Brinley ✓ | Gay MM Romance | 18+

Chapter 6 - Finn | Bread and Apricots

Chapter 6: Bread and Apricots

The house felt more like a cottage, and the cottage felt too close to a home to be called anything close to a house.

I stepped into the kitchen where Brinley had rushed off too. I saw him light something with a match and he began to stir a big pot. I heard the slosh of the liquid against the silence of the home and thought perhaps he was feeding me soup.

I took the time and looked around the place, observing silently. There wasn't many things, but the little tokens and objects scattered around the small living space seemed to have nothing of value. An oil lamp lit the living space and the flickering light made me walk towards the table on which it stood.

Sitting down on a chair in front of it, I folded my arms on the table and rested my head on top of them. I watched the dying light as the oil started to burn out. It never occurred to me that the situation was desperate. Inviting a complete stranger into a house for a stack of coins seemed absurd, yet almost like a miracle at the same time.

I never believed in miracles. Statistical improbabilities were always present in the lives we lived but miracles seemed something that rose from a fantasy mind putting words on promiseless paper.

I startled when a hand came forward and poured more oil into the small basin that the wicker was coiled in. The fire burst to life again and I looked up at Brinley who had two bowls in one hand and some spoons in the other. Against the moonlight, he looked like a Athenian sculpture, but now against this glow, it was almost something real.

I saw him swallow and place the bowl in front of me and the spoon beside it. He then placed the other adjacent to where I was and ventured back behind me into the kitchen. After two more trips there and back, in front of me lay a bowl of chicken broth that was steaming enough to make my skin warm. There was also a small fired mud slab of bread cut into slices.

"Thank you, Brinley," I tried the name out on my tongue. It rolled out almost instinctively. "I didn't imagine this would be where I rest for the night, but then again I didn't imagine me sleeping at home, supposedly either. "

"It really should be me thanking you, but you're welcome." he looked down at his bowl, picking up the spoon he slowly scooped spoonfuls of broth into his mouth.

My hand hovered over my own spoon, but my eyes stood transfixed on the way his mouth curved when the spoon slipped in and out of his lips. I felt an almost immediate reaction to the way his eyes stayed lidded down and he didn't look anywhere ate me. His tongue peeked out to lick a bead of broth and the blood rushed to places my Father would kill me for if he knew.

I pulled my gaze away from him with some adversity. I dipped the spoon into the hot broth and brought it to my mouth. The dull liquid was nothing like what I was offered back at Waitstill Manor and I loved it and it's creator all the more for it. I reached for a slice of bread and dunked it into the broth. Putting the soaked bread into my mouth, I decided to get as much of him as I could before we slept for the night and I had to depart in the morning.

"Do you live alone?" I asked, I hadn't seen anyone around the house, yet there were two doors and one of them had been closed. I prayed that he didn't live with a significant other, not for intruding in their home but in selfish hope.

"Na, I stay with my Ma. She's..." Brinley paused, almost hesitant to say anything he shouldn't. I wanted to hear more, I wanted to tell him about my mother. How she was the only thing that I ever held dear and she left me. I saw him shift his eyes to mine and I didn't break the contact. I held him there and willed him to see me as an equal.

"She's got one of them fevers," he spoke softly. His voice hoarse with an emotion that sounded too much like mourning for someone of his youth. "I needed the money for medicine."