Page 43 of Hilarina and the Ogre

It was different to kiss beneath the water with the spray hitting his face and running into his throat. Trenton’s mouth also felt different, but not so much that he couldn’t still recognize it. They stayed there, in that crumbling tub, until the shaking stopped. There were no towels, so Trenton sacrificed his shirt to dry him before dressing him back in his clothes. But Hilary didn’t want to dress.

“We have the blanket in the car,” Trenton tried to say.

“No.” Hilary was still trying to kiss him. He didn’t see why he should stop just because his ogre was being unreasonable. “Stay like this and bite me. Take a bite.”

Trenton laughed—the surprised laugh. “And swallow you down?”

“Yes.”

Trenton’s smile was in their kiss. “I can’t. I’d miss you too much.”

It was a good point. A real conundrum.

“I’m scared.”

“Because it’s new?”

“Because it could end.”

“It can’t,” Trenton promised. “That’s what makes it friendship.”

“We could die.”

“Would you stop loving me then?”

“No.” Maybe that was irrational, but it seemed impossible that anything could stop that.

Trenton eventually broke the kiss. “It’s getting late. You’ll get even colder as you get hungry.”

Hilary didn’t have much of an argument for that, but he tried anyway. “I don’t want to.”

“Do you think it’s this place that’s magic?” Trenton challenged. “It isn’t. I’ve felt this way for you the whole time, and you for me.”

“But what if—” Already, just the thought of leaving, was bringing back the embarrassment. “I could become a coward again.”

"I won't let you,” Trenton promised.

“I might anyway. I'm such a weenie.”

“You aren’t.”

Hilary let his eyes do the challenging. Trenton answered with a kiss. “Then we’ll come back here. We’ll come as much as you like. Mrs. Parson said I was free to do whatever I wanted with the apartment.”

Mrs. Parson was the owner of the bookshop. And also, it seemed, this hovel of an apartment.

"When we live together, will it be like this?" Hilary asked.

Maybe he really was becoming braver. If he could bring up the future like that. It seemed easy suddenly. Like there had never been a reason to be afraid.

"It’ll be better than this. You'll choose everything in our home, and all the things inside it will make you happy.”

“Then it will only need you.”

Trenton sighed. “I’m serious, Hil. If you don't cut it out, you'll regret it. I'll hold you to this standard every day."

But Hilary was too empty-headed to care, a fool in love. “We still haven't had sex.”

"We'll have sex later. Come put your shoes on.”