3. The Squire

One year passed. Then another.

Night after night, season after season, the uncanny, scarlet-eyed faerie haunted Andrew's dreams. And his days…and his nerves…and all his thoughts. He was a husk of a person filled up with fears that, at any moment, she would form from the shadows and slash him open with her sinister nails, laughing as he bled out at her feet.

She was…everywhere, but only out of the corner of his eye. Only where the shadows grew longer. Only to turn his cup of tea into flower petals right when he took a drink at a cafe. Only as a soft sigh in his ear when he was alone in a room. Sometimes it was a second pair of feet running in time with him on a trail when nobody else was in sight, or a tinkling laugh drifting by on the wind. He flinched when dogs barked or a bird flapped outside his window, or when his cat's tail brushed his calves when he went to the restroom in the dark.

His resting heart rate jumped from fifty to ninety; his skin always tingled with needles of heat. He'd changed his medication four times, but not even the highest doses or the strongest tranquilizers brought him relief.

Hoping to find relief in information, Andrew pored over Folk literature in the years that came. Inspired by his mum's Druid practices, he began his research in the pages of Celtic books.

"Whatcha looking at?" asked Sam, two years since he started at Magic's, comfortable now asking Andrew questions since he knew Andrew would tell him to mind his business if he needed to. As far as Sam could tell, Andrew had always been a little unhinged. Sam had been in the shop, after all, when the sword Andrew had bought off eBay showed up. It was an iron Viking-era replica of a straight sword the length of his forearm called a seax. The lie was easy enough—Andrew had been a History minor, and had always wanted to start a sword collection. Sam didn't know that Andrew was taking swordplay lessons and wearing a holster around his chest under his clothes where he could slip the sword if he felt particularly harried. But the academic excuse seemed to work well enough for most of Andrew's paranoia, since Sam was too polite to criticize.

"Um, it's a Druid folktales book," Andrew answered. "I always check antique bookshops for stuff like this. Found this one on West Seventh."

"Druid? Like the Dungeons and Dragons class?" Sam grinned as if he knew that wasn't what Andrew meant.

With a patient shake of his head, Andrew said, "It's actually a really old practice. My mum is Irish. She called herself a Druid. I learned a bit here and there when I was a kid."

"Isn't that just, like, a witch?"

Andrew turned a page in his book and smoothed his hand over an intricate letterpress drawing of a tree dense with Celtic knots. "Not exactly. The Druids don't do spells or curses. They celebrate and revere nature. They want balance. They want to be mindful of the magic they believe is already in the world. Um, anyway, can you call on the Janssen order and let them know it's ready?"

"You got it, boss." Sam's carefree smile spread on his lips as he stood up and went to the cabinets next to their desk.

Andrew picked up a pen to start sketching the tree in his little ring-bound notebook. This was the third notebook of its kind he'd filled up. He jotted down notes from the book on Faerieland while Sam made the call. Over the last two years, he had amassed a mostly consistent understanding of the scarlet-eyed faerie and other beings like her.

The fair Folk were weak to iron—like his switchblade—but little else. Though they could be killed, they were otherwise immortal, and were all different races, from tall, elegant elves like the one he met, to small gnomes and tricky goblins. All were bound to speak only truths, but used riddles and omissions in order to mislead.

Throughout history, humans and the Folk had a tumultuous relationship. The Folk would spirit humans away to their beautiful liminal realms, or spoil crops or water supplies for their own entertainment. But some texts proposed that some kind of fragile stalemate was possible. Sometimes, faeries even bestowed gifts on humans, or would enter into relatively equal bargains.

This scarlet-eyed faerie never confronted him explicitly, and was always nonviolent, but Andrew hardly felt neutrally about her. She sometimes left him alone for a month or two, once even for ten months. She let him think he was free of her. But it was always worse when she would reappear. Then, she would leave a row of dead sparrows on his windowsill. Or he would see her on a rooftop when he walked to the store, and she would just…watch him, gargoyle-still, grinning, while Andrew scampered out of sight like a rabbit in the crosshairs of a hawk.

Another year, another, and another passed. When autumn came, it would be the fifth year since Andrew was in the bluffs and drew the blood of his vengeful faerie stalker.

It was high summer now, and it had been a few weeks since he'd seen his pale specter lurking behind a tree or found her handprint in the dust on his windshield. But that didn't come as a relief to him. It made him more on edge, more certain that at any moment, she would make her presence known again. Fortunately, Andrew's Celtic books gave him a handful of ways to protect himself. He warded his apartment with runes etched on his door frame. He made himself invulnerable to falling under Fae charm by wearing an iron necklace with rowan berries called a géas.

"Hello," sang Sam, waving his hand in front of Andrew's face. "You in there, Andy?"

Andrew blinked, pressing his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. "Yes. Yeah. Sorry." The pair sat at the long desk at the back of their shop, each stationed in front of large desktop computers bookending spots to hook up computer towers, a little shelf of tools including tiny screwdrivers and a flashlight, and a manual Andrew had written up to help with orders.

"That kind of day for you, huh?" asked Sam. He was twenty-four now, but his shaggy hair still obscured his forehead and still had streaks of bleach and color in it—currently red.

"What kind of day?" Andrew asked.

"When you seem somehow both spacey and jumpy at the same time. What's that called? Dissociated?" Sam said. His computer chimed musically as it shut down.

"Oh. Yeah. According to my therapist," said Andrew with a humorless laugh. He'd stopped making progress in therapy after his trip to the bluffs. He suspected he'd get a new diagnosis in his chart if he told his therapist that he was being stalked by a faerie from Lilydale.

"Well, how about we go out for drinks?" said Sam. "Try to loosen you up a bit."

"Do you actually want me to go out with you, or do you just feel sorry for me?"

Sam snorted. He shoved his shaggy hair behind a pierced ear. "I don't feel sorry for you. I am very well aware your solitude is a choice. Remember over Christmas when that girl from the U asked if you wanted to go out for coffee, and you were just like, ‘I don't drink coffee' and stared at her till she left?"

"Indeed," said Andrew with a sniff. He pushed away from the desk and stood up, arching his long, lithe spine and touching his fingers together.

"Brag," muttered Sam, about a head and a half shorter than him. He squeezed past Andrew and unbuttoned his collar as he crossed to the shop door. "Can we go to The Squire? It's been, like, a month."

"Do we go anywhere else?"

"Touché." Sam turned his attention to his phone as they stepped outside into the humidity. He was very good at picking up on Andrew's cues that silence was preferred over small talk, and always seemed able to comfortably ignore Andrew.

The horizon southwest to them was glowing with a fading sunset. The Squire was about half a mile down West Seventh, which on a Friday evening was densely populated with restaurant diners and people making their way to shows or events at the convention center. Sam and Andrew enjoyed the walk, and it was easier to leave their cars in the tiny lot behind Magic's instead of hunting for street parking.

Already feeling his shoulder-length hair sticking to the back of his neck, Andrew snapped an elastic band off his wrist and tied his hair back. "You have friends, right, Sam?"

"Er, yes." Sam laughed. "I have four roommates."

"But you want to spend your Friday night with me."

"I'm an only child, and my mom deadnames me all the time. So you feel like spending time with family. The right kind of family."

Andrew smiled faintly. "Agreed."

As they stepped into The Squire ten minutes later, Andrew muttered, "Ugh, there's a show here tonight." Behind the host stand, a crowd clustered around the plain little stage with its two speakers and row of spotlights currently aimed at a woman crooning about heartbreak next to a man playing a fiddle. The bar's tin ceilings reverberated the music a thousand times, making sure Andrew always left with a migraine on show nights. It truly must take a special kind of extrovert to enjoy such a tiny, noisy show at a hole-in-the-wall bar.

Near the wall closest to them, Andrew found one such extrovert. A young blond woman bounced on her heels, mouth open, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. Her elbow was hooked through the arm of a man with warm sandy brown skin and hair that gleamed turquoise under the stage lights, short on the sides and long enough on top to comb your fingers through. He was like a rag doll yanked around beneath the intensity of the woman's enthusiasm, jaw squared and lips tight in a grimace. Andrew's unruly gaze wandered to the man's flat stomach and well-rounded rear before he snapped them back to attention just in time for the turquoise-haired man's chin to jerk in his direction.

Before Andrew could furtively look away, the man caught him with a pair of eyes that were—Andrew wasn't sure exactly what color that was. Navy blue? Violet? Andrew would be happy spending his whole night determining that hue. The painful grimace on the man's face softened into a smile as he held Andrew's gaze with a sparkle in his eye. Somehow, because of the warmth in the man's features or the light gleaming on the pillow of his ruddy lower lip, the embarrassment Andrew expected to feel for being caught admiring this man didn't come. In fact, Andrew's lips curled as he returned the smile, as natural as moonrise reflecting the light of the sun.

The man's lips parted as he started to say something, but then the blond girl hanging onto him gave him an especially urgent yank. Like an eclipse, his attention left Andrew, dragged back to focus on the fiddle solo happening on the stage.

When Andrew surfaced from the warmth pooling in his stomach to the frantic pounding of his heart, Sam stood in front of him with his head cocked and a broad smirk.

"That was cute," Sam teased.

"Shut up." Andrew pushed his nosy shop assistant onward.

Mercifully, The Squire had a second room through a green telephone booth door past the stage. Sam cut confidently through the handful of people standing around the stage, Andrew slipping silently after him until they made it into the second room. It wasn't totally peaceful with the show going on, but it was tolerable.

Framed by a glinting rainbow of bottles and crystal glasses, the bartender caught Andrew's eye when they came through the door, giving him an obliging nod. Kate was broad and heavily tattooed, with thick plastic glasses on the end of her nose, and a mop of short, salt-and-pepper hair. She pointed her thumb toward a small table near the bar with two chairs, not quite cleared yet, but the only empty spot in the room. Andrew grabbed Sam's elbow and led them to the table as Kate joined him and swept the crumbs off the table with a damp, dirty rag.

"You, here, on a night with a show?" asked Kate with a tsk. "So many people."

Andrew grunted.

"It's my fault," laughed Sam. "I'm a rascal."

"You're an angel, kid," said Kate. "We have a raspberry cider on tap right now. You interested?"

Sam nodded vigorously. "Oh, yes please."

"And an Old Fashioned for you, sir?"

"Of course. The perfect drink for an old man like me."

Kate shot Andrew a nasty look that screwed up her features. "You can't be a day past thirty. Seems like you were a teenager just yesterday."

Andrew cast his eyes toward the tin ceiling. "I'm thirty-two."

Grabbing her chest in mock injury, Kate retreated to the bar. The thrum of the music and the press of other patrons laughing and arguing around the bar plucked them out of time and space until only the bar existed.

Sam stuck his tongue out at his phone and nodded in satisfaction, tapping away, and then lifting it to snap a photo of Andrew. Hurriedly, Andrew slapped his palm against the lens with a glare. Sam grinned, undaunted, setting his phone aside. "Didn't even have the camera open."

Kate squeezed back around the bar and delivered their drinks. "Food?"

Andrew shrugged. "Maybe in a bit?" She nodded and left them as a frown burrowed between Andrew's eyebrows. He seemed to come to The Squire primarily to torment himself, given Kate always made him think of his mum, and thinking of his mum was like swallowing knives. Maybe being haunted by the scarlet-eyed faerie wasn't that bad, since it was a welcome distraction from his childhood.

Sam watched the crowds with a feline smile curling his lips, taking small sips of his drink, the can lights turning to magical gleams in his glasses. Andrew took a larger drink than necessary from his own glass, clearing his throat as the liquid seared its way into his belly like a flamethrower.

"Dude," said Sam, turning in his seat to watch someone approaching Kate's bar. "I think I know her—Cirrus!" The blond girl entered through the telephone booth doorway, dragging the man behind her. His eyes darted about like a cat trying to escape the grip of a child too young to handle him.

Micah Stillwater very much wanted to escape Cirrus, but he was too polite to shake her off. If not for her, he would have started up a conversation with that redheaded man straightaway, and maybe that could stop his evening from falling apart. The night had very little going for it in the first place given he would be better off at home keeping an eye on his father, but running into Cirrus was only making his mood worse. Her perfume was overwhelming, and her tight grip on her arm was making him feel like a trapped animal. He wasn't sure how she reminded him of people from his childhood home, but she did. Maybe it was her obvious desire for control.

"I would really prefer not to drink," Micah said, pulling once again on her pinky. It was her social media post that had led him to The Squire (she had used the words "folksy indie duet," which worked on him like catnip), but he wasn't expecting her to…attach herself to him. She was a younger girl, not much over twenty-one, and still acting like a teenager. Cirrus was leaning into the popularity of the witchy aesthetic more than when he'd seen her last, Micah noted. She was wearing a choker with an amethyst crescent moon, a black dress, and heavy eye makeup around her doe-brown eyes. She even had a large, fresh grayscale lantern tattoo above her prominently displayed cleavage.

"Really, it's on me," said Cirrus. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again! You were around all the time after I graduated high school, but then you literally vanished, like a figment of my imagination. You still ‘like' my music posts and stuff, but you're never at any of the shows anymore."

Micah shrugged, wincing as she ordered him something random from the bespectacled bartender. The gray-blue gaze of the bartender stayed fixed on Micah a little longer than he was comfortable with. Maybe it was her icy stare that was making Micah feel like someone was watching him. It was hard to say for sure: Cirrus's presence was overwhelming him and making it hard for him to notice anyone else.

"IDs, please," said the bartender.

"Oh." Micah's heart lurched. He hesitated, watching Cirrus easily flash her card as he started to fumble with his wallet. He cautiously held his card out to the woman, who took it and stared at it, then him, then it again.

She grunted, handing it back with a slight shake of her head. "Older than you look."

Micah remained silent, his stomach clenching. His father was going to get an earful about all this. Micah hated having to show his ID, and if Julian had just let him stay at home, he wouldn't have needed to. But no, Julian insisted Micah needed to get out of the house, trying to claim Micah was too young to be around for the brownstone bingo night Julian was hosting. That could hardly be true, but Julian knew he needed an ironclad excuse to get Micah out of the house when he wasn't working. But what was so bad about wanting to make sure his father was okay? Julian's fits were unpredictable, random, and often violent. It had taken a long time for Micah to figure out how to help him through them.

"It's his colorful hair," laughed Cirrus. "Anyway, Micah, why did you vanish? What are you up to?" She took a drink from her electric blue cocktail.

"I'm not doing a whole lot besides work," he said, finally tearing his eyes off the suspicious bartender.

"You sound like you're forty," the girl said as she pressed a canned seltzer into his hand.

Feigning a drink, Micah choked on a strangled groan.

"Cirrus?"

The blonde spun around as a small shaggy-haired person broke into a beaming smile. "No, way, Sam! Is it really you?" They squealed and embraced each other while Micah held the seltzer up over their heads while the pair jostled against him. Someone at the table in the corner was watching the embrace with red eyebrows raised sardonically, likely similar to the face Micah was making.

Glad to have Cirrus's attention deflected, he edged around the pair as they chattered happily, with enthusiasm only young adults could still muster. Half tempted to drop the seltzer in a bin bursting with dirty dishes and empty cans near the bathrooms, Micah was ready to make his way back to the stage when he felt the tingle of someone's eyes on him. It was the owner of the sardonic eyebrows, whose sharp brown gaze held him with curiosity. An angular profile appeared when the pale man looked quickly away, hunching, fingers curling around his tumbler. Micah barely had to squint to notice the brush of color on the man's high cheekbones. It brought a grin to his face and made his gait falter; he slowed, turning toward the table in the corner. Heavens, that man was a lithe form—even though he was hunched up like a fox in the forest dreading to be seen, he was all long lines, long hair, long and slender neck.

From his seat, Andrew took a shaky drink of his Old Fashioned. He should have kept his eyes down, taken out his phone like a normal person. But he had kept looking at the man holding the seltzer over Sam's shoulder. The man's pair of checkered sneakers turned toward him.

Swallowing his embarrassment, Andrew steeled himself and glanced up as he said, "Sorry. I saw my bespectacled friend Sam knows your—" Friend didn't seem to describe the way that girl had been grabbing him. "Blonde…companion."

With an easy smile on his plush lips, the man with the seltzer and the checkered sneakers nodded. His skin was warm brown like sunbaked sandstone, and his eyes were some midtone that had to be blue or gray or green or…honestly, they looked a bit violet. "Little bouncy balls of energy, aren't they? Ah, to be young again." He was soft-spoken with a tenor voice like a breeze rustling prairie grasses.

"Absolutely cannot relate," Andrew said. "I have always operated on a thin reserve of energy that depletes with the slightest provocation." He blinked, surprised at his own ability to generate a coherent thought to a stranger. This man must have something special in his blood.

Snickering and nodding, he said, "I'm Micah."

"Andrew. You can take Sam's spot." He gestured to the seat opposite him.

"I don't know. If she fights me for it, I'll probably lose."

"He," corrected Andrew.

"Oh. Apologies."

"He doesn't correct people that often, but I will. Doesn't mean you can't take his spot though." Andrew kept talking—rambling, really. Very out of character. "I'm his boss, so I can decide that for him."

Micah's eyes sparkled. "If you insist."

Andrew glanced at the bar where Sam was still gesticulating excitedly. "Those two haven't stopped talking since he went over there. Who is that?"

"Uh, I don't know much about Cirrus besides her name." Micah sank into the spot opposite Andrew. "We run into each other at shows like this a lot."

"Ah." Andrew trailed a finger around the lip of his glass. "So you're part of the reason my peaceful little hole in the wall is so rowdy tonight."

"Hey, now, don't lump me in with the kids over there. I was also forced to socialize tonight." He grimaced. A little dimple stood out on his cheek. "Do I detect a bit of a British accent on you there, Andrew?"

"I can never seem to scrub the Scouse off me altogether," Andrew agreed with a nod.

"Sorry, Scotch?" Micah blinked.

"Scouse. I'm from Liverpool," Andrew explained.

"Oh, so like, you got a Cockney thing going on?" Micah imitated the lilt that might have been garnered from watching the Newsies movie.

With a tired sigh, Andrew shook his head and said, "No, sir, that's south London. Liverpool is like the Fargo accent among Minnesotans."

"Got it." Micah smiled like this was the best thing he'd ever heard.

After posing for a photo with Cirrus, Sam rushed over to the table with her in tow and said, "Dude, Andrew, Cirrus did tech crew with me at the U. I haven't seen her in, like, five years! Isn't that nuts?" He paused. Pushing up his glasses, he glanced several times between Andrew and Micah before finally saying with a sly crease appearing under his eye, "Well, hello there, Andy's new friend. What's your name?"

"Sorry I took your spot," began Micah, starting to stand, but then Cirrus leaned an arm on his shoulder.

"You're good, babycakes," said the young woman. Confused incredulity wrinkled Micah's brow. His lips formed the word ‘babycakes' like it tasted bad. Cirrus didn't notice. Andrew brought his glass to his lips to hide his grin.

Sam picked up his cider and took a swig. "I can't believe Andrew let you sit down. Most people would get hissed at."

"Sam," Andrew hissed.

Sam winked at him before returning his attention to Micah. "Look at your dope gauges. How long have you been stretching them?"

"Oh," laughed Micah, trying to roll his shoulder and slide Cirrus's arm off him. It didn't work. "I'm not the one to ask. There was a lot of excess force involved." He tugged on the emerald in his earlobe.

"That's the badass way to do that," said Cirrus with a gleam in her eye.

"I assure you," Micah said, shaking his head, "It is not. It is the stupid way. I wish I'd done it as slowly as you're supposed to."

Andrew settled back into his seat, realizing as his heart sank that obviously Sam and Cirrus were preferred company over himself. And what was his heart getting all fluttery for, anyway? He wasn't the type to make a romantic connection at all, let alone at a bar. And especially not with someone as charismatic and attractive as Micah.

Micah's eyes strayed back to Andrew, so he wasn't looking when Cirrus dropped herself onto his knee. His eyes bugged but he managed to stay silent by gripping the edge of the table as hard as he could.

"I think," sang Cirrus, "that we should go down the street to that speakeasy in the basement of those artist lofts." She cast Micah a hooded glance over her shoulder as she sipped from her drink.

Sam exclaimed, "Dude, I've heard about that place!"

"You haven't been?" demanded Cirrus, clicking her tongue. "Babe, where have you been living since college? Under a rock with this nerd?" She jabbed her thumb in Andrew's direction.

Andrew, to his credit, didn't give her any other response besides a slow, indifferent blink as he took a sip of his drink.

"Hey," Sam cautioned, putting his hand on Andrew's shoulder, "this is my boss. And my friend. Don't be a jerk."

"Yeah, yeah, my bad and everything." Cirrus finished off her drink in one swig and a little shudder. "Anyway, let's do it. The speakeasy. It's killer, trust me." She stood up from Micah's knee and fixed the tight hem of her dress, checking her teeth in her phone reflection. "C'mon, boys."

Sam and Andrew had a lengthy, wordless exchange while Sam carefully scrutinized Andrew's face. Andrew sighed slightly, scratching at his shirt collar and exposing a chain necklace. With a louder sigh, Sam said, "You really don't wanna come?"

"I'll stay here," Andrew said patiently. "You go and just text me when you get home."

"Oh, no." Cirrus pressed her hand to her cheek. "You don't want to come? So sad." She stuck out her lip in a quick pout before waving cheerily. "Bye. Come on, Micah."

Grimacing, Micah said slowly, "I'm good. I came for the show, so…yeah, just not really feeling—"

"What! I haven't seen you in like, four years, and we all know you're gonna go back into hiding," whined Cirrus. "Please? Please?"

"Sorry, Cirrus," Micah said, a bit more firmly. "You go on."

Leaning over Andrew, Sam was mid-sentence in a whisper when Andrew batted at Sam's bangs like a cat until Sam straightened with a scowl. Cirrus sneered at Andrew, hooked her arm around Sam's neck, and hauled him away through the telephone booth doorway.

"She's fun." Andrew sipped his drink.

"Not my type of person," said Micah.

Andrew's umber eyes flicked toward Micah, and then away, curiosity pinching a crease between his eyebrows. "What's your type of person?"

"Cats."

Disarmed, a grin and a chuckle escaped Andrew before he ducked his head. The sound was reminiscent of lonely library halls, sheltering a wealth of knowledge if one only had the patience to stay.

"But, anyway," Micah added, shifting on his seat, "that was technically true. I did come for the show, so I can leave you—"

"Oh." The warmth slipped away from Andrew's expression, leaving something carefully neutral in its place. "Right."

Micah cleared his throat, awkward. The offer was meant to provoke him to ask him to stay, but it seemingly backfired. Determined to get clarity, Micah said carefully, "I could stay. If you'd like." They held each other's gaze for several silent moments, the voice of the singer from the other room soaring as she begged her wayward lover to come home.

"I feel a bit silly," Andrew admitted.

"Why's that?" asked Micah.

Andrew turned the glass in his hands, watching the amber liquid swirl gently. "Generally most people I meet are sort of a bore," he said slowly, his accent particularly apparent on the last word, "but I find the thought of you leaving so soon to be painful."

A grin spread across Micah's lips, his neck heating up as he asked with a laugh, "Do you always talk so formally?"

"Kind of, yeah." The curves of Andrew's ears were dark red as he rubbed his chin and took a deep drink from his glass.

Micah's grin widened. "It's cute."

The bartender appeared so suddenly at Micah's shoulder that he jumped. She set a glass of water in front of him and pointed at the seltzer. "You want me to take that?"

"Ah." Micah frowned. "Yeah, I won't drink it. Thank you."

"You sober or something?" asked Andrew.

Shrugging, Micah said, "Mostly. And I don't drink shitty drinks." Andrew grinned. "No offense," Micah added to the bartender.

"Oh, no," she said with her gray-flecked brows raised, "you're absolutely correct." She picked up the can and then propped her other hand on her hip. "Food, now?" she asked Andrew.

"I should probably eat," Andrew said.

They both ordered, conversation gradually becoming easier as Andrew nursed his drink without replacing it with more, his shoulders relaxing and his eyes more often meeting Micah's. Their matching veggie wraps arrived quickly, but Micah could only feign interest in his food since his company was so much more captivating than the meal.

Andrew tugged the elastic out of his hair and let the locks fall to his shoulders. Transfixed, Micah stared as Andrew teased apart the tangles with his fingers. He blinked and looked back up at Andrew, whose slender peach lips quirked in the corners as he set his chin on his hand.

"Who forced you to socialize?" asked Andrew. "You said earlier."

"Oh." Micah hurriedly swallowed a bite of food, wiped the corners of his mouth, and told him, "I'm usually just staying home with my dad, but he kicked me out tonight. Told me to hang out with people my own age."

"Well," said Andrew, "they left." He pointed his thumb toward the phone booth door.

Micah grinned. "You think you're older than me?"

"Hm," was all Andrew said, and Micah sagged with relief when he didn't have any additional comments.

"Why do you hate Liverpool?" Micah asked. "I'd love to be from England."

"I guess I don't hate Liverpool. Just my dad. He's a psychopath."

"Oh. Sure. My mother's a psychopath, so I get that. We love some good family trauma, right?"

They shared a bitter laugh.

"It adds flavor." Andrew smirked.

Micah felt he could devour that sly expression on Andrew's narrow face without a second thought. Leaning back in his seat, he crossed his arms on the tabletop and curled his fingers into his forearms, trying not to get ahead of himself, trying not to make it obvious how he was imagining twining Andrew's hair around his fingers while they…

"Runes," said Andrew with his gravelly voice rising in excitement, pointing a long finger at Micah's knuckles. He tilted his head. "Ingwaz is ‘abundance,' and…um, what's the M one here?" He tapped Micah's right pointer finger.

"Mannaz. Kind of a sexist one, ‘man,' technically, but more broadly, the self," Micah explained. "You didn't strike me as someone who would recognize runic symbols."

Uncertainty flashed across Andrew's features. "I'm well-read," he said after a moment.

"Evidently," said Micah with a placating smile.

"Did you do them yourself?"

"Oh, no," said Micah, staring at the ceiling. "That would be stupid and reckless, not at all what I was like when I was younger with too much time on my hands." He looked down to find Andrew smirking at him again. It made Micah's toes tingle as he cautioned, "Andrew, you gotta be careful with that look."

"What? Why's that?"

"It's making me very much wish we were kissing." The words fell out of Micah's mouth on an impulse, but the effect on Andrew was immediate: his cheeks and ears flamed brightly, and his eyes went round and then quickly downcast.

The bartender snuck up on Micah again with a receipt booklet in hand. He jumped, and then quickly handed her his card before Andrew had even collected himself. He gave the bartender a little smile, but her eyes were on Andrew, a furrow in her brow.

Clearing his throat, Andrew glanced up at her and then at Micah's card in her hand. He blinked and then made a noise of protest, and it was enough to dismiss the bartender, who shook her head and moved over to the register behind the bar.

"I don't think she likes me," Micah observed.

Andrew paused, looking briefly dazed. "Nah, she's all right. She just knew me as a teenager. Protective, or something."

"That I can respect," Micah said. It didn't explain why she'd looked so suspicious about Micah's ID, but he was at least slightly more accustomed to that. "Does she need to protect you?"

Andrew studied Micah with such intensity that heat rose to Micah's cheeks. As he was about to answer, the bartender dropped the receipt booklet in front of Micah and said to neither of them in particular, "Be good."

As Micah slid his card back into his wallet, Andrew let out a shallow breath through his nostrils and cocked his head silently toward the exit. As they slithered through the crowd and waiters and the host stand, Andrew reached back and clasped Micah's hand. His palm was cool and callused, the grip of his fingers sure and strong. A hummingbird pulse drummed against Micah's hand.

Outside, the indigo sky was at the threshold between dusk and nightfall, dark enough for the streetlamps to be glowing incandescent overhead, and neon lights to cast strange shadows from The Squire's windows.

Releasing his hand, Andrew turned and said in a rush, "I didn't really have a plan, once we were out of there. I walked." He pointed north, toward the silhouetted skyline of the city.

"Me, too," said Micah, sliding his hands into his jeans and pulling out his phone. "Let me order a car."

"I like to walk," Andrew said. Under the kaleidoscope lighting, Andrew's pupils were enormous, his bark-brown irises almost gone as if in a solar eclipse.

"Whoa." Micah frowned. "Your pupils—"

Hooking a finger through Micah's belt loop, Andrew bumped them into the brick wall under the bar's awning. His hands slid onto Micah's cheeks, and he stooped to bridge their slight height difference and pressed their lips together. Micah jolted. Andrew's mouth was feverishly hot.

After a beat, Micah lightly pushed him back, swallowed, and said, "Are you okay? You're so hot."

Andrew's fluttering lashes glinted like copper. "I—I'm sorry, I thought you had said—" He dropped a hand off Micah's face.

"Hey," Micah murmured. "I'm just making sure."

It was a relief to Andrew when Micah's muscled forearm slid around his waist. Andrew caught a glimpse of syrupy lilac-colored irises before he let the press of Micah's lips envelop him, tasting sweet like mulberries before everything beneath Andrew's skin seemed to spin like a tumbling leaf in the autumn.

Andrew grew heavy and almost limp against Micah; he pulled back with a frown.

"Let's get you home," Micah said quietly, cupping Andrew's scalding neck with his fingers. His palm brushed against Andrew's necklace, which shocked him like static. Micah dropped his hands immediately, frowning more deeply.

Andrew blinked down at Micah, untangling his arms from his shoulders and straightening. One of his knees buckled, and he slumped against the wall for a moment, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. "Yeah," Andrew said.

Taking a small step away, Micah said, "Where are we going?"

"Magic's," said Andrew. He crossed his arms over his stomach and started off at a clipped pace, a muscle spasming in his angular jaw.

Hurrying after him, Micah blinked. "Where are we going?" he repeated.

Andrew laughed, glancing back at Micah. When the streetlights flashed in his eyes, his irises were back, now the color of antique gold. It allowed Micah to relax again, reminding himself that they both had to walk this way, that nothing was happening right now except an evening walk.

Andrew explained, "My shop is called Magic's. Computer Repair. And Programming, since Sam does that now. The sign was there when I opened my shop, so it seemed serendipitous."

They crossed under an enormous, knotty-rooted maple tree, cicadas buzzing noisily from the branches.

Staring at the sky, Andrew said more softly, "Kind of like tonight." Andrew blinked, as if surprised to hear himself speak.

Grinning, Micah bumped their elbows together. "Yeah." After a few minutes, as they headed westward off the main road past a seedy gas station, Micah said, "Dude, I live, like, two minutes from here."

"Ah, yeah?" Andrew looked where Micah pointed east toward the river. "Funny we've never met before."

"Maybe not directly," Micah said softly. "But maybe we've crossed paths."

They went across the quiet street and approached a faded black and white sign in splintering wood that read MAGIC'S. Micah followed Andrew around to the rear of the small brick building. The second story windows were all open, cloaked with fluttering red curtains. A white flood light flashed on, spilling over them in a garish play of light and shadow.

In The Squire, Micah had felt the desire to kiss Andrew like fire in his veins. It was almost like the spark had jumped from him to Andrew, blazing like a wildfire that was extinguished the moment Micah stepped back from him outside the bar. But Andrew seemed okay while they walked. Maybe he…didn't hold his liquor well. Or maybe the kiss had been a reckless impulse. Micah certainly understood that. But those weren't the only options. They were just the only ones Micah wanted to think about.

Fumbling with his keys, Andrew fit one in the lock in the solid metal door. His back was to a small crumbling lot with just two cars parked, and a dilapidated plank fence wrapping around two of the sides. Using his shoe to prop open the door, Andrew braced himself in the doorway and gave Micah a long, silent look.

"What is that face for?" Micah asked in a hush, as if afraid to frighten away a skittish animal.

Blinking, his lashes shadowing his high cheekbones, Andrew ran the tip of his pink tongue over his lips and said softly, "I want to kiss you again. I want it so bad it's like you have me under a spell."

Micah's stomach clenched. He managed an awkward half laugh and a dismissive shrug, but Andrew remained serious, his cheeks ruddy as if with fever. He gently picked up Andrew's hand, which was like touching a steel radiator. When Andrew had taken his hand on their way out of the bar, it hadn't felt like this. Then, it was a shadow, cool and comforting.

Andrew stared intently at their joined hands, jostling Micah back into the moment. He lifted Andrew's hand to his mouth and brushed his lips against his prominent knuckles. "Why don't I come back tomorrow?"

His breath catching and falling in a shuddering sigh, Andrew leaned more heavily on the doorframe. He nodded, silent.

"I work in the morning. I manage a bubble tea shop. I'll come over when I get off, okay? You like tea, right? You're British, so I assume so."

A smile flickered on Andrew's face and then disappeared. He nodded again.

"Get some sleep," said Micah, stepping back again, digging his nails into his palms. Andrew didn't move but to lift his head and watch as Micah continued to retreat, his cheeks pink and odd against the deep shadows of his jaw and eye sockets, the flood lights shining too brightly in his dark eyes. Unsettled and distracted, Micah almost ran into a car parked on the curb before he finally looked away from Andrew. Goosebumps rose on his arms as he hurried back toward West Seventh, chewing on the inside of his cheek, furrowing his brow deeply enough that it hurt his head.

As he stepped through the trunks of the linden trees outside the stairs to his brownstone, the leaves overhead rustled with the whisper of his name. He jumped, spinning in a tight circle, but there was nobody there but someone walking their dog at the other end of the block.

To the voice in the trees and the tingle between his shoulder blades, Micah growled, "Dude, go away! Leave me alone. I'm not in the mood." He stood in place, waiting until the breeze died down, waiting until that feeling of being watched abated. When he was sure he was alone, Micah marched up the iron steps to his brownstone, pausing outside the door to gaze down the street as if hoping he could see Magic's storefront from his front door. Maybe then he could keep an eye on Andrew, make sure he was okay, and not…charmed.