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“Yeah.”

“He may return.”

“Yeah.”

“We should wait.”

“Yeah.”

“Lex.”

“What?”

“You are shaking.”

I was, a little, though I hadn’t noticed.

“It’s adrenaline,” I said. My voice was rough.

“Is it?”

I turned around.

There wasn’t much room to do it. The gap was too narrow. So I ended up with my back against the cold cinderblock and his chest an inch from mine, and his hands on either side of my head, and his face, that pale, ancient, beautiful face, bent down to me with the ghost of a question in it.

His eyes were dark. There was a red ring around the pupils, as thin as a hair.

“I would like to ask you something,” he said.

“Ask.”

“Whether you would like me to step back.”

I thought about it. I gave it the honest, careful thought it deserved.

“No,” I said.

“Then whether you would like me to kiss you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like that a lot.”

“Good,” said Maksim, and did.

It was slow and tender and tasted like snow. I made a small noise into his mouth, and my hands came up to fist in his shirt, and he made one back, low in his chest, and the whole dark, narrow, ridiculous space seemed to ring with it. His thumb stroked my jaw, and I felt the world tilt, then settle, then tilt all over again.

We kept it up until my knees went, and the lockers creaked, and somewhere overhead a pipe knocked twice and made us both jump.

He pulled back first. He always did.

“Not here,” he said, against my forehead.

“No.”

“There may be another camera.”

“There’s definitely another camera.”

“I would not like to be found out because you cannot keep your mouth off me.”