I’m not sure I even had any!”
I wipe my hands on my jeans. “Turn around, Snow.”
“Are you done?”
“No.” It comes out soft. “Turn around.”
He does. His hand drops from his hair. “Hell and horrors—you look like a butcher. Are you always this messy?”
“Only with you.”
“I had sex with Agatha,” he says. Like it’s an apology. “I thought you knew.”
“I did know. Mostly.”
He shakes his head. “I still don’t know if that makes me bi.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He knots his hand in his hair again. “Well, it makes me feel like a bloody idiot! Like, I was with a girl for three years, and I still don’t know if I like girls! What the fuck?”
“You don’t have to know.”
“But it seems like I should, right? It seems like I should have a large enough sample size. You didn’t need to sample anything to sort yourself out!”
“Please, Simon. I’m sorry I brought this up.”
He drops his hand. “All I really know is that nothing I’ve experienced so far compares to you. Maybe that makes me gay.” He swallows. “Or maybe that just makes me yours.”
We’re standing a foot away from each other. I’m covered in blood, and I’m holding two medium-sized dead rats and a very sharp knife. “I want to kiss you,” I say.
“I always want to kiss you, Baz.” He steps closer. “I always have.”
“Don’t.”
“I don’t care if I get the plague. You can Turn me into a vampire to cure me.”
“Don’t test me, Snow.”
He takes another step towards me. I take a step back.
“I’m going to finish these rats,” I say. “And then we’re going back to the flat, and I’m going to brush my teeth.”
Simon looks down at the rats, then back at my mouth. “Can I watch you finish ’em?”
I close my eyes. “Fine.”
“Ha! I knew you’d say yes in the end.”
As if I could ever deny him.
20
SIMON
I can’t believe I’m sitting in Baz’s bed.
I can’t believe he let me hunt with him.
I can’t believe I’m still here.
I’ve said at least a dozen things in the last ten hours that I thought would kill me—that I would have rather died than try to put into words. Yet here I am. And there he is. Well, he’s in the shower again. But he’s coming out. He gave me clean clothes to sleep in. He told me to make myself another sandwich.
I found Bourbon biscuits in the kitchen. I’m dipping them directly into a bottle of milk.
“My aunt really is going to kill you now,” Baz says.
I look up. He’s standing in the bathroom door, wearing cotton pyjama bottoms and a fresh T-shirt. His hair is wet, he must have washed it again. I’d never seen him as bloody as he was tonight; his gloves were still sticky, even after he cast a cleaning spell on them. He said he isn’t going to take me hunting anymore, but I know he was just saying it. I want to go with him every night. Maybe I like hunting. I’ve always wanted my own longbow.
“Should I not be eating these biscuits?” I ask. There are two in my mouth.
“Too late now. I’ll buy more tomorrow.” He arches an eyebrow at me.
“Do you want my help with the shirt?” Baz gave me a clean T-shirt, but I left it on the dresser.
“If it’s all the same to you”—I shrug one shoulder and twitch my wing —“it’s easier to sleep without one.”
Baz nods and licks his bottom lip. “Yeah, it’s … all the same to me.”
He shuts the bathroom door and comes to the bed, getting in next to me. I make room for him. His skin has pinkened up again. Still pale and grey—but a pinker grey. Rat blood looks good on him.
“Are you getting crumbs in my bed, Snow?”
“I’m the worst,” I say. “I don’t even notice them. You don’t mind sleeping some more?”
“No,” Baz says, reaching for the milk bottle. “I’m knackered.” He takes a drink. I watch him swallow. I like it. I like him. His everything.
I dig out the last biscuit, then hold it out to him. He smiles softly, taking it.
I put my arm around him. “This okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Pretty much always.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, Snow. There’s no use denying it.”