“I’m going to Las Vegas,” Orok says into my neck. “And I’m going to play pro rawball, and you’re going to stay here and change the world at Clawstar and be dopily, crazily in love with Thio. We’re going to be so happy, Seb.”
I sob into his shoulder. “Gods, you oaf,shut up. I can’t handle this. I love you, too, you absolute asshole.”
Orok stills.
Then heloses it.
Great hiccupping rolls of laughter, his body heaving.
I peel back from him, my sobs turning to helpless laughter, too, and he snorts and cries; we’re a mix of blotchy faces and snot and emotion.
We settle, end up on the couch, and I tell him what I said to Thio. What Thio said to me.
“You know he wasn’t going behind your back when he looked into their names,” Orok says. He’s sagged into the cushions, body deflating. He’d been carrying the news about the Chimeras for too long.
I twist to frown at him. “But I asked him not to.”
“You asked him not to get involved with them, and he didn’t. But he wanted to know who they were. I get that. He wanted to make sure he isn’t inadvertently nice to them, and after spending his whole life genuflecting to all those assholes? I can see how that was a last straw for him. Check your phone.” Orok elbows me.
“What?”
“Check your phone. Is he trying to apologize?”
I pull my phone out of my pocket and tap the screen. My background is a picture of me and Thio, a selfie we took at a date I set up for us, an outdoor concert on the river. The song that’d been playing was folksy and sad, all about yearning, but in the photo, I’m beaming at the camera and Thio’s grinning, his face pressed to the side of mine.
There aren’t any notifications. But I haven’t reached out to him yet either.
Are we letting each other cool off?
No. Weareletting each other cool off.
I pull up his text thread. It’s relatively empty. We’re usually together, at the lab during the day or his place at night; we rarely have to text each other because we’ve made a habit out of always being near one another, and I hadn’t realized how easily that habit reshaped my life.
I tap out a text to him.
THIO
I’ll come to your place tonight. We both have things we need to say before tomorrow.
LikeI love you. I’m so in love with you. I’m sorry I didn’t see how much you were hurting, but we’ll get through this together. Gods, please, let us get through this together.
Before I can convince myself to toss my phone on the coffee table, three dots pop up. Then his response.
THIO
Not tonight. I’m sorry. I need some time.
I sit bolt upright. Orok’s beside me, so he reads Thio’s response, and hums.
“He’s only asking for time,” Orok tries. “You both said some hurtful things. Him especially. He’s probably kicking himself for what he did, and—”
“But he doesn’t have to be.” I stand and get halfway to the door—
—when Orok scoops me up and flops me back onto the couch.
“What the fuck!” I gawk up at him,pissed.
He points a threatening finger at me. “Do not go storming over to his place when all he asked you for was time. Didn’t you just getangry when you thought he went against something you asked him to do?”
