Émile and I both watch with rapt attention as Kit laps at the peach’s livid center. His hesitance is gone, absolutely no shame in the way he laves and sucks, only a familiar, voracious enthusiasm. Juice runs down his chin. I can barely believe what I’m seeing, that I get to watch him put on such a pretty show.
With a hand on the side of my neck, Émile leans in and follows Kit’s example until their mouths meet. Then they’re kissing, nectar and spit dripping onto my shoulder and down my chest. Kit keepsmoaning,letting out these desperate little whines, and he’s hard against me as Émile’s tongue fucks into his mouth, and I’m imagining putting something else in his mouth, imagining Kit trailing nectar-sticky kisses from Émile’s mouth to mine.
Then Émile is kissing me with the same mouth that was kissing Kit, peach juice in his rough stubble, Kit all over his lips. I know Kit is watching, that I’m pushing myself into his familiar hardness, and it’s too late for me to stop. I’m too fucked up and buzzed and catastrophically turned on to entertain shame. Everything is happening through an iridescent haze of unreality, and my hand is moving on instinct, slipping down between my legs. Finally,finally,Kit makes deliberate contact with me, his fingers ghosting over my jaw, and I respond automatically, close my eyes and lean my face toward his touch and—
A foghorn, of all stupid fucking things, interrupts before I get my hand down my swimsuit bottoms. The yacht has returned to the harbor. More guests are coming aboard. I sit up, and Kit’s hand vanishes from my face.
“Ah,” Émile says, reluctantly drawing away. He gets to his feet, stretching athletically as if he were out for a light jog ratherthan trying to initiate a three-way. “The host must attend to his duties. I will return.”
He takes my hand and kisses the back of it.
“When I do, I hope you will have begun without me.”
And then he’s gone like a god of luxury linens, and we’re suddenly, inescapably alone. And I’m suddenly much more sober than I was two minutes ago.
That was—
We were—
Kit pulls away first, but I pull away harder.
“Theo,” Kit starts, breathless and dark-eyed.
Something you need to know about Kit is, his name isn’t actually Kit. His parents started calling him Kit because he was quick and wily like a little fox, and it was easier for his older brother to say, so it stuck. But his real name is Aurélien. The golden one. It fucking suits.
The golden one doesn’t make careless mistakes. The golden one doesn’t twist himself into knots over long-lost love. The golden one wasn’t about to jerk off in front of the ex he still wants because he had one too many caviar bumps and needed an outlet for his frustrations. The golden one is kind, and reliable, and thorough, and so unruinable that even this could barely persuade him to touch me. It’s not fucking fair.
“You know what would be so funny?” I say.
Kit barely reacts. I notice with some satisfaction that he’s still hard.
“What?”
“If I did this.”
I snatch a bottle of Dom Pérignon from the ice bucket on the table and take off running.
I run all the way down the stairs to the main deck, through the party to scoop up my shoes and our shirts and, for the hell of it, some expensive-looking coasters, and soon I’m sprinting down the spillway and onto the pier, sandals slapping wildly against theplanks. Kit is only a few seconds behind, chasing me down the pier, and I feel like screaming with hysterical laughter. I feel like flying. I want to be golden too.
We race through the streets of Monaco, our shirts billowing and a bottle of Dom in my fist, and we start to laugh. We ricochet between alley walls, drunk on the rush of adrenaline, and I pop the cork out of the champagne. Bubbles stream down my forearms and over my feet until I fasten my lips on the opening and catch them in my mouth. I pass it to Kit, and he drinks, and I sing at the top of my voice, “Farewell and adieu all you fair Spanish ladies!”
We nearly drop the bottle, fumbling it between ourselves so that we crash together to catch it. My sandal comes halfway off, and Kit catches me before I trip, propping me up smoothly against the nearest wall.
In the pink bloom of a Monaco sunset, Kit is as breathtaking as he’s ever been. We’ve slowed now, laughter still on our lips but beginning to fade into soft, lilting breaths. My back is against the bricks, and Kit’s hands are on my shoulders.
I bite my lip and look into his face, his dark eyes and expressive mouth, his every unforgettable angle. I love him. I don’t want to, but I do.
He touches my face like he did before, his fingertips soft on my cheek.
And he kisses me.
THE BEGINNING
(Kit’s Version)
Just northeast of Lyon, overlooking the Ain, there sat a medieval village called Pérouges surrounded by walls of honey-gold stone. And within those walls, there was a house.
The house was smallish and modest, with flower boxes that spilled green vines down its cobbly front like tipped watercolor pigment. The garden too was painted a lush, impossible green, and the hills outside the village’s walls were green and amber and the bruised bluish black of wet soil. Somehow the flowers never wilted or browned when I pressed my fingers to their petals, even though we’d been told not to touch them when they were in bloom. When I opened the shutters each morning, the air tasted of irises and sage.
