Page 116 of Hamartia

He laughs. “Sing for me,Mr. Rockstar.”

I give him one last stupid smile and then I switch the tempo, slowing it down so that the chords shorten and my fingers have to pluck rather than strum. Then I sing for him. I thought I wouldn’t be able to look at him while I did it. While I sang about being lost and found in a foreign place. How needing is so very different from wanting. How green tea reminds me of him.

But I find out quickly that I can’t lookawayfrom him. My eyes trace over every inch of his face; dark eyes warmed by the wine and the fire, pink full mouth licked wet, the stretch of his pale throat disappearing under his top, nipples faintly visible. His hip dips inward before rounding out around a perfect thigh, teasing smooth supple flesh. His soft smile mirrors my own for the opening verse, and the bridge, but then his expression changes. And because I’m watching him so closely, I see his throat move as he swallows. The sweet kiss of a smile melting away into something darker and heavier, seeping into his eyes like a rain cloud across the sky. He stands up and then he’s gone from the room in a flash.

I stop playing immediately. I still had another verse to go.

A door closes down the hall and I sit and contemplate the lyrics I’ve just sung, combing through it for anything he might have taken offence to. Anything insulting. There’s nothing. So I conclude that it’s the fact I wrote him a song at all. Maybe he thought it would be fun and then when it turned out to be sickeningly sincere he just couldn’t handle it. I don’t blame him. I reach across to sit the guitar back in its case and take up my red wine, gulping the last of it back down as I try to figure out what to do.

He’s been gone about ten minutes when I decide I can’t wait this out. My insides are gnawing me to the bone. I wander down the hall in the direction he went. There’s a faucet running in the main bathroom, light spilling out from under the thick wooden door. I rap it softly with my knuckles.

“You okay?” I ask through it. “I’m not sure what happened there. Sorry if I embarrassed you.”

He says nothing.

“I’d love to say it won’t happen again but I can’t make that promise. I’m embarrassing as fuck when I’m this into a person.”

Still nothing. I press my ear against it.

“Jae? Can you unlock the door?”

“It is unlocked,” he says after a moment.

He’s sitting on the floor between the tub and the sink, back pressed against the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest. His hair is pushed back from his face, and though he isn’t looking in my direction I can see his cheeks are red and splotchy. Tear stained.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

Jae turns to glare at me. Then he waves a hand in the direction of the living room.

“You cannot…do things like that,” he says, voice quiet and angry.

“Things like…?” I need to know so I can expressly prevent myself doing them ever again.

“That. You just cannot…”

He wipes the back of his hand across his face and even this is done angrily. But when he looks at me again, I see it. He’s not angry, not really. The anger is hiding something else, something bigger. Fear. He’s shit fucking scared.

I go towards him immediately and lower myself to the floor across from him.

“Talk to me, baby. Tell me what you’re scared of.”

He squeezes his eyes closed and takes a huge breath, but he doesn’t talk.

“Or did you just really hate the song? It’s cool if you did—not everyone likes my song writing.”

It’s said lightly, with a small suggestion of playfulness. It earns me another glare, incendiary in its intensity. It’s distracting because he looks fucking gorgeous with his pink cheeks and glittering eyes. His mouth is shaped into an angry pink pout and it takes all of my strength not to lean in and kiss it.

“I thought it was going to be…funny.” He sniffles, giving me a wide-eyed serious sort of look. “You really wrote thatfor me? About me?”

I nod and he launches himself at me, climbing into my lap.

“I hate you,” he says quietly against my neck.

“I don’t think you do.” I press a kiss against his cheek.

He’s trembling when he pulls back to look at me.

“I am scared, Raphael,” he says in a small voice.