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“We’re still in neutral. You’re just going to drift slightly.”
“But what if you get left behind?”
Leo’s face went through a series of contortions so peculiar I thought he might be having a stroke. But then I realised he was trying not to laugh, and I wished hewashaving a stroke. “I tell you what, 007. If you escape with my narrowboat, you can keep it and the briefcase full of diamonds.”
“What about the plans for the space laser?”
“Those too.”
And then he leapt easily to the towpath and began undoing the front and back mooring lines, casting them up onto the roof like an extremely apathetic cowboy. It occurred to me I might miss watching him. There was nothing so very special about the way he moved, except when he was being fucked and he became wild and giving and sinuous. It was more about his…I suppose it was a kind of confidence. Not showy, not even particularly sexy. Just quiet and at ease, like he was used to relying on himself. Trusting himself. When I had been clumsy all my life. Seeking my sureties in art and sex. Control that could be mine and still, sometimes, brought me comfort. Even when I knew it shouldn’t.49
Could I actually make pierogi? Mum and Dad had taught me when I was growing up. Taught me several times, in fact, because, uninterested, I had refused to pay attention.
Having stowed away the mooring pins, Leo was using the centre line to control the boat as he pushed the bow away from the bank. The sense of drifting—whether it was physical or visual or some hocus-pocus of the inner ear, I couldn’t tell—gave me the oddest sense of vertigo. Followed by an exhilaration disproportionate to both the speed and distance travelled.
“Phew,” said Leo as he stepped aboard the mildly diagonal boat. “Made it.”
“Someone wants to end up in the river again.”
He gave me a distinctly lascivious look. “If we had enough water for a shower and it went like last time, I wouldn’t mind.”
Turning, I put a hand upon his waist and drew him close. For a moment, all was sky and water and Leo’s eyes, and I floated between them, beautifully lost. “You realise we can do that at any time. The freezing and drowning part is optional.”
“Marius.” Leo’s laugh was a choked-off thing as he twisted away from me. “You’re leaving, remember.”
I was. “I am.”
“Then don’t do this.”
“Do what?” I asked, even though I knew. “Flirt? I wasn’t lying when I said I had fun.”
“You’re trying to hurt me.”
“That’s a rather scathing indictment of my hand-job technique.”
He took a step back—something he did with perfect understanding of his surroundings and no subsequent disasters. “I’ve already said I want you to stay, and you’ve said you don’t want to. Unless there’s something else for us to talk about?”
It dangled there, like a thread partially unravelled from a ball of yarn. All I had to do was reach out and take it. I shook my head, fatally and forever stubborn. “No.”
“Then I’m going to take you up to Folly Bridge.” Leo indicated the throttle. “The engine’s plenty warm. Turn her on.”50
“Not the sort of instruction I ever imagined being party to,” I murmured. But I couldn’t even amuse myself.
I pushed the lever as Leo directed, the engine thrashed a little harder, and the boat swung towards the centre of the river.
“Oh God,” I yelped. “What do I do?”
Leo slid an arm behind me, catching me by the wrist and drawing my right hand to the tiller. “It’s fine. Just take your time.”
“We could crash.”
“We could, and I have, and it’s embarrassing. But at this speed, it’s hard to cause any actual damage.”
“Right.”
“Also, this is a straight, wide river. If you manage to hit anything, I’ll be pretty impressed.” Leo’s fingers fit themselves over mine—guiding but not controlling. “Relax your grip. Small adjustments are all you need. She’ll take a moment or two to respond, and that’s okay. You’ll always have plenty of time.”51
I, too, took a moment or two to respond, the tension gradually fading from my body as I got used to the rumbling purr of theengine and the gentle glide of the boat across the water. Leo’s hand was cold from the weather, but his body—pressed to my side as he half embraced me to reach the tiller—was warm. And it was familiar warmth from having held him, and been held by him, and lain beside him, and kissed him in ways you shouldn’t kiss a stranger. In ways I didn’t often kiss anyone.
