Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Luke

We exchanged the bottle a few more times with growing ease. At first, even bringing it to my lips after he had drunk from it made my heart tear itself into halves, one leaping with excitement as if I were still eighteen and the other sinking deep into the pit of my stomach because of all I'd given up.

Rafael led me from the plaza through narrow, one-way streets. The city was still asleep when we rounded a corner and emerged between two tall, pastel-yellow buildings onto a quaint square with an obelisk in its heart and the ancient Pantheon to my right. My eyes grew as I gazed at the structure. It was every bit as impressive as I had imagined. Its dome rose high above us, and its pillars held up a heavy stone roof over the front promenade. The tall, wooden doors were shut, the temple sleeping.

To my left, beneath the obelisk, a cascade of stone steps beckoned us to rest. Nobody existed in this whole city for a few minutes longer. Only us. The thought was so familiar, like a well-worn pair of pants or my favorite slippers. There was comfort in these thoughts. You and me. Like always .

A few windows in the buildings that framed the square had bright yellow light pouring out. The sky was beginning to brighten on the left side once we sat on the steps and faced the temple.

"So?" Rafael asked. "What is it that you can't sell?"

My cheeks heated. I never should have mentioned it. "Oh, just some story. What about you? How's work?"

Rafael held my gaze for a long time as if debating whether to press me to answer or not. He could if he wanted to. Sometimes, he was like the ocean. Slow and steady but more powerful than any force of nature. The question I asked him hurt me more than I was willing to admit, but it was better than telling him about the work I had been doing. This job of his had been a turning point for us. I had cursed Rome and all the travelers of this world when they had offered it to him.

Rafael yielded and shrugged. "It's a job."

"Not a dream come true, then?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral. I had no right to feel vindicated. My brain knew it, but my heart didn't.

"Dreams are overrated," Rafael said and lifted the bottle. "They never come true."

"Oh, great," I said as if learning this fact just now. I accepted the bottle to wash down the bitter taste of that truth. "Are you looking for something else? "

"Not really," Rafael said. "I…" He put his hands together, elbows on his knees, and gazed at the Pantheon. "The thing is, it's almost everything I could have wished for. Do you know how rare that is? Of course you do. So when I find myself having to physically force myself to sit down and write up a piece or edit someone's work, I feel hopeless. Like, if this doesn't make me happy, what will?"

I knew the feeling. For a decade, sketching and writing had been all I had wanted to do. It had begun with Rafael introducing me to the art form, but it had grown into my most precious skill and the hottest passion. Yet there were days when I felt sick with doubt and boredom with my own work.

I would never admit this aloud to Rafael, but there were times when I believed that my ability to write and illustrate my books was directly tied to my hope of seeing him again.

"It makes me wonder if I'd made all the wrong choices," he said.

I held my tongue for a little while longer. How scary was that? No choice had ever seemed so grand and monumental, yet each altered your course slightly until you found yourself in a place you had never imagined existed.

"Tell me," Rafael said. "Your silence is intriguing."

I blew out a breath of air and drank another mouthful of wine. "It's this…story."

"Is it, now?" he teased.

"If you can imagine." I shot him a playful look, and we shared a quiet laugh. Holding my breath again, I knew I had to tell him. "I started it as something on the side during the first lockdown."

"You never said," Rafael pointed out, only a trace of hurt in his voice.

I rolled my shoulders. There were many things I had never said aloud. "I wasn't ready." And that was true for all I had kept unsaid. I handed him the bottle and stood up, stretching my legs and doing my best not to appear like I was pacing with anxiety. "It was supposed to be an epic story spanning years and years of these two people's lives. These two boys found each other in the strangest places all across the Galactic Empire. One's a scavenger, flying his clunky old ship around the stars; the other is a prince, running from an arranged marriage. They each get so entangled with their own lives, but after a while, it becomes clear that they are revolving around one another. There are these moments when they meet, and their entire lives change because of it."

Rafael scratched the back of his head as he got up. He knew he was the prince. A half-smile on his lips confirmed it, but concern was clear in his dark eyes. "Why can't you sell it? It sounds like a fantastic idea."

I blinked, shrugged, tilted my head left and right. I didn't want to say it. Not when it was so obviously us . But Rafael gazed at me with curiosity and patience. I could remember times when his patience was so infinite that it annoyed me, especially when I was running out of mine. "They don't like the ending."

"Ah," Rafael said .

I didn't need to tell him more. He knew my story didn't end happily, something a seasoned editor would have insisted on. Something I no longer believe in .

"Of course, you aren't willing to compromise," Rafael said.

A sliver of spite rose through my body. "And ruin a perfect story? No."

"It's a story," Rafael said. "Why not give it the ending people want?"

"Life doesn't give us what we want," I replied.

Rafael sucked his teeth. "That's silly. You're not protective of a story you believe in. You're hurt and too stubborn to admit it. You're denying it the happy ending because you don't think you deserve one."

"There's no need to psychoanalyze me," I replied coldly.

"I'm not," he said. "I just don't like seeing you sabotage yourself."

"I believe it would cheapen the story," I said. I had believed it, too, until the moment I said the words aloud. They felt like a lie.

"How much fan mail did you receive when you finished Elysian Nights ?" he asked.

I didn't reply. He knew how I had been flooded with the outpouring of love. Readers had gotten what they had wanted the most. They saw their beloved boys go through heaven and hell, quite literally, before sealing their eternal love. But that was while I still believed in eternal love.

"I know you, Luke," Rafael said. "You're making a statement, and you know it. "

I narrowed my eyes in annoyance. "And what is my statement?"

"Love dies," he said flatly. "So don't even hope for a happy ending."

A shudder passed through me, and I clenched my teeth. "You're wrong. My point is that just because something is good, you have no right to expect it'll last forever."

Rafael was silent for a little while, the expressions shifting on his face. He tensed, relaxed, and then gave in. Stepping closer to me, we turned toward Piazza Navona. "Did we enjoy it while it lasted?"

"I did," I said without any need to think about my answer.

"Mm." He nodded. We stepped forward slowly, and his arm brushed against mine. I wished I'd gotten up to hug him when he appeared by my bench, but it was too late now—way too late to hold him close. "I did, too."

"Even the fights?" I asked.

Rafael whistled and then grinned. "Even the fights."

They had never been nasty, but they had been passionate. Those days were hard on the strongest of people, and I had never made the mistake of thinking I was strong. The mental toll had already been high without attempting to handle a long-distance relationship when nobody knew how long travel would be banned.

"You were such a romantic back then," Rafael said.

"We both were." But we learned better.

Our fights often led to some interesting, long- distance peacemaking. Romance and passion couldn't be tamed by such trivial things as lockdowns.

"And do you know what?" Rafael asked as he passed through a street that opened into Piazza Navona with its huge obelisk in the middle and pastel buildings framing it into a long rectangle. "I think you still are, but you're embarrassed by it."

It wouldn't have angered me like this if it wasn't at least a little true. "Why would I be embarrassed?"

"Because you think it's for the weak," Rafael said. This was amusing to him. "You think it's lame, don't you?"

"If you really need to know, I think it's a nice idea," I said coolly. "It just doesn't work."

"Because we broke up?" Rafael asked pointedly, hanging his canvas backpack over his shoulders. He gave me the last of the wine. I drank it. "Or because you couldn't get into anyone you met after?"

"I couldn't get into them because we didn't work out, Rafael," I said. "I hate to admit it, but nobody knows me this well."

"That's part of the conundrum," he said. "When you get to know someone, things change."

He knew the worst of me. And the best of me, I hoped.

I tossed the empty bottle into the glass recycling can and crossed my arms to face him. Dawn was brightening up the clear blue sky above us. The new day was here. "I heard it said once that the more intimately you know someone, the more you dislike them."

I would have laughed at that once. I would have called it impossible to dislike something about Rafael. Of course, he wasn't talking about the visceral dislike you had for someone. This was much more subtle. Like the way I disliked his calm acceptance of things or how he wouldn't let himself be baited into a fight as if that was beneath him. Those were qualities in a person, yet to live with them was a challenge I hadn't been prepared for.

"I enjoy you," I said in a way someone might state a philosophical problem. It almost made me laugh, although this tight feeling in my stomach wasn't amusement at all. "There's never a time I don't enjoy you, Rafael." So how come I couldn't be your boyfriend for a day longer? I didn't ask the question, but my tone implied enough that Rafael would understand.

"I enjoy you, Luke," he said simply, stepping toward me.

A sniff escaped me. "If I could stop, that would solve everything."

"Solve what?" he asked.

"Everything," I repeated as if raising my voice made it any clearer. "My life's been a mess for the last…I don't even know. Ten years? That sounds about right. It feels like everything that should have happened one way ended up happening another way or to someone else. It's like what you said when we were on that fortress. Remember?"

He nodded. He remembered everything. "I'm cursed."

It definitely felt like it.

"Curses can be broken, Luke," Rafael said softly .

I shook my head uncertainly. "Even if we're destined to keep coming back?" I asked. It took more courage than I had known I had in store to flirt with the idea of eternity. Could we fathom a lifetime of getting pulled apart? Even after I had broken his heart and shattered his dreams? "What happened with that neighbor you had?" I asked abruptly when Rafael's eyes glinted with something like hope.

He raised his eyebrows and shared a controlled smile. "Christopher? Funny you should ask. We spoke less than a month ago."

"You stayed in touch?" I asked.

"I stay in touch with everyone," Rafael said.

That was true. Even when there were year-long gaps, he never forgot anyone or anything. One thing I had learned about him over and over was that Rafael wasn't just a charmer. He was genuinely the nicest guy, the cheerleader, the supporter. In a world where everyone felt like a Frodo and exclaimed how they needed a Sam, Rafael was people's Sam.

"So?" I asked.

"You'll never believe it," Rafael said with an air of satisfaction. "Last fall, a whole bundle of letters arrived at his address. He's lived there for over fifty years, so plenty of people knew his address. It's just that these were sent from a retirement home in upstate New York. It turned out a nurse found these letters on a resident's desk, added the sender's address, and mailed them without realizing they were the resident's memorabilia, not the actual mail. And wouldn't you guess it? The man in the retirement home, Christopher, had written them over fifty years ago, pouring out his heart onto the pages, and never sent them. The ocean between them was too big, and Christopher was too scared to hope for something good to come from sending the letters. But he kept them all those years, hid them from his family—apparently, he married his best friend, and they spent many happy years together, had children, and even grandchildren before she died—and took them to the retirement home. Henry wrote back a letter, and Christopher's grandson soon flew to London to meet Henry. About a month later, Henry returned to New York for the first time since the moon landing. And then he kept returning." Something glimmered in Rafael's eyes when he said these last words. He let out a soft chuckle. "They got married two months ago."

It felt like a punch by an invisible fist. Half a century? Was that how long I would have to wait?

As soon as a wave of self-centeredness passed through me, I knew how wonderful this was. Someone in this world had gotten their happy ending. I celebrated it even as I felt like it should have been me. When would it be my turn?

Rafael tucked his hands inside his pockets and turned away on his heels. "This here is Piazza Navona, one of the most beautiful squares in all of Rome. Under it are the remains of an ancient circus, and the square is much newer than that."

"I know where we are," I said.

"Of course," Rafael agreed. "It's an iconic place."

"My hotel is here," I said softly, a rising need pulling me toward him. I stepped carefully as if I were walking on clouds and couldn't tell when I would step off and fall to Earth.

Rafael looked at me suddenly. "Really? Why'd you let me lead us here?"

"I didn't," I said. "Stars led us."

"Like always," he agreed.

I held a breath of air for a little while, then lifted my chin bravely. "Do you want to take a break at my place?"

"Do you want me to?" Rafael said. And when I narrowed my eyes at him answering a question with a question, he grinned. "Because I do. I always do."

My heart lifted, and my fingers trembled. It seemed like there was such a thing as happy endings. Fifty years too late, perhaps, but they arrived. What were two years compared to half a century? In the time I had broken our hearts, not much had happened. Yet the last time Christopher and Henry had been together, the entire world looked completely different.

"Come," I said, giving him my hand.

He took it, but he didn't follow me. Instead, he pulled me into his arms, and I felt like a dead man who had just returned to life. Blood filled my body again, my pulse returned, heat chased off the deathly cold inside me, and my lungs filled with air.

I missed your scent.

I missed your arms around me.

I missed your soft, sexy lips on mine.

One by one, he gave me all the things I missed. When he kissed me, there under the dawn light in an empty square, I wanted to cry and laugh and fly away. I wanted us to look into Medusa's eyes and turn to stone. I wanted us to remain in this embrace forever.

If only there were such a thing as forever.

I didn't know what would come next, but his kisses were enough to soothe that deep ache. Maybe, for once, I didn't need to have my entire life promised to me. Maybe I just needed this one kiss.