☽ Peter ☽

For the next few days, I settle into a refreshing routine. In the morning, I drive Evan to school. He gets into Europa's passenger seat, kicking his legs onto the dashboard, and tries out new nicknames for me.

During the lunch hour, we sit in the basement, working side-by-side. I type away on my laptop while Evan scrolls on his phone, occasionally leaning his head against the wall and listening to music. The sound of it pulls me away from my task, but Evan is distracting to me, anyway.

I'm not exactly being productive, that much is certain.

"Be right back." Evan stands and heads across the hall to the bathroom.

I return to my binder filled with notes. I still have a few pages lying around from the previous semester, so I take a moment to throw them out. Considering that I don't have Evan's dexterity, I toss them into the trash can without any fanfare.

The glimmer of something plastic on the floor catches my attention. It's covered in ashy dust.

Evan's hourglass. I scoop it into my hands, cleaning the reflective surface with my sleeve. It isn't broken, just dented.

"What are you doing?" Evan stands behind me, and I pivot to face him. We're barely inches apart.

Heat rushes through me. This version of Evan, I have gotten used to seeing. He isn't as unapproachable and cold. This Evan is my star.

I cover the hourglass and say, "Give me your hand."

"If you want to hold my hand, you can just say that," Evan says and follows my instruction. "Obviously—only if you want to—"

"Here." I place the hourglass into his palm, then take his free hand. His fingers curl around mine and skim across my knuckles.

"Where the hell did you find this?" He stares at the charm once lost from his key chain.

"Right here," I say with a shrug.

He turns it over, and the vibrant sand rushes to the bottom. It makes the softest noise as it does, like a wind chime. "I looked for this for ages."

I nod as Evan's hand flits to my chin. He rises to the tips of his toes to meet my height. A beat of silence charged with anticipation passes between us.

"Peter," he starts, "you know—"

The echo of footsteps against the stairway cuts him off. We step apart, and I wonder what would happen if we got caught.

A teacher appears in the hallway and passes behind us. Evan grabs his backpack and I zip it up for him. Neither of us says a word, but I spot the tint of pink rise on Evan's cheeks.

"You were saying?" I whisper as soon as the teacher disappears from view.

"I was saying, I think you might possess some ability to find hidden things. Have you looked for my sanity, lately? I lost that a long time ago."

I let out a wry chuckle. "I don't think that's true. Who told you that you were crazy?"

He sighs, leaning back into my grip. My hold on the zipper wanes, and it slips between my fumbling fingers. I wonder if he can sense how badly I want to hold him like it's only the two of us. I consider it, asking—if I can take away the barrier between us, and if he would allow me to run my tongue across his neck, pressing my teeth against it, like a desperate kiss.

"Many people," he answers, mostly under his breath. "Are you done?"

"Huh?" I still haven't closed his backpack. "Ah," I say, shifting my hand back into place, "yeah. I'm... yeah."

"Not very convincing, but I'll take it," Evan says and whirls back around. "What are you doing after school?"

He pockets the hourglass as I avert my gaze to the floor with a sigh. I look back at him. Slow, my brain berates me in the mental equivalent of kicking myself in the shin, Evan wants to go slow.

"Why? Are you busy on the weekend?" I question, lifting an eyebrow at him.

He makes a point to roll his eyes. "Yeah, idiot. I'm going to do whatever you're doing. You can figure it out. Text me." And with the flash of a smile that does nothing to quell the quick beating of my heart, he dodges up the stairs and when he gets to the second floor, he leans down to continue grinning.

"Ce n'est pas juste," I mutter under my breath as I make my way to class. So not fair.

I spend an hour trying to figure out what to do about it. Bringing up Evan's contact, I type, I've figured out where I'm taking you.

It lingers in the void between us. Three dots appear on the screen and are quickly replaced by a response that I have to glance at twice to ensure I haven't imagined it there. With you, I think I'd go anywhere.

☆ ☽ ☆

"This is..." Evan steps into the lake house with trepidation. He cranes his head to look through the large window and into the misty sky. "I wasn't expecting this."

I head to the kitchen and unpack the groceries we picked up on the way.

Usually, going to the grocery store is an entire affair, but having Evan with me helped make the social interaction less daunting. We'd perused the aisles together as I pushed the cart, grabbing boxes of pasta and snacks off the shelf. When the combination of the announcement system in the background and the hum of the frozen foods section became irritating, Evan gave me his headphones and drowned it out with his music.

It all felt very natural.

"I told you it wasn't camping," I say, fiddling with the gas stove in the kitchen. The open stove stop flickers with blue-tinged flames. "You can open a window. It might get warm."

Evan enters the kitchen and cracks the window open. A slight breeze sweeps into the house, clearing the scent of dust and damp air.

"What were you expecting?" I ask as I dump the pasta into the pot. The steam rises and the burble of water mixes with the sounds of the birds chattering outside.

Perched on the countertop, Evan opens the mini-fridge next to him and pours a drink. His back is arched against it, and his tousled hair droops over his eyebrows. "I didn't know you had a house here."

"My mom likes it here. She thinks it's relaxing to go somewhere without an internet connection. I told her I was going... which made her ask me about ten thousand questions—I don't usually come to the lake house"—I stir the pot of water in circles—"with someone."

I stutter as it slides off my tongue. Why did I have to say it like that?

Evan, gratefully, doesn't dwell on it. "I can't believe I let you bring me to a secluded location with no cellphone service. I could totally commit a crime and nobody would notice."

"It's too bad that you already agreed you wouldn't," I say. Once the pasta is finished, I divide it between us and we take a seat at the kitchen table.

As soon as I take a bite, I realize that the only crime being committed is my appalling cooking skills. I didn't know it was humanly possible to mess up with pasta.

"It's not that bad," Evan assures me. He digs into his bowl and twirls the noodles around his fork.

"If either of my parents tried this, I honestly think they'd disown me."

Evan laughs. My heart sings when I get him to smile like that—when his dimples become visible. Not too long ago, those lips were on mine. I'm finding it hard to believe that, lately.

I join him by the wood stove soon afterward. He takes out a bag of marshmallows as the flames of the woodstove crackle.

Popping a marshmallow into his mouth, Evan passes one to me. He starts at the edge of the couch but quickly shifts position to sit next to me. His head leans against my shoulder; he shuts his eyes.

"I've been thinking I should tell someone," he starts, slowly, like a bird about to take flight, but hopelessly afraid of falling, "about... me."

"Like your parents?" I ask, even more tentative. "You don't have to."

He sighs, his hands tracing against my leg. It wanders along my thigh and across my arms. I momentarily forgot how to function, as I can only focus on the soft, featherlight way he touches me. "I know," he says and tosses his legs onto the couch cushions. "It would be one hell of an awkward phone call. Maybe I should just wait until Elaine comes back, and tell her then, but... I don't know. Part of me thinks she already knows."

"I never really came out. Not formally, anyway. But I didn't need to." I run a hand through Evan's curls. He smiles up at me.

"Because of what happened?"

"No, it was before that. I just... I didn't feel like I wanted to. Both of my parents have always wanted me to tell them everything. It was probably about fifth or sixth grade when I told them I had a crush on a guy. I kind of always knew, but it felt good that it wasn't such a big deal. I didn't have to come out to Nicole, either."

We face each other. Evan says, "Yeah, I don't want a big deal. I want..." He ponders on it for a beat, swallowing. "I guess I'm still working on the specifics, but you've always been sure of yourself, and I'm in awe of it. In awe of you."

His leg nudges my knee. He tangles himself into me, all at once, and he presses a hand against my chest. At the angle we're sitting, he's backed me against the couch. I fumble to reach for his waist, and his hands are white-hot. Just when I think he couldn't get any hotter, his cheeks flare and his eyelashes flutter.

"Are you going to kiss me, or just stare at me?" he teases.

"I could keep staring," I let out between breaths, reducing the space between us. When I grant him permission to, his tongue flicks across my mouth and he kisses me against the cheek, and my chin, and my neck.

I don't know what to do with my hands anymore. I've forgotten how to form coherent thoughts. When he speaks, it's in quiet muttering of my name and requests for more. He plants a kiss on the side of my mouth and moves back to brushing his lips against me, teasingly, and guides my hand back to his side.

I understand, I think, what he wants. To confirm, I whisper, "Can I—"

"Yes, just kiss me," he says, cutting me off.

I melt when he touches his lips to mine. He doesn't speak for a moment and lets his hand stay in its place on my arm. His finger slides underneath the fabric of my sweater.

I wait for him to tell me that it's fine if I hold him, and he does. I lean into him, and the wide frame of his body relaxes. Everything stops, just like it did when he first kissed me. Right now, there's nobody but the two of us.

"We're such a mess."

"I wish I could prove you wrong." He nods and settles back into the crook of my neck. There's a pause. He looks at me, his eyes wide. "You said 'we.'"

"Did I?" I ask, like I can play dumb. He's definitely noticed it; I don't have time to panic and take it back, but I don't want to. I swallow, hard. We have yet to define what we are, exactly, and for a second, I think I've overstepped a boundary.

He nods. Those bright hazel eyes are shining. "Yeah, you did. I like that."

I let out a breath. He reaches for the bag of marshmallows and hits me with it. "We," he repeats, like an everlasting, beautiful promise, "should go outside."

He leads me through the lake house and out the back door. The grass is damp beneath my socks, and the crickets chirping along with the refreshing gusts of wind are reminding me that I'm free.

He takes off through the grass, weaving through the oceanic dusk. He beckons for me to follow him, and I have to remind him how terrible I am at running.

When I reach him, Evan squeezes my wrist, twirling around underneath the starry sky. This far away from the apartment buildings and roads filled with fluorescent lights, the stars are visible, an aurora of light against the vast, glossy sky. A satellite flickers in the distance like a kite floating through a field of fuzzy dandelion flowers.

He cups my chin in his hands, leading my hands around him. The wind rustles through the trees.

We stay like that for a while. I take his hand. The stream reflects the view above us.

He approaches the water. The midnight black of the rippling waves absorbs the light. Evan leans over it, dragging me behind him.

I hand him a fallen branch. He prods my shoulder with the edge as the water froths over the rocks.

I wrap my hand around his wrist, showing him how to leave his emotions here, the same way I have done countless times. He sets the branch onto the stream, and we watch it float away.

Evan has a way of making spontaneity feel mundane.