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“Well…you could…I don’t know!”
“Well, I’m not.” Tir looped one long leg around Ollie’s waist. “Can we return to the bit about your hands and being artistic, please?”
“No,” Ollie said. “Not yet. When? Who?”
“We’re talking about this now? Right now? Oh, fine. The first one was that very nice Home Guardsman with the shoulders, about a decade ago. You remember which one; you appreciated the shoulders too, and Cedric liked him also, not that he noticed, because that would’ve been far too young. I wanted to know about some things, and I wanted you, and you were busy falling in love with Lady Caroline that winter and writing bad poetry which you then asked me to deliver because you were too embarrassed. And I was seventeen and suffering from a lot of feelings. He’s married now, by the way; his husband’s a University lecturer, rather amusingly also specializing in poetry.”
“On behalf of a much younger and much more foolish person—who didn’t realize he already had the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him—I’m sorry again.”
“About the poetry? I used to correct your spelling before I delivered them. And it made you so happy that she liked sappy rhymes about her eyes and the skies and the moon and June, and I like seeing you happy, Ollie.”
Oliver, tangled up in bed with his fairy-prince magic-destined soon-to-be husband, forgot how to answer, aware that he was grinning enormously, chest aching like a treasure-box had spilled glittering if sharp-edged gold inside him.
“I didn’t tell you because you were preoccupied and because we both knew—Eric and I, I mean—” Ollie figured out belatedly that this meant the Guardsman. With the shoulders. He conceived an instant irrational dislike of Eric and Eric’s shoulders. “—that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. I knew my future, or I thought I did—”
Oliver kissed his nose for that.
“—thank you, and I’m glad I’m here too. I do like it when you kiss me. So that was me, and Eric wanted to eventually settle down and have an uneventful domestic life and a family. But we liked each other and it felt good and that was enough. In any case, that was the first.”
“First.”
“Of…three? Four. Three. I’m not sure how you count that one. Those two.”
“Two,” Ollie echoed.
“Yes…you know the Splendid Mistress Rosalind? The famous minstrel?”
“She comes through Bellemare every autumn on tour,” Ollie said automatically, thinking of ruffled skirts and dark flashing eyes and a voice like honeyed amber; and then his brain caught up. “She’s married!”
“Indeed she is. You’ve met her husband? Her tour manager? With the lovely hands and weakness for terrible puns and wordplay?”
“You did not sleep with her husband—”
“Not exactly—”
“Tirian—”
“Both of them.” Tir widened eyes at him, guileless as a kitten. “At once. Together. Consensually, enthusiastically, and enjoyably.”
Oliver stared at him. His body couldn’t decide whether to be stupefied, impressed, or exceptionally aroused.
Tir added brightly, “It’s an honor, you know. They’re extremely selective about invitations. And we agreed to keep that one quiet; Rosie didn’t want any accusations of fairy magic being used to enhance her voice or performances, and I’ve never wanted anyone to run around sharing stories of having spent a night, or, um, a week every autumn, with not only a fairy but the prince’s companion, so it was easy to not say anything. I might’ve told you if you’d asked, but you didn’t, so I didn’t.”
Ollie said, “There was a time, oh, five minutes ago, when I thought you were a virgin and I was afraid of overwhelming you.” And Tir laughed, quick and fluid as the rain, playful as the carousel of fire in the big stone fireplace, cheering for them.
“I think you still win in terms of quantity,” Tir said a few minutes later, after being kissed into blissful temporary wordlessness and partially divested of robe and undershirt, rumpled and glorious. “Anyway it’s all new with you.”
“I love you. No, stay still for a minute, I am going to worry about you and overexertion. I can feel your pulse. Talk to me instead. That was only three. You said four.”
“I’m fine, that was the good sort of being out of breath. Um…who did I not…oh, Fadi.”
“What?!”
“Once! One time! Four years ago, it was your birthday, and we had however many bottles of mead it was in that tavern you like, and then you went off to spend the night with a visiting viscount, so it’s technically your fault!”
“How is that my fault—? He likes women!”
“He has, in the past, primarily but not exclusively liked women,” Tir amended. “He’s not opposed to exploration. Did I mention how many bottles of mead we had? So…that was that. Four.”
