Page 22 of Feast of Sparks (Thornchapel 2)
And the fact that this spot bordered the grounds of Thornchapel was irrelevant to him; so was the fact that he had not glimpsed Auden Guest once since Sunday.
He didn’t care.
He still put on his eyeliner and his tightest T-shirts, and maybe even smudged some lip gloss he stole from his mother onto his lips, but he didn’t care if he saw Auden.
Like he’d said, the fact that they were friends for a summer meant nothing in the face of four years of mutual avoidance. Or whatever it was called when one boy pretended not to notice another boy’s throat and mouth and stupid, flopping hair whenever that boy came to visit, and the other boy honestly forgot the first one existed.
He didn’t care, he didn’t care, and he made himself say it out loud as he got to the stony, shady bank of the river and started yanking off his T-shirt. “I don’t care,” he said out loud. “I don’t care.”
“What about?” inquired a polite voice from behind him, and St. Sebastian nearly stumbled into the river.
“Fuck,” St. Sebastian managed, adrenaline pounding through him and his shirt still caught around his neck. “You scared me.”
Auden emerged from the trees, his hands in his shorts pockets and the sleeves of his chambray shirt rolled up to expose his forearms. A watch glinted on one wrist, and St. Sebastian stared at it, as if staring at the comprehensive symbol for everything that made Auden’s life different from his.
“Here,” Auden said gently, stepping up to St. Sebastian and curling those fingers over the bunched cotton around St. Sebastian’s neck. He looked into St. Sebastian’s eyes at the same moment his fingers brushed against St. Sebastian’s bare skin. “May I help?”
St. Sebastian felt very strongly that he should say no, that pride demanded he say no, that this was just as shameful as Auden kneeling over him in the graveyard, maybe worse. But with the shame and the bruised pride came a thick, urgent heat that St. Sebastian was not used to feeling around anyone else. He usually only felt it alone, with his hand on himself and his mind full of things he found in furtive, sporadic searches on the internet.
Maybe he’d hate himself for it later, but he still blurted out what he really wanted to say. “Yes.”
“Oh good,” Auden said, observing St. Sebastian’s turmoil with a gaze that was uncomfortably perceptive. Especially as it lingered over St. Sebastian’s mouth, which was still stained with gloss. “Be
a shame if you’d curtailed your plans because of me.”
St. Sebastian didn’t have all the right words for the things that turned shame and helplessness into lust, even though he’d googled many. But what he did know was that Auden pulling the T-shirt off him and then trailing a lazy stare down St. Sebastian’s bare chest and stomach—lingering on the black line of hair running from his navel to his jeans—was the single most stirring moment of St. Sebastian’s life. More than porn, more than kissing Jared, it was this, it was Auden. And if he didn’t get away from him and into the water, there’d be no hiding it. He turned away and toed off his shoes and popped open the button on his jeans.
Behind him, Auden observed, “You haven’t come to see me.”
“Been busy,” was St. Sebastian’s curt reply.
“Yes, I can see that. Swimming is important work.”
St. Sebastian was not going to be able to turn and deliver the scathing retort he’d like to about not being at the beck and call of the lord of the manor, and the reason was currently pushing at the placket of his jeans as he unzipped himself. He considered zipping back up and jumping into the water jeans and all, but there was only one thing more powerful in life than fear and that was the agony of wet denim. So St. Sebastian stripped off the jeans and risked Auden seeing the erection his shorts did nothing to hide.
The river was mostly a splashy, shallow thing, but a small burr in the bank here created a pool calm enough to wade in and deep enough to jump in, and he plunged into it as fast as he could, his stiff cock a humiliating weight as he did. But he needn’t have worried—when he turned, Auden was busy undressing himself and not looking at St. Sebastian at all.
Which was a good thing, because St. Sebastian didn’t think he could tear his eyes off him if he tried.
Auden undressed with the carelessness of someone who didn’t know what his clothes cost—his shirt was flung across a rock and the sleeve dragged in the water, his shoes were dropped onto some damp gravel along with his shorts. The watch stayed on, because of course it must be some waterproof thing meant for yachting or water-skiing or whatever it was the Guests did when they went on their sunny vacations, and his designer label black briefs stayed on too.
Those black briefs.
St. Sebastian didn’t know why it felt so unspeakably sophisticated, so very adult, to have black briefs instead of the cheap gingham boxers he owned, but it did, and he felt a little intimidated as Auden began striding toward the pool. He was almost too intimidated to notice the flat lines of Auden’s abdomen or the thin stripe of hair leading into his briefs. Almost too polite not to trace the perfect curve of Auden’s arse—
Almost.
He was only human after all, and sixteen, and the water was not cold enough to stop his body’s continued response as Auden submerged himself and then floated up on his back, sunning his firm chest and stomach like an otter.
The water was punishingly clear. Clear enough for St. Sebastian to count the ripples as they moved over Auden’s skin. He looked away in the pretense of wiping smudged eyeliner from under his eyes, but of course Auden swam back into view.
“So,” the Thornchapel heir said pleasantly, as if it had been the plan all along for them to swim together today, “why haven’t you come to visit?”
St. Sebastian was dipping his mouth half under the surface, and so he sputtered when he answered. “Fuck off.”
Auden tutted, closing his eyes against the sun above as he floated. “So rude.”
“I could ask why you haven’t been to visit me, after all—”
