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Jonathan doubled his grip, didn’t move even as the song whirled ahead.
“David.”
Relief. It flooded David visibly, easing the tension he’d carried in his shoulders and hips. He trembled.
Something thick and heavy rushed through Jonathan; he swallowed hard against it and pulled David up before he lost his grip. His eyes stung.
The clapping of small hands forced it back and Jonathan turned sharply to Ben, on his feet, cheering. “Will I be that good?”
“One day.”
“You’ll be better.” David high-fived his brother.
They practiced together, David taking the lead, Ben following. They giggled at missteps and shared hushed words at how they’d better not fool around too much, Mr Ice Prince was watching . . .
By the end of their session, they had a secret handshake.
David waved as Ben bounced off with his mum, telling her vividly all the ways David was cool.
Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Stop preening.”
“Cool, Jonathan. He thinks I’m cool.”
“Nothing you didn’t already know.”
“Knowing it and being told it by your five-year-old bro are completely different.”
Pride glittered in David’s smile. “Do you think we’ll be able to teach him other things?”
As long as David kept coming back. “Like what?”
“Like rowing, horse riding—”
“Well, I will be able to teach him those things.”
David laughed and thwacked his arm. “Then I’ll tell him stories while you’re pulling the oars and reining us in.”
Jonathan looked at him. Nodded and rubbed at his chest. He couldn’t speak; the picture robbed him of words.
“Jonathan?”
“Hm?”
“We need to come up with a post for today’s challenge.”
“Yes.”
“Jonathan?”
“Hm?”
David smiled knowingly. “Did you bake for me again?”
“You had Savvy. I had Nash. We both figured things out . . .” David murmured, gaze flickering to Jonathan’s wrist.
At a deep puddle in the footpath, Jonathan reached out for David, locked a hand instinctively around his wrist as he steered him around it, and he kept hold, knotted leather pressing against the undersides of his fingers. One by one, the roses between them were colouring.
A gulp. Laughter and a change of topic. “The competition’s getting fierce. Only ten of us left. This post has to be something . . . special. Personal.”
Fools in Love? “Shouldn’t be hard.”
“What was that?”
Jonathan marched them up the path to their door. “We’ll figure it out. First, food.”
“Pasteis—”
“After something proper.”
“Microwave lasagne?”
Jonathan turned the key in the door and stepped onto the welcome mat. Savvy’s coat hung on the hook next to another one, dark, damp from rain. Noises came from deep in the house; a voice. Two voices. A grunt—
Jonathan froze, lungs emptying. He stormed down the hall, past David toppling out of his shoes and jerking his head towards him—or maybe those sounds.
He flung open Savvy’s bedroom door. A lamp swayed light over green bedding and a dozen posters.
A hiss. From the next room.
“Are you okay?” Nate.
“Try again.”
His vision dotted with red and black. He lunged for the living room door. An insistent hand grabbed his shoulder, but he shrugged it off and yanked.
Evening glimmered over wooden furniture, soft yellows over the armchair, couch.
A tangle of limbs on the carpet.
Nate. “I’m close.”
He thrust himself forwards. Strong arms strapped around his waist and chest, pulling him back.
A firm body at his back and David’s voice in his ear.
“Stop. Calm down.”
Savvy and Nate scrambled onto their knees, faces flushed.
Jonathan’s muscles seized; David did not let go.
The whisper of a chuckle. “Look again.”
Jonathan blinked. Savvy and Nate were frowning at him, fully clothed. A jagged, bloody line ran across the back of Savvy’s hand.
“What’s going on?” he barked.
Nate shrank onto his haunches.
Savvy rolled their eyes. “Gingernut won’t come out from under the couch.”
Jonathan stared. It took . . . a long time to process. A long time for his veins to settle. For the room to regain its true proportions.
Soil on the carpet, an overturned pot plant, shards of terracotta.
The steadiness of David soaked into him, warm, gentle shifts, not letting go.
He’d held him like this before.
He hadn’t wanted to pull away then, either.
Jonathan gripped David’s slackening arms and held him there. “Savvy, clean that scratch. Nate—”
“I have choir!”
“Go.”
The boy scurried to his feet, awkwardly walked Savvy to the first-aid kit, and fled.
Pebbles of laughter pinged against his nape. “You’re glaring.”
“How can you tell?”
“Everyone flees at that look.”
“Hm.”
“I remember, before we were friends—officially, anyway—you tried so hard to keep me away from you. We existed in two different worlds. Wednesday nights we’d hold hands and push one another’s bodies around to music, and the rest of the time we walked the school halls from opposite ends.”
“I was your teacher. You were an acquaintance.”
“You fired that glare whenever I dared to blur the lines.”
“You never fled.”
Crackled words at the back of his ear. “You never really wanted me to.”
A small mew came from under the couch.
Jonathan gripped David’s wrist and unhooked the latch of his leather band, their initials under his pinched fingers. He dropped to peer under the couch, flat on his belly, arm stretched into the darkness. “Come on, Bastet. Come.”
