The week after Jonathan had been cut.
“Hm.”
“Hm, fine?” Green eyes volleyed between Jonathan and the screen.
Jonathan leaned against the counter. Gave a tight nod. “You’re the expert.”
With a wide grin, O’Hara tapped on his phone.
Done.
Leaning over the island, O’Hara plucked up a pasteis de nata and crammed it into his mouth with a delighted moan. “Oh my God these are good.” He chewed and swallowed and licked the full bow of his lips, over and over, like the sweetness stuck there. And . . . glistened.
“Tough getting used to the idea of a boyfriend, huh?”
Jonathan lifted his gaze.
“Savvy. They grew up quickly.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes.”
O’Hara eyed the plate of natas and pinched another one. This one he nibbled, eyes shuttering. “Where did you buy these? We’re gonna have to get more.”
His joy at munching custard tarts was . . . pleasing . . .
“Jonathan?”
“Yes?”
O’Hara parted his lips to say something, and Savvy erupted into the room with a demanding “Jonathan Hart!”
Jonathan immediately straightened. They were towing a sheepish-looking, pink-shirted Nate alongside them.
O’Hara’s gaze pinged between the parties like things just got interesting. He grabbed another nata.
“You brought home your . . .” The word would not roll off Jonathan’s tongue.
Savvy looked at him, tutting. “Well I had to, didn’t I? Seeing as you two ran off before so much as trading hellos.”
Savvy waited. Jonathan quite frankly didn’t trust himself to say anything. Nate looked like he wanted to join O’Hara eating natas. O’Hara laughed and threw him one.
He caught it and slunk over. “So you’re . . . Savvy’s brother’s boyfriend?”
O’Hara choked on his half-eaten nata; Jonathan rounded the island with his glass of water, handed it to him, and glared at Nate. “There are many terms for him, but boyfriend is not one of them. Not mine, anyway.”
Nate nodded and nodded, wide-eyed and looking uncomfortable.
Savvy sidled up to him and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Don’t mind my brother. He’s actually the biggest fan of the happily ever after.”
The croaky whisper in Savvy’s ear carried. “He doesn’t look it.”
Savvy stared hard at Jonathan, expectant. Jonathan stiffly extended a hand. “Nate, is it? You don’t visit the library.”
“Ummm.”
“Read more.”
Nate kept looking to O’Hara, like he was the one he wished he could be chatting with. Apparently Nate had a sense of self-preservation when he stopped serenading. “Okay?”
Savvy shook their head and pulled Nate back towards the door. “Come on, my room.”
Horror warped Jonathan’s mind, but his lunge after them was thwarted by O’Hara’s arms looping around his chest. The heart thumping against his back quickened, like O’Hara was straining to keep him in place. Or perhaps he was afraid Jonathan might commit murder.
“I won’t commit murder.”
O’Hara’s hold didn’t give. “I know. It’ll be okay, Jonathan.”
Warmth bled into his back, his neck, his thighs. It weighted him, messed with his balance; he was a foal trying to stand on wobbly legs. He prided himself on grace, on his footwork. These gravity-chasing moments had to stop happening. “What do you want?”
“Thetis tried to make Achilles immortal, but she couldn’t banish all his mortality and left him with a weak spot.”
“His heel. What’s your point?”
“Over-protectiveness is foolish. Mortals will die. Siblings will have first boyfriends and first heartbreaks.”
Jonathan’s stomach pulled and twisted and that heat around him grew . . . too intense. Unbearable. “What about Icarus? He wanted to fly, so his dad made him wax wings, and he flew too close to the sun.”
“What’s your point?”
“Daedalus was an idiot! Enabling stupid decisions is stupid. I should protect Savvy where I can.”
“You can’t stop love!”
A shudder wracked him, and he waited until he had firm control over his voice. “I can try.”
A soft laugh. “You don’t mean that.”
Jonathan shut his eyes. “I said it. Of course I mean it.”
“No.” And then firmer. “No.” Close to his ear, “Actions are louder.”
“I can see what’s coming, O’Hara. It will only hurt.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to?”
They were quiet. Savvy’s laughter ran down the hall. Something soft and sad rose in his chest as he listened to how unrestrained it was. So much joy. The question was, could that joy ever be worth what was coming?
Would life be better if the boy had never entered it?
His heart sank and lodged itself in the pit of his stomach, each thump shuddering. “You can let me go.”
“I could.” There was a change in O’Hara’s tone. Gravity was replaced with a twist of panicked playfulness. Like O’Hara needed to pull them back to where they were moments before. “But now I have you hostage . . .”
A smile tipped at his other ear and shivers transferred from one side of his neck to the other. A chin rested on his shoulder, digging around with every word spoken. “There are many terms for what I am? Please, elaborate.”
Jonathan rolled his eyes.