Page 83 of Nine-Tenths

You're mad at him, remember? I remind myself, tearing my eyes away from the kids before my staring gets creepy.You're worried about him, and scared for him, and you should not bethinking about how baby dragons are born. You are getting lightyears ahead of yourself, Colin. How about you figure out where the two of you stand before you start thinking about spawn. Spawn that, may I remind me, you did not want with Rebeckah, which is what tanked your proposal before it even began.

I'm starting to think that Dav's PA is some kind of mind reader, because she says: "He's in the library. Third door on the right." She jerks her chin at a hallway off the back of the kitchen.

"Thanks. Uh, bye small humans."

They chorus a jumbled "bye!" at me.

It’s another wood-paneled affair that has seen some modernization, but not too recently. 1970s, I'd say, by the carpets.

"Of course there’s a library," I mutter to myself, peering into each of the rooms I pass: a pokey, plasticky '80s bathroom, and a meticulously tidy and '60s era office complete with black leather club chairs and crystal bar set.

The third door is a heavy beast of a thing polished to a high shine and probably original to the house. I ease it open.

This isn't a library. Libraries are tidy, carefully curated, with shelves that have been dusted, and lamps with stained glass shades. Libraries are neat gardens of literature.

Thisis a jungle. These books tower, they weave, they fill the space, climb to the ceiling, tilt. There must be shelves under all of the books somewhere, but I don't see any as I pick my way around a tumble of leather-bound tomes that surround the door.

"Hello? Dav?" The books swallow my words.

"Over here." Dav's voice floats out from behind one of the groves of paper and ink.

There’s a narrow path cleared through the mess, and I follow that around a corner. Dav is standing in a shaft of syrupy late-afternoon sunlight, and I know enough about the bastard thatit's clear he planned it that way. More of his Old Hollywood Charm nonsense. He slides his gaze, glowing gold in the dramatic lighting, to my feet. This surprises me, until this gaze skims all the way up to meet mine, and I realize he's disquieted.

This isn't a slow, sexy eyefuck.

He's checking, piece-by-piece, that I'm all there.

Guilt springs across his face when his eyes land on the pin, then camps in a furrow between his eyes. I've never seen that furrow before. He's always been a sort of perpetually youthful late-twenties, but now he looks old and exhausted in a way I've never seen him before. It's not just the way the chiaroscuro of the sun carves heavy lines in the corners of his eyes, or the bruises under them. It's something more. The not-quite-a-dimple is so deep.

I want to kiss the frown away.

I don't move. I don't know how welcome I am.

To be honest, Ihadn'timagined what it would be like to reunite. I think a part of me genuinely believed we never would. That Dav would stay away—either because he'd been made to, or because he wanted to—and I would get old, and be forgotten, and die. He's a dragon. He could ignore a human until he simply outlives them easily, if he wanted to. He's already outlived every human he's ever known. Multiple times.

Yet here he is, standing in a shaft of light that's slowly inching away, dropping him into the cool evening darkness. He’s rightthere.

But also... not.

This Dav isn’t therightone.

He’s worn. He’s weary. He’s heavy with silence. He's wearing plain black pants, and a plain white shirt, with a plain black waistcoat. He looksboring. He's not even wearing fun socks, just a pair of worn-in, period-drama slippers. He matches his house.

I hate it.

He looks desperately unhappy. I thought he'd atleastbe pleased to seeme. That feeling twists up inside me again, the one that's squirmy and acidic. The one that's kind of rage (but I'm not sure who it's directed at) and kind of misery (but I don't know what for), and kind of like a scream that's just waiting for me to breathe deep enough to give it life.

"Hullo, Colin," he says softly, when we've both looked our fill.

Dav's voice is, at least, still as wonderfully rich, his accent as strange and comforting. I half expected his voice to be thin and reedy, aged a century in the time he's been away, to match his eyes.

"Hello, Dav."

I reach into my blazer pocket and pull out a gift. It's a paper bag of his dragon-roasted coffee beans, crumpled and mostly-empty, with just enough left in it for one pot.

Dav steps forward, slowly, to take it. The sensitive insides of our index fingers brush, and I don't repress the shudder at the touch of his dragon-warm skin. His nostrils flare. It feels so good to be close to him again.

I want to be closer.