He closed his eyes and dug around the ache in his chest. Half Savvy’s, half his own. The distance between him and David had rippled through him over the years. Thick and deep in the centre and spiralling out, thinning at the edges, bearable. But when he let all the memories free from his mental barricades, it waked violently.
He rubbed his palms over the textured fabric of the chair. Stood and plucked at his shirt buttons. Glimpsed his reflection in the mirror, hair neatly in place, face impassive, jaw sharp, eyes icy.
How he appeared to the world and how he felt inside . . .
Bright light stretched into the room; he pivoted.
His chest jumped. “I thought you were drinking?”
David shut the door and pressed a hand against it as he looked across the room. The graceful lean of his body turned taut as the seconds passed. He wore the same soft t-shirt, dark green that played with the green in his eyes, but in the light of the bedroom, the soft glow on his skin, his hair . . . that green sharpened.
For a moment, he was back in the forest, David a wingless Eros surrounded by trees. “I wasn’t lying at the conference, when I said I had no clue.”
“I still don’t believe you.”
“Why not?”
“All your posts explore love.”
“None of that love ends happily.”
“Does that mean it wasn’t love to begin with?”
Did David know now? Or was he only on the precipice of knowing?
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’.
How does the lover know he’s preferred? How can he know love from like?
When Jonathan had said those last words, he’d been thinking of himself, the things he didn’t know, couldn’t trust.
But . . . the question belonged to David just as much.
How could David know, when Jonathan . . .
Out the corner of his eye, his reflection seemed cold.
“I didn’t want to socialise,” David said.
Their swallows were audible in the quiet hum of the room.
David pushed off the door and rolled his shoulders back. He crossed the room slowly, though. A slight twitch in his right hand.
Jonathan’s own were balled tight.
David’s gaze dropped to them, the tail end of his laughter a soft brush over Jonathan’s jaw. “You’re always clenching.”
“Ask me when I do it.”
“I know when you do it. When you’re scared. When you’re nervous.”
Jonathan dipped and spoke in David’s ear. “Ask me when I do it.”
Eyes shot to his. A sharp breath.
Jonathan searched those eyes, and it ached that surprise flickered there. Hope.
That David didn’t already know.
Or . . . perhaps he did. But knowing and hearing . . .
David looked down, spoke softly. Just them, wrapped in the glow of the room. “When do you do it?”
“When I’m scared. When I’m nervous.” Jonathan squeezed his fingers tight, blunt nails cutting moons into his palms. “When something is so beautiful I can’t stand it.”
Fingers feathered over his balled hands. “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always . . .”
Jonathan met his gaze. “Yes.”
David’s hands drifted up his arms and came to a trembling stop at his nape. The shift of air prickled on his skin. “Jonathan . . .”
Jonathan pulled him in by the waist, chests brushing, noses too. Not quite a kiss. His heart hammered. “You were waiting for me?”
A hiccupped breath. “I saw you at the funeral. It ripped me apart.”
“You were sorry for our loss.”
“I missed you.” Cold hands clasped his neck and deep eyes searched his. “I had responsibilities . . . but I needed you to know how I felt. All the myths . . . I was always trying to tell you. And . . .” He swallowed. “Then you started your own account. Not long after. All the happy endings of all the books I read when we were growing up. You wanted me to know you remembered.”
Jonathan inhaled deeply.
“That first Social Challenge . . . I was so frustrated when you got cut so early, but . . . I knew all the participants were invited to the ICon. I knew you’d be there. I think . . . you were waiting for me, too.”
Jonathan tightened his hold on David’s waist, as if that would keep him there for always. “Yes.”
A whisper, “After your drunken confession . . .”
Come back.
Jonathan’s hands slipped under the hem of David’s t-shirt and glided up over his shoulders, neck, over that dark mess of hair. He dropped the shirt, and David followed the motion, twisting out a laugh.
His breathing quickened, chest rising and falling unsteadily between them. Jonathan pressed calming hands on his shoulders and held them there until the tension unfurled with a shiver. Tentatively, David reached out and palmed Jonathan’s chest, smooth cold hands fanning over his hardened nipples, skating across his shoulders, teasing the sleeves off them.