“We don’t need protection.”
“You do,” he says, mulish. “Sometimes.”
“What I need is to be able to trust you.”
“You can, Baz. Trust me to make the right decision. In the moment. Trust me to think on my feet.”
Simon’s blue eyes are open, guileless. He isn’t manipulating me now. His eyebrows are tense. His lips are parted. His teeth are very white.
“You can trust me,” he says again. “You already do.”
He’s right …
But he’s also wrong.
“You’re infuriating,” I say.
He kisses my cheek. Quickly. “Be infuriated later.”
“No. You’ve run out of extensions.”
He brushes my hair out of my eyes, runs his fingers along my scalp. “I think this is what people do…”
“What are you talking about, Snow?”
“You said last night that I disappoint you constantly.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t mean—”
He catches my chin. “You did. I do. I let you down. And yet you don’t stop…”
“I don’t stop?”
Simon swallows; it’s my favourite show. “Loving me.”
“Simon…” I kiss him. He kisses me back. My arms are tight around his waist. My head is in his hands.
I’ve wanted this …
With Simon …
Since I knew how to want.
But it isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s like I dreamed of kissing him in black-and-white, and now I’m kissing him in colour. And his mouth is sour.
And his face is shining with summer morning sweat. There’s hair under his arms and down his stomach, and the skin on his forearms is three shades darker than on his chest.
He still disappoints me sometimes. But not …
I pull my mouth away. “I’m not disappointed.”
“I know,” he says, kissing me.
“You don’t let me down.”
“It’s all right, Baz.” He kisses me. Then kisses me again.
“As long as you—”
He kisses me with his mouth loose and his tongue pushing fat into my mouth. My jaw drops open, and I move my hands to his hips, clutching him.
“As long as we—” I say when he takes a breath.
He pushes his tongue back into my mouth, and it’s obscene. His mouth is getting wetter and sweeter. I groan and give up on my sentence. As long as we keep on trying, I was going to say. But now I’m just trying to keep my fangs from popping. Now Simon is fucking into my mouth again, and I’m pushing my fingertips down the side of his pants, because I want to, and this is what’s happening, I think.
Simon growls and lifts up off of me.
“I’m sorry—” I say immediately, sitting up.
But Simon is pushing his jersey boxer briefs down, and kicking them off his ankles. Then he pulls the blanket back over us as high as his wings allow.
“Okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, I…”
“I love you,” Simon says, settling over me again, all skin and bones and belly. “I’ll keep getting better for you, I promise.”
What could be better than this?
“You don’t have to,” I say.
“Yeah…” He takes my chin in hand again. “I do.”
SIMON
Baz looks so good right now, does he know it?
All that inky black hair curling on his paper-pale neck. He looks less grey than usual. Or maybe I’ve just acclimated to it. I like him grey. I like him.
I like his narrow shoulders—narrow compared to mine, anyway. All of him longer and leaner than me. I like comparing us. I want to lay myself over him elbow to elbow, hip to hip. I want to grow my hair out, so I can see what it looks like, twined up with his around my finger.
Baz came back. This morning. He was always going to come back. I think he always will, if I make it good for him. I think he wants this, wants me.
And I’m going to make it so good for him. This morning. This life.
I’m being gentle—it’s already easier, now that I know how much he likes it. The way he goes boneless when I hold him like china. When my hands are whispers not shouts. I’m going to keep finding out what he likes.
This is what people do.
They get close and try to stay there.
They stay.
They keep trying to hold on to each other, even though it’s not really possible, I don’t think. Because people are always moving, aren’t they. But this is what they do. They keep trying.