‘Fuck,’ Felix panted, breaking free. He moved, chasing a bead of salt water rolling down Loren’s neck.
Loren’s breath hitched. ‘Sewage pit.’
‘You like it.’
‘Your – depravity?’
Felix responded with a nip to the tender skin behind Loren’s ear, coaxed his mouth open again. Conversation dissolved.
Loren’s olive skin glowed in the fading sun, lit from within, and Felix could live off this ichor. He’d make himself the god of easy gestures and spend his immortal hours cataloguing every dip and knob of Loren’s spine, the curve of his throat and the way his tunic bunched up his thighs. The mole below his jaw. The arch of his back. He’d map the press of Loren’s body against his, where he was soft and where he wasn’t. Discover constellations in his freckles, chart the stars anew. How he breathed. How he trembled, and met Felix kiss for kiss, and tangled with him in the field, and nothing else mattered. Tomorrow didn’t matter. History didn’t matter.
This was a boy worth remembering. Felix wouldn’t let this memory disappear.
‘You are,’ he said, forehead against Loren’s shoulder, chest heaving, ‘unreal.’
‘That wasn’t a curse word.’ A fine-boned finger tilted Felix’s chin up.
For once, Felix didn’t feel like amending himself. Instead, he smoothed Loren’s hair, still damp, away from his face, then ran his thumb over his cheekbone.
‘You kiss like a virgin,’ Felix said.
This time, Loren didn’t blush. ‘You like it.’
He grinned, soft and open, and Felix’s heart cracked.
‘When will I lose you?’ Loren asked sometime later. They sat in the tall grass now, and he’d shifted to straddle Felix’s lap. In the starlight, his cinnamon eyes were fathomless.
Holding his gaze ached too much to bear. Felix broke it, hiding in Loren’s collarbone. ‘That’s an odd question.’
‘A valid one, all the same.’
Coaxing a shiver from Loren was too simple. Felix did it again, skating his fingers across ribs, just because he could. ‘Why are you so sure I’ll leave?’
‘That isn’t what I asked.’
‘Another vision?’
‘Not quite.’ Loren ducked when Felix leaned up for a kiss. ‘You’re trying to distract me.’
Felix grunted. ‘It isn’t working.’
‘It’s working.’ Loren pulled back, disentangling their limbs to sit apart. The vacancy hit Felix immediately, the loss of warmth, weight. ‘I want to believe you speak the truth. That you wouldn’t lie. Not you.’
‘I lie to everyone. It’s—’
‘How you survive. So you’ve said.’ Loren tore a handful of grass, braided the strands with nimble fingers. His hair fell over his shoulder, creating a curtain that blocked Felix from reading his face. ‘What if there’s more to this than survival? We could run away together. Find a new town.’
Furious, frantic weaving, but his hands shook so badly that the grass snapped. Felix stilled him with a palm. ‘You? Leave Pompeii? The place means too much to you.’
‘I find meaning in anything. I’m sentimental that way.’
‘Enough, Loren,’ Felix whispered. ‘You hardly know me.’
Wide eyes met his. ‘But I know enough to see you want it, too.’
‘I want you.’ Simple, honest, no promises. A gods-damned easy gesture. Fitting that Felix only caught on to those at the end.
‘You have me. My worry is I don’t have you in return.’
