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“She wrung me out like laundry,” Evemer said. He all but collapsed onto one of the window seats.
Kadou was giving him guilty, sidelong glances. “My fault?” he asked. “I can—last night—I shouldn’t have pushed—”
“You didn’t,” Evemer said firmly, because if thoughts like that started getting into Kadou’s fool head then Evemer was never going to be able to weed them all out again. He forced words onto his tongue. “Disagreement over semantic interpretation doesn’t mean I didn’t . . . you know.” He refused to let himself blush or squirm. He stared hard at the other side of the room.
“Spell it out, please.”
Dammit. He braced himself. “I liked it, I just think you are wrong and that it would have counted as sex,” he said all at once, before his stubborn tongue could decide to swallow the words. Charging forward stubbornly against all his better judgment, he added, “Anyway, going to be unburdened wasn’t about that. I may go to speak to her again. I haven’t decided if it was good for me or not.”
“Can you say that first part again?” Kadou said. Evemer finally looked over at him. His expression had eased, and there was a faint wry smile around the corners of his mouth.
“I liked it?”
“Oh, that part was good too, but the bit right after.”
“I think you’re wrong?”
Kadou’s smile broadened. “You could have just argued with me in the moment, you know.”
“About whatcounts?” Evemer stared incredulously at him. “All of it counts!”
“Kissing doesn’t, apparently, or we’re already in trouble. In practice it’s all shades of grey, but legally and theologically it’s worded like there’s some kind of definite boundary between black and white, so . . .” He shrugged one shoulder. “I thought there might be something that would go right up to that line and stop just short of it. That’s what I meant by loopholes.”
The blush that Evemer had been so valiantly keeping back flamed onto his face. Kadou was right—he should have argued in the moment, because then it would have been dark and warm and he could have buried his face in Kadou’s hair when the conversation got this mortifying. Instead, he was stuck having it in broad daylight across a breakfast table. “I asked her about an annulment,” he said. “A few hours at the temple, no paperwork.” His throat tightened. “We can go at your convenience.”
Kadou looked away suddenly and occupied himself with the food, smearing jam across a piece of toast far more meticulously than toast usually required. “Yes. Yes, well. Unfortunately, I’m told that my calendar for at least the next week or so is too full to block off that much time. I tried bribing Tadek to find a way, and he said it couldn’t be done for love or money.” Kadou gave him, or perhaps the toast, an apologetic half smile. “It’s terrible timing for a festival week, isn’t it? I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, I understand. Your time is not your own at the moment.”
Of course Evemer wasn’t going to object. The sweet, insistent gravity of desire had not disappeared or abated, but there were moments now and again when it was eclipsed by a greater, keener want—the yearning to hold on to Kadou for just a day or two longer and to carry the name Mahisti-es in his pocket like a small and secret treasure, the longing to pretend just for another handful of minutes that Kadou was or could ever be Evemer’s, the way that Evemer already was his and suspected he always would be. “Let me know, then, and I’ll send word to her.”
“I will. Thank you for being patient. Would you like something to eat?”
He joined Kadou at the table, indulging in another piece of poor self-discipline by sitting beside him rather than across the table, and helped himself to coffee. Kadou shifted to bump their knees together under the table. “What are you doing?” Evemer said gruffly.
“Flirting with you,” Kadou said. Evemer blushed. “I thought I’d give it another shot.”
“No need to flirt,” Evemer replied softly. “Except to amuse yourself.”
“You don’t want me to?”
“I don’t mean that.”
“What do you mean, then?”
Evemer wished badly, again, that he could be having this conversation in the dark. “That I’m a sure thing.”
Kadou leaned a little closer to him. “Oh, are you?”
“I told you before.”I don’t expect that I’m going to stop wanting you.
Kadou’s eyes were sparkling. “So I don’t need to flirt at all?” He touched Evemer’s chest with one finger, hooked it between two buttons. Evemer swayed halfway forward at the slightest pull. “How am I supposed to get you to kiss me if I don’t flirt?”
“A snap of your fingers and a word,” he said. Another might have said it with a smile. Evemer’s voice was low and deadly serious.
“You make it sound so easy.”
Evemer’s blood sang. “How many more ways would you have me swear myself to you before you understand?”
