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I shook my head. “I like working with my hands. Photography is tactile for me.”

Ten minutes later, he tried with “How about we stop and warm up, just for five minutes?”

I pointed vaguely at the sky. It was that lush, perfect ice-cold gray on an overcast winter day that froze your breath right out of your mouth. “Can’t. Light is fading.” I took a few more photos.

Auris sighed. “Next time, I shall let Eva ply you with beer until you cannot hold your camera straight. Ethan, if I see any traces of frostbite on your fingers, I will sling you over my shoulder and carry you back home like a caveman. You have been warned.”

“So long as I can still hit the shutter button right, I’m good.” Though, to be fair to him, I wasn’t as precise as I liked, and I was getting quite cold. But there is a thing you learn about the ephemeral arts, of which photography is certainly one, even though the photos are not.

When a model turns, when they have just that look on their face, when an old cottage hidden in the woods near a seaside town reveals itself in light and darkness, those are not moments that repeat themselves, ever. If we miss the moment, it is gone forever. Nothing will bring it back; not hoping or wishing, not even returning another day.

When time and space and the photographer’s intent overlap in perfect synchronicity, that is when art is born. I took a picture of Auris on Wenceslas Square at twilight, him looking not at me but at the sky, and it would become my favorite picture of him. It’s in a frame now, a big, golden thing, and it hangs in my office instead of the mirror. It’s the expression on his face. It always makes me wonder what exactly he was thinking that day, eyes turned skyward.

19

We made it to the museum eventually. It was almost six by the time we arrived, closing time, and Auris went ahead with entrancing the staff right away. The prospect of getting to explore the place after hours would have almost made me giddy if I hadn’t been so damn cold.

Auris took one look at me and pointed to an archway that branched off to the left of the foyer. “Café, now. They’re going to go into overtime and pour warm tea down your throat until your teeth stop chattering.”

“You’re overprotective,” I said, but the words came out broken. On account of the chattering teeth.

The look he gave me made me fully realize that arguing wouldn’t do me any good here, so I made my way to the café. I could barely even feel my knees.

The café was nice. It had a dino skeleton on display, and childhood me loved that, especially since I soon had a vampire sitting next to me and ordering a selection of three herbal teas.

“I’m getting the best of both worlds.” I pointed at the dino, then at Auris.

He raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“Well, a vampire and a dinosaur. One of the two is a dream everyone has had at least once in their lives.”

Auris rolled his eyes. “Now here we are. The human in my care is suffering from hypothermia and talking nonsense, and I only have myself to blame.”

I chuckled, and while the woman behind the counter boiled the water for all the tea I would be forced to drink, I downloaded an app the museum had. It seemed like a guided audio tour and a floor plan, all rolled into one.

Auris watched me explore the very museum we were sitting in from my screen for a few minutes before he spoke again. “Ethan, I cannot entirely believe we’re here because you want to learn about history and evolution.”

“Well, I do want to see the mammoth.” I showed him on my screen. “But you’re right. I’m more interested in the building. It’s all so big and palatial, such a beautiful place to explore. I wanted to spend some time in a beautiful place with you, just the two of us. It’ll be something special.”

Surprise lifted Auris’s eyebrows, his mouth opening in a silent oh. “This is a date. You’re taking me on a date.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Seemed right. You forget we should be dating. You may have your head in a love prophecy, but I need some dating and a little bit of romance every now and then. I had to take charge.”

Auris stared at me for a good three seconds before I was treated to his melodic laughter, joy softening out his faerie prince features.

“Ethan, my Ethan. I keep seeing your existence as a special thing, the fact that you sleep near me, wake near me, breathe and smile where I can see, but over all that, I forget that you are special. And terribly, terribly sweet.”

I grinned at him. “Yeah, you make a pretty good assistant too.”

The lady who would be forced into overtime unless I got warm quickly brought me the tea Auris had ordered in three large mugs: black tea, chamomile, and sage.

The museum closed up before I managed to finish one of them, but at least by then I’d had a chance to warm my hands on the mugs.

I loosened my scarf. “So about the holidays. I mean, you weren’t in the room for that part of the Zoom call with Dad and Don, but you heard, right?”

He nodded. “You want to stay here and do a video call get-together.”

“And you also heard why?”