Chapter Text
They were at Lazar’s place, his old place on the other side of the river, where he lived before he and Pallas moved in together. When Charis and Nik had people over for dinner, everyone sat around the table, and the evening would wind down to its natural end after plates and glasses were empty. Later, Lazar and Pallas would host the same way, but Lazar didn’t have a big table back then. Instead, he’d set the food out and everyone would graze for a few hours, gathered in clusters across the living room and kitchen, until they began to tap out in ones and twos.
Erasmus had been to Charis and Nik’s a few times, had been invited by Pallas to Lazar’s, and didn't know anyone but Pallas and Damen. At a point, it looked to Damen like he was starting to wane. He leaned in close to Erasmus’s ear and said, “You feel like heading out?” and Erasmus nodded, and Damen said, “Same here.” He thanked Lazar for hosting. He said goodbye to Pallas, and Jord, and Orlant, and everyone. He couldn’t help lingering, even though he was making Erasmus wait.
He finally found Laurent, who was standing in the short hallway that led to the bathroom and then Lazar’s bedroom. Past their initial run-in in the kitchen, Damen had barely seen him all night. Damen said, “Can I get your number?”
“My number,” Laurent repeated.
“Yeah,” Damen said. He felt awkward, young, like he’d never tried to ask anyone out before. “So I can contact you?”
“What makes you think I want you to be able to do that?”
Because—he thought Damen was dating Erasmus. Had been dating Erasmus for months, even. He thought Damen saw him as a backup, or a hookup, or any other option than the truth, which was that once Laurent entered a room, Damen couldn’t see anyone else at all.
“Sorry,” Damen said, and it wasn’t until after he apologized that hurt flickered in Laurent’s expression. Damen stepped back when he saw it. He said, “I won’t bother you.”
He tried not to. He avoided talking to Laurent unless Laurent spoke first, which worked for a while, but over time only seemed to draw out Laurent’s venom. It was hard not to look at him. At unpredictable moments, for unpredictable periods, Laurent would be warmer. His fangs would retract to the length that had first charmed Damen, the softer bite that made him laugh, pulled him in, kept him coming back. Until, inevitably, Laurent lashed out in full force again, and Damen was left kicking himself for ever forgetting that Laurent didn’t want him.
But he did. That whole time, he did.
It’s good to see you, he’d said in Lazar’s kitchen. And meant it.
—
When Damen goes down to the beach in the morning, the lounge chairs are both empty under the umbrella. They’re still empty on the way back up the stairs, even though he takes his longest run of this trip. Then, as he climbs, he makes out Laurent’s blond head through the trees. There’s a red head beside it. He’s on the second floor terrace, with Ancel.
Damen has been rehearsing in his head. It’s less of a speech than a series of talking points. He started mentally drafting it as he walked up to the house from the beach last night, with a vain hope of finding Laurent on the patio in the moonlight. He refined it as he struggled to fall asleep—took out you were cold to me before I was ever cold to you, how was I supposed to know, I couldn’t have been any clearer.
During his run, it occurred to him that Laurent may simply pretend nothing has happened between them at all. That they’ll all prepare for the wedding, and Laurent will use this to avoid him, and by the time they leave Kesus for Delfeur last night will be some impossible dream he had. He needs to talk to Laurent now, before the rest of the house is up.
There are footsteps down the stairs the moment Damen is inside. He looks up from taking off his shoes, and it isn’t Laurent. It’s Ancel, in a sleek robe, his hair in a loose braid, less done up than Damen has ever seen him.
“Looking for someone?” His voice is pleasant, but his demeanor betrays that he’s normally still in bed at this hour.
“Yeah,” Damen says, “I am.”
Ancel gives him a once-over, and Damen’s glad he put his shirt back on before coming inside. Even dulled with sleep, Ancel’s gaze has the same unnerving quality that pinned Damen to his seat the other night and had him admitting all kinds of things. He says, “And if you have to talk to me to talk to him?”
“I’m not playing that game,” Damen says.
“Not his rule,” Ancel says. “Mine.”
He stands at the base of the staircase and doesn’t budge as Damen approaches. He’s nearly as tall as Damen, but half as wide; he puts his hands on his hips and holds his chin high, as though to make himself as large a physical obstruction as he can. Damen shakes his head and goes to the kitchen.
“You can’t string him along,” Ancel says, following.
“I’m not.” He opens up one of the pastry boxes on the island and takes a piece at random.
“I thought he had a normal crush on you,” Ancel says. “He never told me how you met. He never told me you were you.”
“That I was me?” Damen repeats.
Ancel leans forward across the island, palms flat on the counter. He’s giving him a look like he thinks Damen is being obtuse on purpose, but Damen isn’t sure he’s following. He eats his shredded pastry and stares back. Someone has been keeping secrets, Ancel said last night.
“What made you change your mind?” Ancel asks.
Damen doesn’t know if he means three years ago, last night, or somewhere in between. He says, “I didn’t.”
“If you—”
“Ancel.”
Laurent steps into the kitchen. He looks like he got about as much sleep as Damen did. There’s an empty mug loose in his hand; he brought his coffee to the terrace instead of his usual spot. No ereader. He’s wearing an oversized t-shirt with the same loose shorts he’s worn every morning, like he rolled out of bed and pulled them on with the shirt he’d slept in. Damen wants very badly to touch him.
He sets his mug on the island. “Good morning,” he says to Damen, as pointedly civil as yesterday. The stubbornness is gone, though. He just sounds tired.
On the bright side, Laurent is speaking to him, and looking at him. That’s step one.
“Can I talk to you?” Damen asks.
“No,” Ancel says.
“Not to your proxy,” Damen says. “To you.”
He’ll run through his talking points in front of Ancel if he has to, but if that’s how Laurent wants this to go, the question is as good as answered. Barely seven hours ago, they were standing in this kitchen. Laurent was lit softly golden by the pendant lamp over the island. Now, Laurent’s eyes are sharp and guarded in the cool morning light.
“He thinks he talked me into it,” Laurent says, his gaze turning sidelong to Ancel mid-sentence. “So he thinks he needs to make it up to me.”
They look at each other in an exchange that Damen can’t follow. It’s hard to guess how much Laurent told him. Laurent is always the first one awake. He would have knocked on Ancel and Berenger’s door, or texted him, for them to be out on the terrace together this early.
“I talked myself into it, though,” Laurent continues, “so he’s fully absolved, and there’s no need to intervene.”
His eyes meet Damen’s again, just for a moment, and then he rounds the island, sets his mug in the sink, and leaves the kitchen. Damen stares after him, until Ancel gestures towards the dining room with his whole arm, eyebrows high on his forehead. Follow him, you idiot.
Damen follows. In his haste, he steps into someone else’s sandals on his way out the door, but he isn’t about to double back. Laurent takes the steps down to the lower level and stops there, far enough from the house for privacy, shielded by the trees. Dappled sunlight plays on his hair and skin and the drape of his t-shirt, shifting with the gentle sway of the branches. There’s an iron table and four iron chairs, but Laurent doesn’t sit down, so Damen doesn’t either.
“Let me go first,” Laurent says.
There’s a hardness to his voice that makes Damen nervous. As if he means to say his piece and not hear Damen’s at all. Damen rehearsed a response to what Laurent already shared, not to whatever revision he’s come up with. “I’d rather—”
“Damen,” Laurent says, “Let me go first. Please.”
Damen nods. He gestures to the table, and sits when Laurent accepts. Laurent takes the seat across, the vacant chairs left as a buffer. His posture is straight and stiff, at odds with the softness of his oversized t-shirt. He folds his hands at the edge of the table.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he starts. “Any of it. I’m not very good at—letting things be easy. I know I’m not an ideal option for that. I understand why that would—” He stops. “I know you like how I look. I know I look—similar to her.”
“You look like you,” Damen says. Other than their coloring, Laurent and Jokaste have nothing in common, and Damen has no idea what Laurent is trying to say.
“You’re attracted to me,” Laurent says, like a concession. “And I’m here.”
With that, Laurent’s meaning clicks. “I’m not rebounding,” Damen says. “I already rebounded. I’ve already—I had sex last weekend. I’m not horny and lonely. That isn’t what this is about.”
“You had sex last weekend,” Laurent repeats. “You—Should I congratulate you? Was that the big three hundred?”
It isn’t what Damen meant to say. That wasn’t in any of his talking points. In an instant, he can see this play out, see himself going on the defensive, then the offensive, and they’re back to where they’ve been. But—I understand, Laurent is telling him, even though he doesn’t understand at all.
“I don’t want you to be easy,” Damen says. “I want you to be you.”
The sneer melts from Laurent’s face.
“I was interested in you,” Damen says, “when I met you.”
Laurent had more to say, but Damen could hear everything bundled into that first sentence: I shouldn’t have lingered in the kitchen, or followed you outside, or kissed you, or escalated it, or backed out. Laurent the actor at each turn, as if Damen hadn’t chosen him just as much, as if he was only reacting to a pretty blond who’d thrown himself at him, instinct without intent.
At Damen’s words, Laurent’s talking points are discarded.
“I know,” he says, but he sounds uncertain. “You aren’t subtle.”
“Not to sleep with you. Not only to sleep with you,” he amends, when Laurent scoffs. “I wanted to see you again. Date you. Know you. Laurent, I liked everything about you.”
Laurent doesn’t scoff at that. Faintly, in the shifting shadows of the leaves overhead, he blushes pink.
Damen says, “I thought you weren’t interested. In me. Because—I don’t know. It sounds stupid now.” It was so clear in his mind for all this time. He told Laurent what he wanted. “I thought you turned me down.”
Laurent eyes are on the table between them. “When did you hear me say no?”
“I never heard you say yes.” Three years ago, or last night. “I played it back, after, and—you had told me you weren’t looking for anything. I thought—when we said goodbye, and you didn’t—”
It’s different, knowing Laurent was sure a next time was already guaranteed. It reframes every step of that goodbye. At the time, though, it felt as if Laurent was dodging each opening Damen offered him.
“I thought you were being tactful,” Damen says finally, “and I didn’t want to be pushy.”
That hangs, for a moment. “I wasn’t looking for anything,” Laurent says. “It was an exercise.” And then, slowly, like he’s forcing himself to say it: “But I did like talking to you.”
There’s that swell in Damen’s chest again.
Laurent looks up from the table, and then to the side, to the ocean beyond the trees. Then, even more slowly, nearly stopping entirely, he says, “I hadn’t ever. Been on a date. Or kissed anyone. At that point in time.”
The idea is so far at odds with Damen’s understanding that he nearly contradicts him. But—what had Ancel said last night? Laurent hadn’t been on a date until after they were friends, and he’d met Laurent at speed dating. He had turned in blank matching lists. You were the only person I checked, Laurent told Damen. He thinks back to Laurent’s hesitance at the end, the distance he created, and it looks a lot less like rejection.
“You were nervous,” Damen says.
“Yes.”
Laurent looks out at the water, and Damen looks at Laurent. A light breeze flutters through Laurent’s hair, the cotton of his t-shirt, the shades of sunlight on his skin.
“When I saw you again,” Damen says, “and you didn’t want to talk to me—I think I understand now, but I thought you wanted me to leave you alone. So I tried to. I didn’t want to pester you, or pressure you, if you didn’t—” He stops. “I can see now how that made things worse. Between us. And I’m sorry that it went that way.”
There. The last of his talking points. Laurent’s expression is unreadable, but Damen can see him thinking. Damen follows his gaze out to the glittering ocean.
“I tried to look you up,” Laurent says.
Damen’s eyes snap back to him.
“You aren’t Damen on anything, though. You use your long name.” He looks back at Damen. “I thought you might have forgotten to turn in your sheet, or something.”
He wants to take Laurent’s hand, but he’s out of reach, on the opposite side of the table.
“And then—I was always invited. Lazar made me most of my meals, back then, but I skipped Friday dinners because I didn’t want to—well. I didn’t want to. But Pallas told me I should come.” He takes a slow breath before continuing. “Because his friend Damen was going to be there. And he thought we’d get along.”
Damen exhales.
“I found you on Pallas’s Instagram, so I knew his Damen was you. So I went.”
It’s good to see you, Laurent had said, with a sincerity that exhilarated Damen. Then Laurent saw Erasmus, and recognized him, and came up with another explanation for what had happened with Damen’s sheet.
Had Pallas or Lazar said anything to him? He doesn’t remember. They loved that he was trying, back then. Pallas made no secret of wanting more gay friends, or friends in gay relationships. It had been Lazar’s idea for Damen to try the speed-dating event in the first place.
“I got matched with Lydos that night too,” Damen says. “That’s how he and Pallas met, did you know that?”
Laurent shakes his head.
“I didn’t check date for either of them,” Damen says. “Or anyone. I filled it out in about five seconds. I didn’t know anyone’s name but yours. The only thing I could think about was catching you before you left.” Because they were seated together only up until the event kicked off, it never occurred to him to put Laurent on his sheet, or that Laurent could write him. Even knowing how they missed each other, that isn’t what he would have done. “I didn’t want an email with your info two days later. I wanted to get to know you right away.”
He means it. He hopes Laurent understands that he means it. They sit, looking at each other across the table. It’s cooler here in the shade than in the sunlight beyond the trees. Damen feels small, maybe the most vulnerable he’s ever let himself be. He can’t remember the last time he said I want like this.
All that’s left is what Laurent wants, or doesn’t.
“We should get ready,” Damen says eventually. “I just wanted you to know that, instead of thinking…” He waits for Laurent to meet his eyes. “I’d rather talk to you than not talk to you. I’d rather kiss you than not kiss you. I’d rather be next to you than just about anywhere else. When I met you and right now.”
He lets that hang between them. Laurent looks away first, but he doesn’t move, statue-still in the swaying sunlight. Damen stands, stretches tall, and heads up to the house.
—
Like the rehearsal, the time before the ceremony involves a lot of standing around. Today, though, the atmosphere is heavy with anticipation. The scenery is unchanged, the same warm greens and blues and sun, but now the chairs are arranged in clean rows on either side of the aisle, and opulent white garlands and floral arrangements are interspersed among the hedges and climbing vines. The scent of the flowers carries on the gentle seaside breeze.
Erasmus was here in the morning for a technical rehearsal and went back to his hotel to get ready. He returns shortly before guests are due to arrive, in green that matches the trees and wreaths. Ancel, who is not in the wedding and has been hovering around even more uselessly than the rest of them, gets Stasia’s blessing to pin white flowers into Erasmus’s hair.
Damen, Nik, and Lydos wear deep red to match Pallas, as does Charis, as will their parents. Laurent, Jord, and Berenger match Lazar in deep blue. All of them have the same white flowers at their lapels. Stasia sent them to either side of the aisle when they arrived, so unless Damen wants to draw everyone’s attention, he can only look at Laurent from a distance. Laurent does not look back.
With ten minutes to go, Stasia and Charis hand the men their items. For Nik and Jord, the crowns and rings. For Damen and Laurent, the candles. For Lydos and Berenger, the goblets. They’re to hold them in both hands, perfectly straight, until the points in the ceremony where the items are passed forward to Pallas and Lazar. With that, the six of them are moved to their precise, mirrored locations. Erasmus perches on a stool under an arch thick with floral vines, off to the side, where his kithara is wired to the sound system. Pallas and Charis leave to meet their parents and await their entrance.
Lazar stands between Jord, Laurent, and Nik, not quite in line with the others and not quite in the aisle. He’s composed, but the emotion in his expression gives Damen a tight feeling in his throat. He looks to each of the six of them in turn with a grateful smile. Then the guests begin to filter in.
They’re expecting about two hundred people. Without parents to push for it, as Pallas’s have, Damen would have had a much smaller ceremony than this. A first man, Nikandros, to keep with tradition, but he wouldn’t need a second or third. He can only think of about a dozen people he’d want to be there. At his wedding that isn’t going to happen, almost all of the guests would have been from her side. He wouldn’t have stood there, where Lazar is, and received them with this tangible joy. He can’t imagine standing there at all.
It felt natural, at the time. It did. It was the obvious next step. Their easy familiarity was what he had always wanted, more than anything, even without the closeness he had assumed would come with it. But he can’t remember ever saying I want to spend the rest of my life with you. He can’t remember even thinking it. When Jokaste told him, he felt hollow, not angry. As he thinks back to it now, all he can find is relief.
Lazar has about as many guests as Damen would have. Those who came early and have been at the villa. A few Veretian friends who have come down just for the day and will be making a late return trip tonight. A cousin and her husband and daughter. He doesn’t have a relationship with his immediate family.
That’s how it will be for Damen, too, if he does get married someday. He and Kastor haven’t spoken in two months. Damen isn’t sure they ever will again. He didn’t pick up Damen’s first calls after Jokaste told him. When he finally answered, two days later, Damen couldn’t shake the feeling that Kastor was completely uninterested in preserving anything between them. He hasn’t tried calling him since.
Aurelie, entering with Rochert, Orlant, and Huet, takes in the colorful crowd like she’s never seen anything like it, first surprised and then visibly moved. Veretian weddings are full of somber black suits and modest dresses so as not to upstage the couple. You don’t wear black to an Akielon wedding. Everyone is dressed for a celebration.
The seats fill. Erasmus begins to play. Pallas and Charis enter, their parents behind them, and everyone stands. The family embraces Lazar one by one, just like they did in the rehearsal yesterday, but today they hold on for longer and pause to exchange quiet words. Sofia steals a second hug. Then Lazar and Pallas walk hand in hand down the aisle to the central arch, and it’s as if all two hundred people are holding their breath.
Their parents split off to their seats at the front, but Charis comes to stand with Pallas and Lazar as the designated officiant. Family connects family. The first men follow, then the second, then the third. Damen still can’t hear the cues in the music, but he matches pace with Laurent.
Damen has always found the formal ceremony boring, something to be endured for the sake of the reception. As Jord and Nik place the crowns on the grooms’ heads, as Damen passes his candle to Nik and takes the goblet from Lydos, Damen finds an honesty in the ritual, one he’s never felt before. It’s slow and stylized, but every step matters. They’ve all gathered to witness this. To make it real together. When the two of them circle the table, when they light the candles, when Jord pours Pallas’s wine and Nik pours Lazar’s, they mean it. Each call and response from Charis is more charged. By the time the rings are exchanged, in the first Veretian detour of the ceremony, Pallas is crying, and Lazar blots his tears.
After the rings, they remove each other’s crowns and link them together to form a complete circle around the base of the candlesticks. In Akielon ceremony, this is the moment where Nik and Jord would present them to the audience, the formal moment of marriage. Instead, there’s a pause for the second Veretian edit to the wedding: with linked hands and wet eyes, Pallas and Lazar seal it with a kiss.
They turn out to face the crowd, raising their joined hands high. Two hundred people stand, cheering, and toss white flower petals that dance in the air.
—
His first opportunity to talk to Laurent comes after an hour of photos against the backdrop of the ocean, before the reception kicks off. The chairs have been rearranged around a dozen round tables, with a long head table for the wedding party. The air is lively, and no one is in a rush to find their place cards, still enjoying the drinks and small plates that kept the rest of the attendees occupied during the photos. Some of the wedding party is mingling with other guests, but Damen hovers near the head table with those who aren’t. Including Laurent.
They’re all photoshoot-ready; Stasia made sure of that. Laurent takes it to another level. To Damen, his hair always looks perfect, but today there’s product in it, which makes Damen think there probably usually isn’t. The styling highlights his bone structure with dangerous precision. The blue that all of Lazar’s men are wearing may as well have been chosen to showcase Laurent specifically. If this were a Veretian wedding, Laurent would be sent home to change, lest he pull focus from the couple. Or something.
Laurent’s blue eyes meet Damen’s, and Damen’s heart leaps. He was bound to be caught at some point; he hasn’t been able to look away. He fishes for something to say other than Do you want me the way I want you?
“This will go on for hours,” is what he ends up with. “I mean hours. Twice as long as any Veretian reception.”
Laurent presses his lips together. “Charis briefed me,” he says. “On Thursday morning, when I got in, with Jord and Huet. She said I’d better conserve my battery or I’d get burnt out by Saturday and wouldn’t make it to the ceremony, let alone to the end of the night.”
This surprises Damen more than it should. Charis and Laurent sat together at dinner the other night. Of course they talk to each other.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” Laurent says. An unexpected drain on his battery, he means. “I assumed you wouldn’t be here until the rehearsal. Once it wasn’t going to be the both of you—Lazar said ‘cancellation,’ and I misunderstood.”
His expression is hard to read. Damen chooses to interpret the honestly positively.
“I didn’t think you’d be here either,” he admits. “But I’m glad I was wrong.” Are you glad, he means.
Laurent shakes his head, his lips pressing together again, and rolling between his teeth. He thinks Damen is either funny or pathetic, or some combination of the two.
The thing is: Laurent’s rejection, first soft and then harsh, was the only problem Damen ever had with him. Maybe that was immature of him, but now that he understands what happened, Damen is all in. As smitten as he was when they first met, seeing the way Laurent is with the people he cares about has left him all the more sure.
The thing is: Damen has spent years alternating between dismissive and oblivious, at best. Laurent tried, and Damen never did. Laurent might have been interested in the guy he met that first night, but the guy he’s been since then—it would be more than reasonable to have reevaluated.
Laurent says, “We should sit.”
They sit. They’re arranged in order on either side of the grooms, with Charis between Pallas and Nik, and Ancel between Laurent and Berenger even though he wasn’t in the wedding. Damen runs through the rest of the reception in his mind. He won’t be able to talk to Laurent until after the third course, at the earliest.
“What’s with you today?” Nik asks, leaning into Damen’s line of sight. “You’re always weird about him, but this is next level.”
Damen wants to deny it, but Nik’s right. He stopped trying not to look, and now it’s all he can do.
“If you just fuck him,” Nik starts, and Damen is too surprised to cut him off there, “or someone else here, would that get it out of your system? What was it Lydos was saying about horny people and weddings?”
“I don’t want him out of my system,” Damen says.
“Wait,” Lydos says, from the seat on Damen’s other side. Damen can’t tell if it was his name or just fuck him that caught his attention. “If you’re into him, then why haven’t you ever done anything about it?”
“Of course he’s into him,” Nik says. “He’s like if you built Damen’s type in a lab.”
“He’s always trying to get your attention,” Lydos says. “If he has it already, that’s actually hilarious.”
“He’s rude as shit, you mean,” Nik says.
“My attention,” Damen repeats.
“He barely talks when you aren’t around,” Lydos says. “Not in front of me, anyway. But when you’re there, suddenly he’s the quickest guy in the room.” He leans in a little closer, lowers his voice a little more. “Why’d you say you weren’t attracted to anyone in the house, then?”
“I didn’t say—”
“He looked crushed,” Lydos says, and Damen’s stomach flips. He remembers Lazar, Pallas, and Jord all looking at Laurent, and Ancel snapping at Damen. Everyone knew.
“What do you mean, you want him in your system?” Nik asks. “You don’t even like him.”
“No,” Damen says, “he… I thought he didn’t like me.”
“If Damen doesn’t like him, why would he fuck him?” Lydos asks Nik.
“Doesn’t like his personality, I meant,” Nik clarifies.
“I do like his personality,” Damen says.
“You’re losing me,” Lydos says.
“We went on a date,” Damen confesses. “Three years ago.”
“Three—?” Nik frowns. “A bad date isn’t any excuse for him to—”
“It was a good date,” Damen says. “A really, really good date. It got. Complicated.”
“I’m not seeing the problem here,” Lydos says. “You know Berenger’s boyfriend has been egging him on all weekend? Seriously filthy suggestions. After you left last night, he said Laurent should—” He stops at the look Nik gives him. “Anyway. All I’m saying is, I would’ve been nudging you to get some, too, if I’d known.”
“I don’t want to get some,” Damen says. “I want to date him.”
“Seriously?” Nik says. “Well. All right. Get him in your system, then.”
Damen blinks. “You’re on board?”
“Cass and Pallas like him.” Nik shrugs. “And you like mean. It’s your funeral.”
With that, he turns his attention back to Charis, on his other side.
“Good for you,” Lydos says, clapping him on the back. “That’s great, that it’s mutual.”
“You’re a little early,” Damen says.
“True. You don’t need the go-ahead from Nikandros, you need it from Lazar and Berenger.”
“I need the go-ahead from Laurent,” Damen says, more to himself than to Lydos.
The first toast of the meal is from Lazar. Pallas will go last, at the very end of the meal, in what is usually the bride’s slot, as the hosting family. In humble, polite Akielon, Lazar thanks everyone for being here and expresses how much it means to him to be part of this family. The declension he uses is inclusive, encompassing everyone present. Pallas’s eyes are shining.
Berenger and Lydos speak between the first and second courses. Berenger opens in Akielon and switches to Veretian, reflecting on the ten years he and Lazar have known each other. Not all of the guests speak Veretian, but the story is written on their faces, and Jord’s, and Orlant’s. Laurent looks down, keeping his reaction private; Auguste’s presence and absence is between the lines.
Lydos changes the tone entirely, taking the standup route, and he gets enough laughter that he’d probably keep going if not for the three minute limit Pallas set for all of them.
Damen wrote his toast on the train down and showed it to Charis for edits. Before the ceremony, during some of the standing around, he made a few more changes, aiming to sound less like someone who recently called off an engagement. During the second course, he opens the note on his phone, and when the break comes, Lydos hands him the mic.
He knows almost everyone here, but it feels different, exposing, to stand in front of them like this.
“We were children together,” he starts. “My first memory of Pallas was twenty years ago, when he asked me and Nikandros to teach him to wrestle. We aren’t so different now, but at nine and eleven, we found this six-year-old little brother dangerously breakable. We went exploring around the tide pools instead.
“My first memory of Lazar is more recent. It took Pallas a few months to introduce him to us. We knew he was seeing someone, that he was Veretian, and older than Nikandros but not by too much, and worked odd hours, but Pallas wouldn’t tell us anything else. He’d never introduced anyone to us, not even to Charis, so we all knew that whenever he finally did, it would be serious.
“So this one night, we were sitting next to each other, wrapping up dinner with Charis and Nikandros, and Pallas got a text. His phone was face up on the table—” He demonstrates with his own phone, unnecessarily—“and I saw it before he did. It said, ‘Caffeine jitters, new fish spatula.’”
Lazar cocks his head with a smile. They’ve never talked about this, and he probably thought Damen was going to describe their first meeting.
“Nonsense to me, honestly,” Damen says. “Nonsense to anyone. But then Pallas saw it, and he smiled as big as I’ve ever seen him, and he picked up his phone to reply. I was curious enough, at that point, that I watched him type. ‘Two hours overtime, caught the sunset.’ He added a photo. Then he got one back, of…a spatula. Which got another huge grin. He didn’t even notice I was looking until after he’d liked the spatula picture.”
(They don’t laugh quite like they laughed for Lydos, but this gets some chuckles.)
“So I asked him about it. And he told me he and the guy he was seeing had been doing this every evening, first just when they saw each other, but now even on days when they didn’t. ‘Worst thing, best thing.’ Something that went wrong that day and something that went right.”
His eyes catch on Laurent, past Jord, listening with his head tipped to the right and his eyes focused somewhere in front of him. Damen forces himself to look away from the line of Laurent’s neck and back down at his phone, then out to the round tables.
“Just to share their lives with each other,” he continues. “And that’s when I knew we were going to meet him, this Lazar guy, because if Pallas was getting this kind of vicarious enjoyment from Lazar’s new fish spatula, he had to be something special.”
He described this to Laurent that night, as they crossed the river. Laurent asked him what he was looking for, and he said—this. The way Pallas was with Lazar, although he didn’t say their names. That sappy smile at something so fundamentally mundane was the most romantic thing Damen had ever seen. He glances down the table again, and Laurent is looking back at him now, connecting that story to this one.
“It’s been four years,” Damen says, “and they still do that at the end of every day.” This is the part Charis rewrote for him, and he stumbles through it. “Worst thing, best thing, halving the pains but doubling the joys, whatever size they might be. Whatever comes, they share it. With each other, and with all of us. Life is something you do together.”
Then, directly to the two of them, inadequate but sincere as anything, “So as you step into your life together, into this marriage, I wish you both sunsets, and spatulas, and all of the best, best things.”
He pockets his phone so he can raise his glass, and everyone echoes him. He sits. The mic is passed down the table to Laurent, who stands. He looks at Damen, just for a second, then Charis, then Pallas. He gives Lazar a small nod, almost imperceptibly nervous. With perfect posture and his eyes up, Laurent begins.
“Thank you for having us,” he says in Akielon, with formal flourishes, to Pallas’s family. His next sentences are simpler, but he sticks with the language. “I know some here are familiar with Veretian wedding vows. There are a lot of words in a Veretian ceremony. We don’t use the crowns, or candles, or goblets, but the vows are very long. My mother was from Kempt, and so was Lazar’s maternal grandfather. In Kempt, the vows are short.
“Instead of promising to love each other, or to take care of each other, you make a promise that is both smaller and larger.” He says it in Kemptian first, then Veretian. “I choose you. The closest translation is: ‘You are my choice.’ ‘Even if nothing outside binds us, even if we don’t have to be, I choose to be bound to you. I choose to live my life with you. I choose to keep choosing you.’ It’s very simple, but it’s a big thing to say. My mother used to say it to me when I love you was not enough, because to her, it meant more. ‘I care for you, not because my blood requires me to, but because I choose to.’
“I feel very lucky to have been chosen by you both.” He meets Lazar’s eyes, then Pallas’s, and his voice is steady even as his composed expression wavers. “I think everyone who knows you both is lucky. It is fortunate that you found each other.” He raises his glass. “May you continue to choose each other.”
After bringing his glass to his lips, he turns the mic off, gives a small bow, and sits. Damen can’t see the grooms’ faces, angled towards Laurent, but if Laurent looks near tears, surely they’re both even further gone. Damen’s chest is so full it aches.
And still, somehow, the reception continues. The third course. Jord’s speech, mostly in Veretian (and therefore earning fewer laughs than Lydos), then Nik’s, with an even stronger little brother angle for Pallas than Damen’s. It’s after the first men speak that other guests have their opportunity to give their own toasts. Instead of taking the mic and speaking to everyone, though, they’ll line up and speak directly to the couple. Instead of everyone raising their glass, it’s just the well-wisher, Pallas, and Lazar.
At this point, finally, everyone is welcome to leave their seats, whether to line up in front of the head table or to talk to other guests. Damen stands immediately, both because listening feels almost intrusive and because he’s not sure he can take any more sentiment.
Well, and because he wants to talk to Laurent. Of course he wants to talk to Laurent.
It takes a moment to find him, already gone from the table, vanished into the swirl. Everyone wants to give a toast. In the crowd, Damen finds Berenger’s blue suit, Lazar’s cousin’s blonde hair. Then—Laurent, as far off into the periphery as he can be without leaving. He’s standing beneath the flower-vined arch where Erasmus was stationed during the ceremony. Waiting? Damen would like to believe he’s waiting.
Damen goes to him.
“I liked your toast,” he tells him.
“The grammar took forever,” Laurent says. “I’ve never tried to put a passive perfect construction into Akielon, and I don’t think I ever will again.”
Unlike Damen, he hadn’t referenced notes. Fondness blooms in his chest. “It was perfect.”
Damen just barely fits under the arch; he can feel dangling vines grazing the top of his head. He and Laurent stand side by side, almost shoulder to shoulder, facing out to the rest of the party, as if either of them are paying it any attention. Damen certainly isn’t. All of his focus is on Laurent and his near-audible thinking.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Laurent says at last. “A lot we don’t know about each other.”
It’s somehow encouraging to hear him voice this. Instead of privately talking himself into or out of it, Laurent is talking to Damen.
“I know more about you now than before,” Damen says. “And you know more about me.”
“You’ll find you know less than you think,” Laurent says.
“The important things,” Damen says. “And I want to get to know you more. While dating you.”
Laurent is perfectly silent for a moment, as though holding his breath. “I’ve never been in a relationship,” he says. “I’ve barely dated at all. I don’t know—”
“I’m not asking you to marry me,” Damen says. “I want to take you on a date.”
“Just one?”
Damen smiles. “At least three.”
“You must have noticed that we aren’t very good at talking to each other,” Laurent says, but it sounds like he’s smiling, too.
“I think we are,” Damen says. “I think not talking to each other is where it goes south.”
“Damen,” Laurent says, and Damen can’t help savoring the small delight of hearing Laurent say his name like that, even amidst what else Laurent is saying. “I’m difficult to—I have no illusions about this. I’m not easy to….”
“Disliking you has been difficult,” Damen says. “It didn’t ever come naturally.”
The backs of their hands touch, and Laurent doesn’t move away.
“I think caring about you would be as easy as breathing,” Damen tells him. “It’s already been a relief.”
He lets himself look at Laurent, bright and beautiful, framed by the vining white flowers. Laurent is already looking at him. He’s a little pink around the eyes from all of the earlier emotions, and pink in the cheeks from what Damen is saying to him now. They both turn to face each other. Damen wants to take his hand in his, but more than that, he wants whatever happens next to come from Laurent.
So it’s Laurent who comes in closer. Laurent who tilts his head up to Damen’s, and guides Damen with gentle fingers on his jaw. His other hand comes to Damen’s chest, warm over the wild beat of his heart. Their noses brush. And then Laurent is kissing him, soft but sure, and Damen is holding him close, and it’s as if hundreds of white flowers are exploding inside him.
“Okay,” Laurent breathes, into the space between their mouths. “All right. Yes.”
—
Even with the ceremony over, the toasts over, Laurent takes his role as part of the wedding party very seriously. Instead of sticking to the sidelines like he’d clearly prefer, he continues to interface with aunts and cousins and childhood friends in his charming and careful Akielon.
“So respectful,” Damen says to him, as they pass each other between rounds of dutiful small talk, and Laurent says, “Well, I’m here as Lazar’s family.”
There’s a burst of affection in Damen’s chest. Laurent isn’t here to relax or enjoy himself; he’s here for Lazar. When Laurent shows up, he means it.
Damen kept to himself during the rehearsal dinner, only talking to people who approached him. Following Laurent’s lead, he actively makes the rounds tonight. There are members of Pallas’s extended family who haven’t seen him in years, and several of them offer their condolences after Theomedes. Nobody asks about Kastor or Jokaste, and Damen isn’t sure if it’s because the information has circulated or because it hasn’t. He finds he doesn’t care either way.
There’s dessert. There’s dancing. String lights and faux lanterns flick on as the sun makes its slow descent. Berenger pulls Damen aside for what he belatedly realizes is a temperature check on his intentions with Laurent—he’s so polite about it that it takes Damen a minute to catch on—and Jord does the same shortly after. “I’ve always thought you were a good guy,” Jord tells him. The don’t prove me wrong is unspoken.
When Jord leaves him to rejoin Orlant, Rochert, and Aurelie, Damen spots Laurent back at the head table. Instead of his earlier seat, he’s sitting at the end of the table, where Lydos was. As if he’s waiting for Damen.
Damen joins him, pulling his chair close enough that he can rest his arm along the back of Laurent’s. “How’s your battery?”
“Depleted,” Laurent says, and places his hand on Damen’s knee. “Charging.”
The hum of music and conversation around them mutes into the background as they sit in comfortable silence. Damen soaks in the simple joy of looking at him, against the blue-gold gradient of the twilight sky.
“I’d like to stay in your room tonight,” Laurent says, “if that’s all right with you.”
Damen grins. “Can’t bear another night of Jord’s snoring?”
“Come on.” Laurent looks at him sidelong. “You already know I want to sleep with you.”
The nonchalance goes straight to Damen’s cock. “Do I already know that?”
“I wanted it so much that I was going to go through with it even when I thought you didn’t like me,” Laurent says, in the same tone he might use to say I am wearing a blue suit. “Obviously I want to have sex with you.”
Damen’s thoughts flatline and then jolt back to life. “I don’t have anything,” he says. “I didn’t actually bring anything. Condoms, or anything.” He can’t bring himself to say ‘lube’ at a wedding.
Laurent raises an eyebrow. “What were you going to do yesterday?”
“Used my mouth, or—”
“Spit as lube?” Nose wrinkling in disgust.
“No,” Damen says, with a surprised laugh. “I was going to give you head.”
Laurent’s lips part. His neck flushes. His fingers press into Damen’s thigh above his knee, seemingly unconsciously. Damen can see that he had not imagined this possibility, even though Damen had been on his knees in front of him.
“That’s okay,” Laurent says after a long moment. His hand relaxes. “You can fuck me in Delfeur.”
“Third date?” Damen asks, as casually as he can muster.
“First.”
Damen has never been one for kissing in public, but he can’t think of anything else. It barely feels like they’re in public; his awareness narrows to their bodies and the space between them. He lifts his hand to the nape of Laurent’s neck, the short hair there and soft, warm skin beneath. Laurent is pink from his cheeks to his shirt collar. His fingers drift towards Damen’s inseam.
Ancel’s voice comes out of nowhere: “You have to help me.”
They’re yanked back to reality as Ancel flops heavily into Nik’s seat, on Damen’s right.
Completely unconcerned with their proximity and obvious desire for privacy, Ancel announces, “I want to keep him.”
“Keep who where?” Laurent asks.
“Kallias is a riot,” Ancel says. “I love him. Damianos, make Erasmus come to dinner more often so that I can make friends with his boyfriend.”
“Invite them yourself,” Damen says.
“I’m not hosting!” Ancel says. “I don’t make the guest lists!”
“Are you under the impression that Damen is hosting?” Laurent asks, as Damen says, “You think there are guest lists?”
Ancel’s exaggerated pout stretches into a grin. “Oh, Damen, is it?”
Laurent relaxes against the back of his chair, into Damen’s touch. “As if that was the tell.”
“Erasmus knows he’s welcome,” Damen says. “I can remind him Kallias is, too.”
“I can tell them,” Laurent says. As he rises, Damen’s hand slips from his nape, grazing down his back. He has a strange, needy urge to clutch at Laurent’s jacket, keep him right here, but makes himself release him instead.
Laurent’s fingers touch the back of Damen’s neck, just briefly, between his hair and his collar. His thumb grazes the skin behind Damen’s ear. Like a quick hug, or a kiss on the cheek. With that, he leaves their table for where Kallias, Erasmus, Elon, Lydos, and the distant cousin Lydos is clearly angling to take home tonight are sitting.
“Is it time for the talk?” Damen asks. “Jord and Berenger both beat you to it.”
“You already said I’m scary,” Ancel says, chin high. “I consider that box checked.”
“You know you’re welcome, too,” Damen says. Sometimes Berenger comes to dinner without Ancel. Before Ancel’s comment at the rehearsal dinner, Damen never thought anything of it.
“You don’t host,” Ancel says. He tries for a haughty expression, but his pleasure pushes through.
“I could,” Damen says. “Maybe I’ll give it a shot.”
—
They aren’t alone together, really alone, until the end of the night, when Laurent closes the door behind them. Nowhere has been this quiet all day. The wall sconces are lit, and Damen has turned on one bedside lamp, too, for good measure. He makes space for Laurent in his arms, and Laurent steps in close against him.
“So,” Damen says, and Laurent’s eyes flutter open. He was expecting to be kissed. “This first date. When are we doing that?”
Laurent says, “Tuesday,” in a tone that says obviously, like it’s already been decided. He tips his face up towards Damen’s.
Instead of kissing him, Damen grazes along the line of his jaw, to his ear. He asks, “Why Tuesday?”
Laurent exhales. “I need a night to myself tomorrow, after this weekend.” Damen loves the sound of his voice like this, the intimacy of it, low and close. “But I don’t want to wait any longer than that.”
He kisses the spot below Laurent’s ear, runs his palms from Laurent’s shoulders to the small of his back. Laurent’s fingers press into his chest. “I’m free Tuesday.” He kisses lower, and then just above Laurent’s shirt collar. “What are we having?”
Laurent doesn’t answer. Damen listens to his breathing, how it changes, as he nuzzles into his skin.
“Laurent,” Damen says, pleased with the small sound that earns him. “What do you want to eat?”
“Pizza,” Laurent says, and he slides his hands into Damen’s jacket, over his buttoned shirt. “Lemon butter crepes. Those—those pastries, with the layers, with the really thin dough, what are those called—”
“Croissants?” Damen offers, and sucks gently at Laurent’s pulse.
“No, fuck off, the ones they made yesterday, with the syrup and the nuts—”
“Strange menu,” Damen says. He slips his hand up the back of Laurent’s jacket. “Same restaurant?”
“Kiss me,” Laurent says, and Damen does.
It’s easy and unhurried, with none of last night’s desperation. Damen finds that the slower he goes, the more Laurent responds, which is hotter to Damen than anything else. Laurent allows him detours this time, and takes his own, too, unbuttoning Damen’s shirt to get at his skin, and familiarizing himself with the sun over Damen’s heart.
When Damen pulls Laurent’s jacket the rest of the way off, though, Laurent stops him. “Hey, don’t—”
Damen tamps down his instinct to take several steps back. “Is this not…?”
Laurent bends to retrieve his jacket from the floor, where Damen let it fall. “This is a nice suit,” he says. “It’ll crease. Lose its shape.”
He’s worried about the suit. Damen’s panic melts, replaced by fond warmth. “Will it?”
“You have to hang it,” Laurent says, and moves to the wardrobe to do so. “This is basic garment care.”
“Will mine crease?” Damen asks. It’s the same suit in a different color.
Laurent looks back over his shoulder at him. “Not if you hang it.”
In this pause, Damen can’t not stare at Laurent’s red-kissed lips, the flush over his skin. His styled hair is mussed now. His tie is gone, his shirt untucked; Damen’s hands were under it.
“Do you need assistance?” Laurent asks.
Damen shakes his head and takes off his jacket, crossing from the foot of the bed to join Laurent at the wardrobe. Laurent hangs the jacket, buttoning the top button.
With a smile that won’t leave his face, Damen asks, “Will your trousers crease?”
Laurent’s lips press together. He’s smiling at the corners of his eyes. Wordlessly, looking at each other, they each unfasten their suit trousers and step out of them, and remove their socks while they’re at it. There’s open desire in the way Laurent eyes Damen’s thighs and the shape of his cock through his underwear. Then Laurent turns to hang his own trousers, precisely matching the (intentional) front creases, and takes Damen’s from his hands to do the same.
Before he can turn back around, Damen closes the space between them, Laurent’s back to his front, holding Laurent’s waist through crisp cotton.
“How about your shirt?” he asks, with his lips at the shell of Laurent’s ear.
“Best to hang it,” Laurent says, in that soft, intimate voice Damen’s fast becoming addicted to.
Damen takes his time unbuttoning Laurent, kissing along the nape of his neck, the side, under his jaw, the line of his collar as it’s revealed. Laurent slows the process even more by pressing back against Damen, who has been polite, so far, about how hard he is, but that’s much more difficult when Damen’s hands are on Laurent’s bare skin and Laurent has them halfway to dry humping.
“Tuesday,” Damen says, and separates from him enough to pull Laurent’s shirt down his arms.
Laurent takes the shirt but doesn’t grab a hanger, instead tossing it in the direction of the cushioned bench by the wall, then tugging Damen’s open shirt off and tossing that, too. Damen laughs, and kisses him, and walks backwards as Laurent pushes him towards the bed, until he collides with it, knocked to a seated position at the edge of the mattress.
“I bet Lydos has lube,” Laurent says.
“Who’s Lydos?” Damen asks, and Laurent laughs, and it’s wonderful. Damen didn’t know it would be like this. He’s so glad that it is. He can touch Laurent, and pull him in, and instead of the strange, charged tension, there’s only the good kind. One of Laurent’s knees is against the mattress, between Damen’s thighs. Damen’s hands frame his hips. Damen kisses the center of his chest and looks up at him, and takes him in.
And Laurent—Laurent is looking at Damen the same way. Like he wants to know him, to learn him. He cups Damen’s cheek, pushes his hair back from his face, traces the lines of the tattooed laurel draped around his collar. He says, “I was wondering where that one stopped.”
The sea serpent, in battle with the octopus, continues up to the crease of Damen’s hip, past the line of his underwear. “Want to see?”
Laurent straightens, both feet on the floor. Instead of following, leaning in, Damen rests his hands on the bed. They study each other. Damen feels hot everywhere. Without ceremony, Laurent slips his underwear down his legs.
“Were you really going to blow me?”
“If you’d let me,” Damen says. “Want to let me?”
He nudges Damen to lie back and joins him on the bed, up on his knees above him. “Show me the rest of that tattoo,” he says, “and I’ll think about it.”
—
When the cafe closed that night, Damen lingered in front. He didn’t want to say goodbye to Laurent. He wanted to see him again, and again, but in that moment he just wanted the night to keep going.
“Did you take the metro?” he asked. If Laurent had too, they’d have the short walk to the station, and if they were going in the same direction, the wait for the next train, and some amount of the ride.
“I walked,” Laurent said. “Do you…want to walk?”
Damen felt like his chest was expanding, like he was a balloon floating up into the air. “I’d love to walk.”
They were both headed east and to the north side of the river. If Damen were to walk directly to his apartment at a normal pace, it would take under forty-five minutes. Instead, they went west first, taking the long way through the waterfront to reach the path along the river. Even after two and a half hours of conversation, even as late as it was, it was still flowing so naturally between them.
“What are you looking for?” Laurent asked, in a rare pause. “You wanted to meet someone. What do you want from—someone?”
Damen told him. Pallas and Lazar had been seeing each other for a while, dating seriously for several months. He described their texts, how ordinary it was, and at the same time, how startlingly romantic he found it. The simple and wonderful pleasure of sharing your life with each other. “I want it to feel easy,” he said. “With…someone. Uncomplicated. Like coming home, or like breathing.”
They kept walking, now crossing the river, on the pedestrian bridge above the intermittent cars. Laurent was looking out at the water. The lights illuminated him from all directions.
“What are you thinking about?” Damen asked. It was the longest Laurent hadn’t spoken.
“I wasn’t sure what you meant earlier,” Laurent said. “About wanting romance. Dramatic gestures are the classic thing, right? Something showy. But you’re talking about the everyday.”
“And you?” Damen said, even though Laurent had already said I’m not here for that.
“I can see the appeal of companionship,” Laurent said.
They reached the end of the bridge. Without discussion, in silent agreement, they took the steps down to the walkway right along the water, even though the sidewalk would have been faster for both of them.
“I tend to take the long way,” Laurent said. “In general, I mean.”
“The scenic route,” Damen offered.
Laurent made a sound, an almost-laugh. “Sometimes. My friends would call it the slow route, or the safe route. When I decided I wanted a new winter coat, it took me eight months to choose one.”
“It’s a nice coat,” Damen said. “Suits you.”
“Thank you,” Laurent said, a little awkwardly, like he hadn’t expected Damen to respond with that. “I wanted to mention that because—I might take some extra time, sometimes.” He stopped. “Not to presume that we’ll see each other again.”
Damen said, “I’d love to see you again.” He was soaring with it.
—
Damen wakes up alone.
It’s a little past seven, says the clock on the nightstand. His regular alarm is set for 7:15 every morning, and he’s beat it every day of the trip. This is the latest he’s slept, even, the first morning that sunrise didn’t wake him. He lies there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for his phone to chime.
In the empty room, it’s hard not to linger on the fact that he had said I want to take you on at least three dates and Laurent had said Obviously I want to have sex with you.
They spent some portion of the night cuddled together, as distant as that already seems in Laurent’s absence. It’s like trying to recall a dream, the details hazier the harder Damen grasps at them. They talked some more, made out some more, made each other come some more. He remembers Laurent’s fingers in his hair, gently massaging his scalp, as he lay curled close against Laurent’s middle. Laurent holding him, tracing him. That part feels like a fantasy, except that this particular feeling of being treasured and held close is something he has never thought to fantasize about.
His alarm rings. As he silences it, he sees a notification.
It’s a text from…Laurent. Laurent, whose number he’s sure he doesn’t have, but here’s his name in his phone anyway. Sent at 6:37: I’m by the beach. Whenever you’re up
The first message in their text conversation, from him to Laurent, just says Damen. Sent at 5:31 this morning, while he was definitely asleep. He opens Laurent’s contact, and there’s his number, email, and the address for his apartment. He’s added a picture, too—a selfie in the morning half-light, with the wall and headboard of this very bed in the background. Damen’s heart stutters.
He’s out of bed in an instant, dressing, rushing through his morning routine. In the kitchen, he opens the pastry boxes and consolidates two of them. Struck with inspiration, he starts the electric kettle, then the smell of the mint tea reminds him he hasn’t brushed his teeth; he runs back upstairs, and in the bathroom he remembers sunscreen, too. He steps into his own sandals on the way out the door.
Beyond the trees, the sky goes on forever, clear and blue. The ocean shimmers below. Damen pauses on the steps and breathes in this place, and this feeling.
Laurent is curled up in his lounge chair with his knees bent and his side tucked against the back of the chair. Empty mug on the armrest, ereader on the flat of the chair by his ankles. Palm under his cheek. His eyes blink open as he hears Damen approach, and the warmth that spreads over his face is immediate.
“Good morning,” Damen says, with all the same warmth.
He sits in the vacant chair, sideways at first, as he unloads the thermos, water bottle, and pastry box, carefully setting the first two on the wide, flat armrests and keeping the third in his lap.
“Good morning,” Laurent echoes.
The top four buttons of his linen shirt are open. He straightens out, extending his legs. There’s a sheen of sunscreen on his skin, a couple of streaks here and there, and underneath, a soft but noticeable tan line across his thigh where his shorts stop. Damen has seen all of him, but he can’t help looking.
“Where are your shorts?” Laurent asks, eyes on Damen’s jeans, as he matches Laurent and stretches his legs out in his chair.
“I don’t run every morning,” Damen says. “Especially not at dawn.”
“Generosity, then? Was that all to provide me with ogling opportunities? Why cut me off now?”
“I would say ogling opportunities are more available to you than ever.” Laurent presses his lips together. “I usually go to the gym at least four times a week. Only made it on Tuesday, so I upped the cardio.”
He offers the thermos to Laurent. When he uncaps it, he takes a long, slow inhale before bringing it to his lips. Damen savors the look in his eyes.
“And I was feeling restless,” Damen says. “But I’m not, this morning.”
He helps himself to a piece of orange cake and extends the box to Laurent, who accepts a piece of the layered pastry and one of the paper napkins Damen packed in the box with them.
“It’s hard for me to sleep in an unfamiliar environment,” Laurent says. “Or to relax. At all. In any environment.”
“How about here?” Damen asks.
Laurent’s eyes are on Damen as they eat. Damen’s face, his hands, the places where the shadows of his tattoos might show through his white t-shirt. “I’m not sure relaxed is the word,” he says eventually.
Damen sits up, drops his sandaled feet to the ground between them. The sun catches in Laurent’s golden hair. The ocean is reflected in his eyes. Damen feels bright inside, glittering like the surface of the water.
He offers Laurent his hand.
“Do you want to walk?”
Aglow with the sunlight, Laurent smiles.