Page 23 of Feast of Sparks (Thornchapel 2)
“Well, I have been to visit,” Auden murmured, eyes still closed. “Even had tea with your mum. Twice. But you were out both times, and she wouldn’t give me your phone number. She’s very protective of your privacy.”
St. Sebastian froze—sank a little—and then started treading water again. “You went to my house?”
“It seemed a logical place to start if I wanted to find you.”
“I don’t—I don’t understand.”
This finally cracked open Auden’s imperviousness and St. Sebastian found himself fixed with an exasperated expression. “Why is this so hard? I went to your house for the same reason I invited you to visit—I want to see you. I’m tired of this thing that happens every time I come out here; I’m tired of us pretending we don’t know each other.”
“But we don’t know each other,” St. Sebastian pointed out. “It’s been years.”
“Then how about we learn?” Auden said, flipping over so quickly that he barely made a splash, and then swimming over to St. Sebastian.
“Um,” St. Sebastian said, still treading water and looking apprehensively at the boy in front of him, who was staring at him with a serious, imperial stare.
“Not here,” Auden decided, and then took St. Sebastian’s hand in his own and towed him to the far bank.
“Um!” St. Sebastian protested, by no means able to get out of the water yet without exposing what Auden’s black-briefed presence did to him, and he managed to wrench himself free just in time, right as his knees bottomed out on the river floor.
Auden looked back and sighed at St. Sebastian’s reluctance, but stopped moving, turning over and sitting down right where he was. The river was shallow enough here that as Auden drew up a knee and draped a wrist over it, St. Sebastian could see where the bare skin of his knee ended and the brown hair of his thigh started. Where it thinned out into the smooth skin that led up to his groin.
St. Sebastian sat a little deeper in. He did not allow himself to look at Auden’s thigh again.
“Okay,” Auden said. “Let’s learn about each other, and then you can stop hiding from me.”
“I’m not hiding,” St. Sebastian said.
Auden raised an eyebrow at this, making a point to look at how St. Sebastian had submerged himself up to his ears in the water, and St. Sebastian amended, “It’s not hiding if I don’t care about being found.”
“Don’t you?” Auden asked curiously.
And St. Sebastian didn’t know how to answer that, because he did care about being found, and yet being found was also a feeling so good he wouldn’t give it up for the world.
“Right,” Auden said. “Now, how has your summer been going?”
“What?”
“We are,” Auden explained patiently, “learning about each other. This is how it works: I ask, you answer. Then you ask something about me, and I answer.”
“I know how a conversation works,” St. Sebastian said.
Auden, as usual, barely reacted to St. Sebastian’s irritation. “Good then. How is your summer?”
“Fine,” St. Sebastian grated out.
And when St. Sebastian didn’t offer the question in return, Auden pretended he had. “Mine was awful until we came here and I saw you.”
There was no amount of river water that could soothe the sharp, giddy knot in St. Sebastian’s chest at that answer. He didn’t know what to say, how to feel, he only knew that Auden’s brand of arrogant honesty sliced neatly through every layer of sarcasm or mischief or indifference he put between himself and the world. He wanted to hate Auden for that, and maybe he did a little, but when he met Auden’s eyes over the water, he saw that the watch-wearing prince wasn’t as composed as his voice made him sound. Vulnerability lurked in those hazel eyes—all the more apparent when Auden was the first to break their gaze and look down the stream—and when he did, St. Sebastian could see the pulse thrumming hard in Auden’s throat. He could see the careful flex and close of Auden’s fist, slow enough to pass for casual, but deliberate enough to bely the truth; he could see, rising like a designer-label island between his thighs, proof that Auden noticed St. Sebastian’s body as much as St. Sebastian noticed his.
Auden was horny and nervous and uncertain—and one was only uncertain about things one wanted.
Auden Guest wanted St. Sebastian—and that giddy knot inside St. Sebastian’s chest pulled even tighter, pulling tight enough that it cut through everything else like floss.
“My summer got better too,” St. Sebastian said hoarsely. “After I saw you.”
St. Sebastian’s small surrender had a huge effect. Auden’s whole body seemed to slacken with relief and then tense with renewed purpose—only his erection remained as it was, covered in wet fabric, the water parting around it, and St. Sebastian was not proud of how intently he was studying the Isle of Erection when Auden turned his head back to him.
If Auden noticed, he didn’t say anything. But he did part his thighs ever so slightly more, as if to say go ahead, look. As if to say, I’ll indulge you in this.
