Savvy laughed and Jonathan merely shook his head. “Almost,” he said again.
O’Hara turned a fun scowl on him while Savvy left amid a chorus of teenage voices.
Jonathan’s limbs tensed, muscles strung tight as he stared down the path after them.
O’Hara cooled his exaggerated exasperation and leaned against the door, kicking one ankle over the other and crossing his arms. Just like the vinyl image that had landed on Jonathan this morning.
Here. He was here.
And he was looking at Jonathan as if he understood all the undefined feelings in his chest. The strange urge to run. To chase after Savvy and make sure they’d be alright, protect their heart . . .
Jonathan fixed on a growing smile. “What are you thinking?”
“This week’s challenge is The Nature of Love . . .”
Jonathan lifted his gaze to the glittering support in O’Hara’s eyes.
They kept a few hundred meters from Savvy and ‘friends’, unadulterated shouts and laughter occasionally filtering back to them through the web of trees. The air was damp and cool this deep in the bush, and it was a little surreal to see O’Hara walking just ahead in his characteristically inappropriate thin jacket. They’d been here as third formers, on a class trip—then, it’d been O’Hara’s laugh dominating the others, boisterous and mischievous. Jonathan had whipped his head around trying to locate the sound, searched and searched . . .
He fingered his watchstrap absently, strangely over-aware of the same rich foliage, bubbling streams, and muddy banks surrounding them.
His legs ate the distance easily, used to strenuous exercise, but O’Hara wasn’t prattling as much as usual. Jonathan looked over, and O’Hara quickly tossed him a grin, but his cheeks were flushed and his breath came out heavier.
Dappled light stretched through the treetops and O’Hara stopped in the middle of it, lifting his head and breathing in the sunshine. “This is pretty. Maybe here’s a good spot.”
“You need a rest?”
A flickering glance. “We’ve got a challenge to do. At some point we need to chat about being in love.”
The earth seemed to slide, to give way, and Jonathan propped himself against a mossy tree trunk. “Since we are not—”
“Your brand is about romance. Mine touches upon the tragedies of it.”
Chat about the nature of love.
“Right.”
O’Hara gazed up at the heavens, soft light slipping up and down his face as the canopy shifted above. His Adam’s apple jutted. “I wasn’t lying at the conference, when I said I had no clue.”
Jonathan frowned. “I still don’t believe you.”
“Why not?”
“All your posts explore love.”
Soft, tortured laughter. “None of that love ends happily.”
“Does that mean it wasn’t love to begin with?”
O’Hara froze, head still cast toward the kaleidoscope of sunlight. Jonathan couldn’t shake the feeling he was holding his breath.
He needed him to breathe again. “Let’s start over,” he said quietly. “Love. Is its nature purely physical? All sexual impulse? The instinct for sexual gratification?”
Flippantly, “You had something special with Jacquie. You tell me.”
The impulse to make O’Hara look at him and see . . . He threw his head up towards the sky. The sun had briefly vanished behind clouds, leaves twirled through the air on a gust, and then, again, he was watching O’Hara pacing, rubbing his arms.
Jonathan pushed off the tree and unzipped his coat.
“What are you doing?”
He flung the thicker coat around O’Hara’s shoulders, steering one arm in at a time before zipping him up. Their gazes caught and held; his fingers were still on the zipper, bumping O’Hara under the chin. “Sex can feel good, can be intimate. But it isn’t love. At most it explains eros. Not the romance of philia or agape.”
O’Hara’s eyes grew darker under his shadow. “Won’t you be shivering now?”
It was a touch cold, but he had more layers on. This was nothing to what O’Hara must have been feeling. “I’m fine. You always think better when you’re warm.”
The delicate lines around O’Hara’s lips hinted at something soft, exposing.
“Let’s get through this challenge.” Jonathan dropped his fingers from the zipper and O’Hara caught his elbow before he stepped back.
“We will. Together.”
It was breathless, and it flickered and roared in Jonathan’s chest.
The quiet bush shivered to life around them; O’Hara glanced around at the wild tussle of leaves and let go. “Maybe love is action. Maybe it winks at us in all the observable things one does for the other. In caring, helping, listening. In preferring the loved’s company over others’.”
His breath caught sharply. Yes, he wanted to say. But how could he? Action wasn’t enough, didn’t carry half the weight of love. It was merely a handshake posing as a hug.
“You’re frowning, Jonathan. Why?”
Jonathan circled, feet crunching up the scent of pine. “What if a lover’s actions go unobserved? What if the loved shows a similar affection to all the people he meets?” He stopped behind O’Hara and a soft wind scattered the pine needles between them. “How does the lover know he’s preferred? How can he know love from like?”