Chapter 22

The door was opened by Gin, his face unhappy. He was not surprised at the stunt Joshua had pulled, however he had also arrived to Henry needing to be woken up. He had pressed the doorbell and called his phone for a good 10 minutes before he found himself having to hack into the lock system and open the door. Considering the fact that the building was owned by the Reyes, it was a rather difficult task which had required a further 10 minutes.

In the end, the man had only just managed to get into the apartment, dragging Henry out of bed and straight into his bathroom for a quick shower. It was then the doorbell had rang, indicating Joshua's arrival.

Letting the beautiful man in without the bat of an eye, he assessed how he was dressed. At least one of the two had done something right. Joshua was wearing clothes similar to his marriage meeting outfit, casual but clearly fashionable and expensive in Gin's eyes.

Joshua had decided he did not want to hear nagging after a busy week, for once putting on an outfit that he was sure the other man would approve of.

The only thing the redhead wanted to change about the man was his stiff demeaner. Luckily there was a rather simple solution to that.

Grabbing a highball glass, Gin quickly mixed a drink before going over to Joshua, who had been awkwardly sitting on the couch, and handing it to him. "Drink. I don't wanna hear a peep until it is finished."

The other man was rightly suspicious as he examined the light pink, ice cold drink that had been thrust upon him. However, with nothing else to do and a lot of experience with Gin and his pre-drink habits, Joshua could only throw the drink back and gulp it down. His mouth filled with an icy cold, berry sweet yet bitter liquor flavour, which quickly became a burning sensation in his throat, which tried to seize. Despite the burn, he had already committed and was not willing to make a mess, bearing through what had clearly been a strong, sipping drink he would never usually finish.

Once finished, he chocked a little, his face red from the battle he had gone through in the last 10 seconds.

"What on earth was that?"

Gin couldn't help but smirk at the clear sign the liquor had already started to affect him, of course he had purposefully chosen the two alcohols that Joshua was scarily weak too. He wasn't sure how the drink took effect on him so quickly but it was just as he predicted. With this, Joshua should loosen up considerably.

"One part pink gin to nine parts raspberry vodka with some cranberry."

Joshua could only send his friend an incredulous look, it was as if the redhead wanted him to die of alcohol poisoning before they even had a chance to get out of the apartment. "Do you want to kill me?"

"God, no! But get you dead drunk? Absolutely." Gin was only returned with a disappointed headshake.

A door opened, followed by a shout.

"Gin, grab me a towel! Why did you even shove me in th…" Henry swallowed his words as he saw the beauty of a man he had ended up engaged to sitting there, face a little flushed and a glass in his hand. What had once been a regular annoyance towards his friend had become an earth-shattering sense of shame. Henry felt that Joshua had seen too many uncool sides of him for how long they had known each other, barely week.

Managing a polite nod, his face filled with embarrassment, Henry greeted Joshua, if somewhat curtly.

The other man wasn't sure whether the pre-drink Gin had subjected him too had been extremely potent or is the stress of the whole fake marriage situation was driving him a little insane, but he couldn't help but stare. Henry's sandy hair was dripping wet, almost completely covering his face, his warm amber eyes almost glowing through the considerably darker locks of hair. While it was just his head that he poked out of the door, you could see a decent amount of his lightly tanned torso, aesthetically defined muscles on show.

What had really grabbed Joshua's attention however had been the expression on the younger man's face. He looked like a deer in a headlight, eyes stuck a little wider than normal, jaw a little slack, cheeks and ears dusted red. He looked considerably younger in that moment, as well as undeniably attractive to anyone's eyes, the older man was starting to accept they would never be able to work together if he could not get past that fact.

He also stretched this logic to how the voice at the back of his mind that screamed about how cute Henry was in that moment. That mixed with the slight sadist within the second Lore son, that had started to make more appearances as of recent, Joshua was overcome with an almost insatiable desire to tease Henry.

Holding back what he could, especially the laugh that threatened to escape him, the second Lore son kept his eyes on the other man for a few second before nodding back, biting his cheeks as he averted his eyes. The more he looked at the ever-reddening, embarrassed face, the more he was to fall into a fit of laughter.

Henry, somehow, saw through this in a matter of seconds, his blush only intensifying as he morphed his face into one of childish annoyance. "It's not funny! Shut up!"

"I didn't say anything."

"I can hear you holding back your laugh in your voice. It is not funny!"

That was enough for Joshua to turn away from the bathroom door, giving into the bubbling laughter.

Gin could only watch the interaction. He had almost forgotten about their strange chemistry. Perhaps Joshua hadn't needed that strong of a drink after all. Of course the man had already committed and was still determined to give Henry a drink equally as dangerous as the one he had given Joshua.

"Gin! My! Towel! Now!"

He laughed, nodding and walking into Henry's bedroom. Those two got more amusing as time went on.

As Joshua managed to lower his laughs to a snigger, Henry glared holes into the back of his head. Henry hadn't even felt this embarrassed when he fell onto the man during the live broadcast, and he was sitting there laughing at him. Even though they had found that they got on relatively well, right then Henry wanted to hate him more than anything in the world, even Nazis, even the Q Group.

Joshua hadn't found something this amusing before either, however he was putting it almost all down to stress and alcohol. Obviously there would be no reason for his sober mind to find any man's reactions so adorably funny, especially that of Henry Reyes.

With that all being said, as Gin lazily struggled to find where Henry had tidied his towels away to, the two men quickly got tired, both sobering a little from their childish antics. Glaring so intently made Henry feel like he was a toddler who had just had a temper tantrum.

A silence fell between them, a peaceful silence that there was no need to break.

Joshua, however, found himself looking over at Henry again, a question blossoming in his mind. And so he broke the silence. "How are your legs?"

"A-all good." Henry struggled to hide the shock in his voice to how his heart skipped at he question. It had been a long time since someone had asked how he was with sincerity – other than his family of course, however they were a little too coddling – and even if it was a simple question, he felt a little happy at the small gesture.

And that sensation made Henry almost hit himself, there was no reason for his heart to skip a beat at the small act of kindness. It made him ramble a little. "I worked from home on Tuesday and haven't moved too much while at work. They are back to normal again."

"That's good." Joshua wanted to beat himself silly, he had initiated the conversation yet it was at that moment his horrible social skills decided to make an appearance, rendering him unable to come up with a decent response. In the end he copped out and let the conversation die.

Even with the awkward interaction, the silence that returned was equally calm and comfort as it had been originally.

They stayed like that until Gin finally returned – it had not been that long in reality but the two had subconsciously lost themselves in the quiet and the sight of each other – throwing a towel at Henry, who obviously caught it.

"Hurry up and get ready. We are finally gonna let loose and have a little fun. Maybe you two idiots can actually get comfortable with each other too. The whole nervous thing is only gonna convince people so long, you know." The two could only nod, Gin hiding a smirk at their synced actions. "Come on then, we ain't got all night. And the drink I'm making you isn't gonna stay cold for long either."

Henry nodded, oblivious to the dangerous plan Gin had for his pre-drink. Joshua had a good idea, but his inner sadist was still showing a little, making him only bite back a smirk. He knew how chatty he would get when drunk enough and how much his friend enjoyed it, he was looking forward to find out why he liked getting Henry drunk.

The three were in for a fun, almost uneventful night, however it was the following morning that would bring them trouble.