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I opened the curtain wider and Auris looked over. “It’s almost December, and looking to be a cold one.” He tossed another log onto his pile. “It gives me an excellent excuse to keep you warm. I’m looking forward to that. Maybe I’ll bundle you up nice and warm once a week for some fresh air, but other than that, we’ll be spending winter inside. Yes. I’ll smother you in all things cozy.”

I chuckled and walked back to the blanket nest. “I like how you think. I’ll have to come clean to my dad though.”

“About how the merest promise of a blanket nest makes you weak in the knees? Or about seeing someone?”

I stretched out my legs in his cozy, cozy nest. “The second thing. I also have to tell him you’re some traveling salesman or something and we’re spending the holidays in Europe. Oh, fuck. That’ll be a conversation. Dad and Don like having me there for the holidays. Don’s always excited to cook for me, although last year I was made to wear a holiday sweater.”

Auris added some kindling. “Your father loves you, Ethan. He will be happy for you. That being said, if you wish to spend the holidays there, we will make that happen. I’ll not keep you from making memories with the people you love.” He sighed. “I will not entrance them to ditch the holiday sweaters, but I will wear one too. Who knows, maybe I’ll look cute in it.”

I had to bite my lip and concentrate on keeping my breathing even. Tears had sprung to my eyes.

“Okay,” I said as Auris, undoubtedly aware of my reaction, took his time reaching for the matches and selecting one he wanted. “All right. You’ll look very cute in a silly sweater. I’m sorry I ever let Charlie get to me. I don’t know why I did that. I tried to remember whether you’d been scary when we first met, and I’m sorry. I don’t think you are, but I do know you have some vampiric badassery about you. It’s super sexy now, but I guess you wouldn’t want to open with that if you’re trying to make new friends.”

Auris struck the overlong match. “Ethan, I was very scary when we first met, there’s no need to pretend otherwise. I’m aware, fully aware of that fact, always. Just like I am always aware…that you are you.”

I swallowed. “Human, with human hang-ups? And panic attacks, or whatever that was the other day.”

He lit the fire, holding the match to the kindling and watching as it caught. “No, none of those. You are unafraid to be here with me, away from all things you once knew. You are brave to confront your fears. Brave, if a little too risk-loving for insisting on coming to the ossuary with me last night.

“You are fascinating to watch when you go into your own world, nothing but your camera for company. I’d like to think I can see how your mind works sometimes, when I look at your photos, but I’m not sure I really can, which is why watching you work is such a privilege.

“You’re witty, and so sensual. I love when you allow yourself to relax into my touch, into my kisses. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as hot as you giving yourself to me. Just now, when you saw the snow, eyes wide with wonder… Ethan, you are a million little things that I am not or that I have long since forgotten how to be, and I adore you for it. Not in spite of. Never that. Because of.”

I was trembling, tense. I needed him close to me. “Come here.” My voice had gone rough and raw and rugged.

Auris came to me. I knew he would always come if I called him, would always do those things I asked him to do for me. As would I.

Together in that blanket nest, we kissed and touched and nothing more. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do more, but there was something about just sharing touch, about the intimacy that was to be had when you weren’t focused on getting naked and naughty together, that stirred something deep inside me. I wanted this—being held, being known, bedded on pillows and warmed by a newly born fire. It was like a fairy tale, being here with my dark faerie prince, and I loved it.

I wasn’t sure how long it lasted. I found myself thinking that I wouldn’t mind if time broke and we were stuck in front of this fire in an endless loop, but at some point, while I listened to Auris’s heartbeat from where he’d offered me his chest as a pillow, my mind began to wander.

“Did you miss the sound of the ocean when you were in Aswan with Tove? Did you like hearing it from your room again that night you got back?”

Auris looped a strand of my hair around his index finger. “Are you asking me to continue that story? Or should I tell you another, about the island, and about the clement autumn days we spent harvesting apples with bright red skin and the palest flesh beneath it? If I concentrate, I can just barely recall their taste.”

“Tell me about Owain,” I said, and with a sigh, Auris settled back into the telling of his story.

16

~Auris

The next part of the story, I suppose, is what you have already suspected.

Owain was not that much younger than I—two or three years, I had guessed when I’d first seen him. I’d been right. He knew his age if not his exact birthday, and told us he was coming up on his fifteenth summer the year after joining us on the island. He’d been small due to malnutrition, but had since filled out with Tove not allowing anyone in his care to go hungry.

That day I returned from Aswan, he’d been with us for a good six years, and I want to be clear that he was of age to consent, then for certain, but also following today’s sensibilities.

I could tell you that on that night I returned from Aswan, I noticed looks and lingering touches when he helped me into my bath. I would be lying. When you live in close quarters and don’t see much of anything else—truer for him than me—you cannot help fantasizing about what you see. I don’t even know whether he was all for men. There wasn’t really such terminology as you are used to today, and certainly not in Tove’s house, who had lived among the Greeks and told their myths around the kitchen table.

In Greek culture, you could be attracted to a shining intellect as much as a shining behind or bust, if you take my meaning. Family was duty, but love was always, and that was just one ancient culture.

But I digress. I left your imagination in the bath, Owain helping me out of my warm traveling clothes, maybe testing the temperature of the water with his fingers.

Nothing happened that night, you know. He smiled at me and said, “You must be so tired. I’ll have oats and honey ready for you when you wake.”

That was it. The next morning, he fed me oats with honey and apple slices. It was my favorite at the time.

I’m dancing around the topic. I don’t want you to be jealous. I couldn’t have known that you would ever exist when Owain and I shared more than just stories and kind words, but I cared for him, and I will tell you all about it. In all the ways that could ever matter, I care for you more than I did for him then.