefighters. She liked Jaeger. Jaeger introduced me to the job, and many others looking for some extra cash. She knew half the fire house.

In two hours, I'd called her up, rode down to her place, had breakfast nearby and checked out a nice Bentley continental—just in time for a drive to his office building in Covent Garden. I pulled up in front of the driveway three minutes past eleven-thirty and dropped him a text, watching the fancy revolving doors at the front entrance as I did.

A security guard popped by from his station in front of the building to move me further up front but stopped short when he saw me through the window I'd rolled down. He was a paramedic from one of the stations that covered Holborn. I forgot which. Our unit backed them up over the years a couple of times.

"Small world eh mate." I got out and he pulled me in for a one-arm. "Part-time?"

"Just waiting for someone. Five minutes tops, I think."

"A date?" He winked. "It's a Sunday. You deserve it."

"But you're out here working," I pointed out. The date thing, just quietly accepted. Over his shoulder, something had caught my eye. He said something, and then turned to follow my gaze.