“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he says. “And would I have all of you?”
Mike wants to tell him that he’s had all of him, at least all the parts that mattered, since that very first day Mike came into the diner. But he thinks that might be too much for the both of them right now, so he just says, “Yeah,” again.
“You’re asking me to go steady?” Sean asks, teasing. But he’s grinning now, full-on grinning, the widest smile Mike’s ever seen on his face. It’s like the just-for-Mike smile, only it’s been stretched into something more.
Mike snorts at that. Going steady, like they’re teenagers. Though, he doesn’t think he’d mind maybe necking in the back of a dark movie theater. “I guess I am,” he says somewhat ruefully.
Sean’s up and out of the booth before Mike can so much as blink. “You need to stand up.”
Now he blinks. “Um, sorry?”
“Stand up right now, Mike Frazier.”
He does. Sean’s demanding it, after all. They’re close together, knees knocking, Sean looking up at him with those big eyes of his. The sound around them has died a little, and he knows they’re being watched, but he can’t find it in himself to care in the slightest.
“I’m gonna kiss you,” Sean says. “Right now. Unless you have any objections. And if you do, they better be strong ones.”
“No,” Mike says hastily. “No objections. Not a single objec—”
There are hands cupping his face, pressing against his beard and cheeks, and then lips are on his. They’re warm and wet, and it’s more than they’ve ever done before. It’s also in front of a crowd of about fifteen people, but Mike doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because he’s wrapping his arms around Sean and holding him close. It’s like a kiss at the end of a romantic picture, with the music swelling and the camera pulling back. He’s fit to burst, and the little sound Sean makes when Mike’s teeth graze his bottom lip isn’t helping. That sound is just for Mike, and he relishes it.
They’re going to cross a line of decency if they keep going, and Mike’s only a man—a strong one, but a man nonetheless. He can’t keep this up without embarrassing the both of them, though he has half a mind to not give a shit. He breaks the kiss first and Sean’s still got a hold on his face. He’s standing on his tiptoes in order to press his forehead to Mike’s, and it’s so charming that Mike kisses him again, light and quick, on the corner of his mouth. He feels Sean’s smile quirk in that kiss, and it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever seen.
There’s hooting and hollering coming from the guys at the lunch counter, and the womenfolk are chattering excitedly, but Mike’s all about Sean.
“You’re mine,” he says, and he can’t keep the awe out of his voice. He’s found this thing, this wonderful thing, and doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve it.
“Sure, big guy,” Sean says. “And you’re mine.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
HE IS awfully tired, and he thinks that maybe he can take the morning off. Maybe take a nap, just like Sean said he should. He’ll probably have only his usu
al morning browsers, and the book club is already done for the week. (They decided to reread Lord of the Flies to really get the subtext behind Golding’s words—it was something rarely done, extending a book into two meetings, but he knew Mrs. Richardson’s word was law and therefore it would be so.) He rarely lets himself have a day off like this, and he’s worked hard. He deserves it. And he really could use some rest.
He’s thinking about the island and the prison of modern-day society as he leaves a note on the door of Bookworm (BACK THIS AFTERNOON. THANKS! MIKE). He liked the book, more than he thought he would, but he’s not quite sure the book club got to the heart of it. He thinks Golding was trying to say that the boys had traded one prison for another, one rife with rigidity and the other anarchism.
He laughs at himself for such a pretentious interpretation. Mike’s smart, he knows this about himself, but he’s not necessarily deep. He likes books and knows sometimes, what’s on the page is nothing more than what’s on the page. For all he knows, Golding wanted to write about a bunch of little bastards who got lost and tried to kill each other. That’s it. Nothing more. There’s no hidden meaning. There’s nothing to parse out.
And it’s funny, really. Because he did mean to go home and try and get some sleep. He did have a plan in mind to doze for a few hours and come back to the shop by one.
But he’s thinking, okay? He’s thinking about prisons now, and about mountains, how he wants to go to them mountains, fo sho. He’s got them in his head like an earworm he can’t shake, and he’s thinking smartphone and Björn, and how that glass sounded when it’d crashed behind him, someone falling on his chest (who that someone was, though, he doesn’t know; it was only a dream, after all, and most times, dreams are vague). He’s thinking in numbers, you bet your fur, and those numbers are dates like 4 and a 22 and a 15. Like 5 and 20 and 82.
April 22, 1915. May 20, 1882.
He doesn’t know what those dates are. He wasn’t even born then. He wasn’t even a thought then.
(And as an undercurrent, barely there, he thinks, When was I born, if I wasn’t born then? It’s negligible, that thought, and is lost in the murmuration.)
And that has to be the explanation—the only explanation—as to why his feet don’t carry him home. Why he doesn’t find himself opening his door, Martin mrowing at him, saying, Feed me, human, I haven’t eaten since twenty minutes ago and I fear I may starve. It’s gotta be why he’s standing near the end of Main Street, which stretches on as far as the eye can see. Behind him are the shops and the diner and the businesses and the houses and all the people he knows, all one hundred twenty-five of them.
In front of him is the road that leads out of Amorea, toward the mountains.
It strikes him then.