He wasted no time disrobing, shucking his tunic with a grimace. Tossing the helmet to the side, he dived in. After the scorching afternoon, the seawater came as a cool relief. With handfuls of sand, he scrubbed his skin until it tingled. Then he let his hair writhe in the current before surfacing for air.
Loren had perched on a tree stump, legs crossed. Dappled light filtering through leaves cast freckled shadows across his shoulders.
‘You stink, too,’ Felix said when he kicked back to shore to drag his tunic in the water. He scrubbed a mystery stain with his fingernail.
‘Thanks,’ Loren said dryly.
‘Are you shy?’’
Delicious red washed across his face, wine overturned on table linen. ‘No.’
‘Then swim with me. I don’t want to smell you all night.’ Cackling, Felix ducked to avoid the pebble Loren threw. If he was offended, Felix couldn’t be sure, but he watched from the corner of his eye as Loren stood and – fingers fumbling – pulled off his own garments.
Felix forced his gaze to drift, counting the handful of clouds in the pink sky.
Another body joined his with a splash.
‘I won’t look,’ Felix said. ‘Swear it on my mother’s life.’
‘Your dead mother?’ Loren asked. Then, ‘I didn’t mean . . .’
‘She isn’t dead. She’s a nymph, I bet.’
Felix fell back until he was floating, vulnerable in the current. Weightless. This felt safe, somehow, water muffling the earth’s hum and offering respite to think. So much had happened on the mountain, andhe couldn’t tell if he understood more or less than before. Could both be true at once?
For a long while, no words were exchanged, only the sounds of Loren’s ablutions and the sea’s quiet lapping.
Until Loren said, ‘I dreamed this.’
Frowning, Felix righted himself. He’d been so lost in the trance of floating, he hadn’t realised he’d drifted so near Loren. Loren, who studied his face like trying to read a particularly impossible text. Or any text, if you were Felix.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘You were floating to me.’
‘Another vision.’
‘Maybe.’ Loren’s mouth pinched. ‘But my visions aren’t normally so peaceful.’
‘Maybe I’d drowned and you hadn’t realised yet,’ Felix said.
Loren shivered. ‘Don’t speak like that.’
‘Worried I’ll will it into reality?’
No response. Instead, Loren began undoing his tangled braid, slender fingers working.
Abruptly, Felix’s mouth dried. Fishing his tunic from the water, he hurried to land, wearing nothing but damp shorts, and sprawled in the grass.
‘I could stay here for ages,’ Felix mused. ‘The sea, the breeze, fuck, it’s nice.’
‘Your mouth is a sewage pit,’ came Loren’s response, closer than Felix expected. He cracked open one eye to watch a figure climb from the sea, a silhouette against the slow burn of sunset. ‘And you have no shame.’
Unbidden, Felix grinned, a little wild. ‘Can’t afford shame.’
‘You could try for modesty.’
‘Thievery is the humblest profession.’
