Page 70 of Exquisite Things

He tries to pull me up. “Get up. You’re making a scene.”

I resist. Stay on my knee. “Let people look at us. I don’t care. I’m done hiding myself. Done hiding my love for you.”

He looks around. Glimpses disapproving strangers staring at us. “Bram, please.”

“I love you, Oliver. So much that I did the stupidest thing of my life. I don’t know what else to say to make you understand. I love you and I’m sorry and I love you and I’m sorry and I’ll say the words again and again until I drive you mad.”

“Oh, you’ve already driven me mad.” He says those words evenly. Without anger. Something is shifting in him. I feel it. He’s traveling back to the Oliver I once knew. The one who didn’t run away from risk. Who didn’t push me away.

“You’re scared. You’re angry. And you have every right to be. I know you’re still holding on to the past. But all I want to know is if you love me too. Do you?”

He turns his face to the river. It glimmers from the city lights. Then he looks back at me. “I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t.”

I smile. “Then come with me. You’re soaked. You look like you haven’t had a proper meal in weeks.”

I start to walk. He pulls me back. “What will we tell people? They’ll ask how we met. Why we both have eyes that glow.”

“I’ve already told Lily about you. I said we met when I was tutoring in Boston. The eyes... We’ll say that’s why we met. We saw each other in a bar—”

“No, not a bar. A library. We were both reaching for the same book.”

“Wilde!”

“The Picture of Dorian Gray.” He smiles now. He’s enjoying himself. We’re building a story that will belong to us. A lie we’ll share with each other. So then, not a lie. A bond of trust.

“We reached for the book. I snatched it away from you.”

“Of course you did.” He laughs. He switches to a thick British accent. Youarsehole.” Back to his own voice. “Wait, that shop. R. Soles. It’s meant to sound likearseholes, isn’t it?”

“Brits have a cheeky sense of humor. You might like it here.”

“I might.”

I take his hand. Lead him across the bridge toward the South Bank. We’ll walk to Brixton. The rain has stopped. The wind is placid. The ever-changing London weather is telling us the storm has passed. “What happened after I snatched the book away from you?”

He smiles. “I wrestled you to the ground and took it from you.”

“You wrestled me to the ground in a library?” I laugh.

“Okay, fine. No wrestling. I politely asked if I could read the book first?”

“And I said perhaps we could read it together. We sat side by side at a long wooden table and read. You read faster than me, so I would tell you when I was ready for the page to be flipped.”

“We read it aloud to each other.”

“In a library?”

“Yes, in an empty nook of the library.”

“When we finished, we looked into each other’s eyes.”

“And that’s when we realized we’re both part feline.”

“Part feline, I love that.” I pull him closer. “Nine lives.”

“I’ve lived more than nine lives already.”

“No, you’ve only lived one. So have I. It’s all one journey. And it’s led us here.”