Pax stirred. The warm cloak had been ripped away from him. He whined a garbled mumble and curled deeper into the blankets.

Something rough rubbed into his arm. Like sandpaper, and this bed did not rise and fall with water like—

His eyes pinged open.

A gray-checkered blanket, and beyond it, Cliff, arms folded, staring intently at the corkboard.

A rush of horror swept through him, and he fought against the urge to lurch out of bed.

He made a conscious effort to roll onto his back, fold his arms under his head, and ignore his bashing heart. His cock was hard under the sheets, pressing uncomfortably in his shorts. Solely the pressure to piss, of course.

Cliff looked decidedly wrecked this morning. Hair spiky from sleep, stubble dusting his face, rectangular frames in their rightful place. And an impossible-not-to-notice semi bulging his boxers. Cliff needed the bathroom, too.

Turning from the corkboard, Cliff eyed him.

Pax grinned. “Who would have thought the shrew was a cuddler?”

“We’ll talk about who cuddled whom another time. I have work to do.”

Pax rolled out of the bed with lethargic grace, adjusting himself as he did. Cliff looked away.

“What time is it?” Pax asked.

“Time for you to dash off.”

Cliff was in a hurry to shoo him away. A sneaky smile slipped Pax’s control. He glanced at the clock. Ten. And was that the scent of pancakes wafting through the quiet house?

Bianca and Luca had their breakfast, then.

Mission accomplished, with the bonus of adding playfulness to Cliff’s workaholic life. He was full of good deeds these days.

Did patting himself on the back mean it wasn’t a good deed anymore?

Gah. He was so out of his depth with this self-growth business.

And now he was standing there stupidly, waiting—hoping?—for Cliff to say something to peeve him.

Pax scurried around the bed, searching for the shoes he’d kicked off. Once he’d slipped them on, he rifled through his duffel bag for the hand-painted Christmas ball he’d stowed in there. He pocketed it. “Keep my bag. Your costume’s in it.”

Cliff frowned uncertainly, suggesting he was equally uncertain how to handle this morning as Pax was. A comforting thought. “I’m not sure I’ll need it—”

Pax waltzed up to Cliff, all cool swagger. Pax Polo back in action. He smoothed the folded sleeves of Cliff’s nightshirt. “You’ll need it.”

Cautious, calculating eyes held his. “Write a song.”

“What?”

Cliff brushed stray crumbs off Pax’s forearm. “You said you’d do anything. Write a song.”

“A song.”

“Too difficult?”

Pax scoffed. “Could do it in my sleep.”

Cliff studied him. Pax hoped he didn’t hear his erratic pulse. “Write about friendship.”

“Admitting we’re friends now?”

Cliff gave a hollow laugh. “Of a sort.”

Yeah, the poke-holes-in-each-other sort.

Pax squinted at his poster. “You know, you didn’t do a very good job darting my face.”

“How’s that?”

“You hit my freckle. Can’t even see the hole.”

Cliff opened the door for him and returned to his bed, starting to strip the blankets. “I’ve lost enough hours today. I’ll see you for our run this evening.”

A pillowslip flung to the floor.

He caught Cliff’s eye. “Because of my drool or crumbs?”

Cliff hesitated, then tugged the sheet off a corner. “Both.”

Pax laughed and left Cliff’s room. “Carry on.”

After a quick visit to the bathroom, he skipped downstairs, following the delicious breakfast scents to the kitchen. Drying batter caked the counters, blackened butter smeared the pan and stove, flour and sugar sprayed the surfaces, and broken eggshells sat in the sink.

A lovely stack of leftover pancakes stared at Pax from the dining table, though. He grabbed a couple and ate on his way to the living room.

He stopped before the tree, swallowed his bite of deliciously spongey pancake, and breathed in the tannin. He felt good this morning. Ridiculously good. Maybe a firm mattress was better than a waterbed.

Cliff’s thumping gait came down the stairs, and Pax counted down from ten. The washing machine lid snapped down, and right on cue—

“Bianca!”

Pax pulled out the Christmas ornament and slid the thin golden thread around a bushy twig.

Pax caught Cliff out the corner of his eye, hands on hips. Pax turned a satisfied smile on Cliff, who clamped his night T-shirt so tight, it stretched across his abs.

Cliff intense gaze elicited a shiver. “What are you doing to my carefully ordered world?”

“Giving it a dash of the diabolical.” He glanced at the slowly filling Christmas tree. “And my balls, of course.”

Cliff shook his head. “Out.”

Pax strode to the window and lifted it.

“The front door, Apollo.”

Pax straddled the sill. He threw himself out of the window, landing gracefully between dewy ferns that smacked water on his calves. He winked back at Cliff. “Practice.”

Nervousness sparked with every step Luca took. Pax could practically see small lightning bolts shooting out of his skin. Pax set down his electric guitar, afraid if he started shredding a beat, his bedroom would combust.

Luca’s jeans made a scratchy sound as he moved. He kept smacking his lips together, running a hand through his styled hair.

“You’ll be fine,” Pax assured him. “Relax. Remember the real reason you’re tutoring her.”

“Because I love her and want her to have all my future babies.”

“Slow down there, buddy.” He set the guitar on the stand and steadied Luca by the arms. “It’ll be ultrahard keeping the shrew off your back if you start talking babies.”

Luca donned a nervous smile. “I meant after she’s finished university and has traveled the world with me.”

Pax smiled wistfully. He’d never fallen in love like that before. In fact, he’d never fallen in love, period. Only sly hookups and no repeats.

He gently slapped Luca’s pinked cheeks. “Love is a good color on you.”

“Not sure she loves me, though,” Luca said. “She keeps talking about Henry.”

“Quit it. That douchebag?”

“Yes. She knows he’s coming to the party . . .”

“Chin up.” Pax fixed a stray lock of Luca’s hair. “You have tutoring sessions, he doesn’t. It’s almost time to get over there.”

Luca peered out the window, where Bianca was entering the room and making her way toward the piano. He sighed. “Where does she hide her wings?”

Pax smiled at the corny line, gaze dropping to the angel. “In case you need me, I’ll be right at this window, penning a song.”

A wide smile broke across his surprised face. “You’re writing a new song? Without your bandmates?”

“It’s something I have to do.”

Luca whisked out of the room, thumped around in his bedroom, and returned with a notepad and his Troll pencil. “Use this. For luck.”

Pax grasped the pad and pencil. “Just so we’re clear. This song is nothing to sweat over.”

Pax stared at the blank lines on the notepad.

Ten minutes had passed, Luca had left the house with a cheerful ciao, and he sat perched on the windowsill, angel gripped between his socked feet, not a single lyric coming to him.

Air flowed over him, and Bianca played “Jingle Bells.”

He set the paper and pencil on his lap and typed out a text to the Three T’s with a joke about songwriting.

He reread it, and his finger paused over the send button.

They used to send each other messages on a whim about whatever crap they found funny. The whole band.

He’d not had a single message in a week.

He needed to break the ice with the guys again.

He hit send.

“Jingle Bells” stopped suddenly, and Pax looked over. The view was crisp, as Cliff had opened his window earlier.

Luca entered the room, Cliff at the door, gaze snapping between his sister and Luca before he retreated. Door left open, of course.

Twenty seconds later, the rumbling screech of the opening living room window. Pax held in a laugh and Cliff all but hung out the window to overhear them. Why he didn’t hover outside the study—

Cliff glanced up toward Pax’s bedroom window.

Okay, maybe that was why.

Pax gave him a cheeky wave.

Cliff pulled out his phone and typed into it. Pax ignored the next buzz on his lap, waved his notepad and pencil, and called down. “I’m working.”

Cliff climbed onto his windowsill and mirrored Pax, knees bent, back pressed against the frame. Cliff folded his arms and shut his eyes, ears practically wiggling to catch anything upstairs.

Not a hard feat, as Luca and Bianca were too excited to temper their voices.

Luca paced before Bianca, who had swiveled on the piano stool. He lifted his arms. “This lesson will expand your mind.”

Bianca giggled. “What piece are we doing?”

“Piece? No, we have to think of the whole cake.”

Pax kept his gaze on his paper, watching Luca from the corner of his eye.

“Um, what are we going to do?” Bianca asked.

“A lesson in musical history. I’m thinking we start at the Renaissance. A period known for its songs of courtly love.”

“Like trionfo di bacco e Arianna?”

Luca lurched to a halt. “You speak my tongue. Say it again.”

“Trionfo di bacco e Arianna.”

Pax swallowed a laugh at Luca’s full-bodied wince. “Maybe we should work on your Italian instead.”

Pax stifled a snort. Stay on task.

“Tell me more about courtly love,” Bianca said. Pax would bet she was grinning.

Cliff, on the other hand, was not. He gripped the windowsill beneath him and stared forward.

Pax squeezed his feet around the angel and felt a warm tingle race over his soles.

He glanced over into the study. Bianca twisted on the stool and started racing scales up the piano.

Luca stopped his practiced speech on Renaissance music, looking lost. “Um, we do scallions another time. Today we practice without touching the piano.”

Bianca stopped playing and stared at the hand he held out to her.

Pax groaned inwardly. This was going off script.

Luca pulled Bianca off the stool and gripped her waist. “Today we feel music. We dance a rhythm. When you feel, when you have emotion, you can play well.”

Pax dropped the blank notepad onto his bed and scrambled off the windowsill. After carefully setting the angel in her place, he shoved on his sneakers.

He wasn’t wearing jogging shorts, but the ones he had on would have to do. He raced downstairs. He had to play interference before Cliff charged in and cut the music lesson short.

Pax whacked the bell, and almost immediately, Cliff opened.

Pax leaned on the cool wooden doorframe and jerked his head in a cool nod.

“Dancing?” Cliff said.

“All part of his genius process.”

Cliff sighed and stepped back to let him inside. “Sure it is, Apollo.”

Pax slipped inside. He grabbed Cliff’s hand and tugged him toward the stairs, lifting his voice, hoping it carried. “Get dressed. We’re doing our run now.”

Cliff tightened his grasp and whirled Pax around on the bottom step. He opened his mouth and Pax braced for a spitfire comment. Instead, Cliff clapped his mouth shut again and dropped his hand. “We won’t see your Lions Club girlfriends if we leave now.”

They’d met the women’s running club three times now, and Pax had to admit, he loved teasing them with air kisses and sexy winks. He always made sure to wipe the sweat off his brow with the hem of his T-shirt too.

“So we run an extra round.”

The suggestion tumbled out of his mouth, and Pax snapped his mouth shut too late. An extra round? Why the hell did he offer that? Sleep deprivation, he guessed.

Cliff’s lips quirked. “Let me change, and then check on that heartbreaker.”

Cliff strode past him and up the stairs, turning left toward his room.

Pax let out a breath and hurried into the study. Luca and Bianca leapt apart, and then Luca realized it was him. “You scared me.”

“Scallions are onions.” He darted to the piano.

Bianca stared at him confused, until Pax reached the piano and ripped into a quick and shortened version of “Carol of the Bells.” His old professor’s favorite. He knew it by heart.

Pax glanced sideways at Bianca, who was staring at his fingers, a slight sheen in her eye.

“That’s . . . that’s a beautiful song,” she said.

He kept his voice to a whisper. “Can you play Christmas tunes until Cliff and I leave?”

She blinked and smiled, nodding.

“Improvise with melody, chords, tempo.” Pax looked at Luca. “Tell her to switch from a major key to a minor. Cliff will poke his head in here.”

Luca saluted him. “Got it, boss.”

Bianca clapped a hand over a soft laugh. “You don’t play, do you?” she asked.

Luca dropped his chin. “Not exactly.”

“So you’re tutoring me because . . .”

Pax grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the stool. “Trionfo di bacco e Arianna, of course.”

She swallowed, and Luca braced a palm on Pax’s shoulder, urging him off the stool. “Sì. We practice your Italian later, too.”

Pax caught the reflection of his own smile in the polished piano case as Luca took his place on the stool. “When Cliff asks, you were playing ‘Carol of the Bells’ in G major.”

“Oh, he’ll know already,” Bianca said with a small sigh.

Pax frowned. “Maybe, but he’ll ask anyway.”

He raced out of the study and draped himself against Cliff’s closed door. When it opened, Cliff halted.

“Ready?”

Cliff pursed his lips and cut to the study, whipping open the door.

Bianca stopped playing “O Holy Night.”

“What were you playing before?” Cliff asked, a strange tightness to his words.

Luca responded. “Carol of the Bells.”

Cliff paused. “What key—”

“G major. Bianca, I want you to play ‘O Holy Night’ again, in C minor, this time upping the tempo.”

Cliff’s shoulders lifted on a deep breath, and he reminded Bianca she had rehearsals in twenty minutes. He brusquely retreated from the study.

Pax schooled his triumphant expression when Cliff met his eye. Even hummed along. “Good lyrics, this song.”

Cliff blinked.

Pax cleared his voice and spoke a few lines, waggling his brows. “Fall on your knees. O hear the angels’ voices. O night divine.”

Cliff gave him a pointedly unimpressed look. But it seemed lighter than it had a moment ago. “Remind me never to allow you in a church. Come.”

Pax waggled his brows. “Every day.”

Cliff pivoted and marched down the stairs, but not before Pax glimpsed a twitch at his lips.

“I hope you’re ready.”

Pax’s step stuttered on the stairs and he caught the banister. “Ready for what?”

Cliff’s eyes glinted. “For me to run circles around you.”