Silas
Actually, maybe Zane’s the press you should be talking to.
Seven
What do you mean?
Silas
I mean, they’re not going to stop harassing you. Maybe Zane could be your public facing voice. He knows how to spin things in a way that’s just truthful enough to keep the public on our side. It could be beneficial.
Seven
I’ll ask Enzo.
Ever
You mean your boyfriend Enzo?
Nico
You folded like a cheap card table. You’ve been bitching about Enzo every day for the last eight months. Enzo this. Enzo that. And now you’re throwing around the word boyfriend.
Seven absently noted the water shutting off, but still attempted to defend himself.
Seven
It was just a slip. I didn’t mean it. I’ve had a trying day. Don’t be mean to me.
Movement from the corner of his eye snagged his attention. Enzo, his hair wet and wavy, a white towel slung low around his hips. Water droplets still clung to all that ink and muscle.
Seven
Gotta go. Don’t wait up.
He closed his phone to a dozen dancing dots, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to sit on the edge, eyes roaming greedily, trying to take in every bit of skin available to him. Enzo’s ink was a canvas of contradictions—all sacred relics and sacrilege. The last time he’d had Enzo this bare, Seven was too far gone to appreciate his beauty. But not this time.
From his throat to his ankles, saints mourned and martyrs burned, painted in bold lines and vivid colors. In the mirror behind Enzo, Lucifer curled down his spine, beautiful and broken, wings spanning his broad shoulders as he watched over a ribcage lined with thieves and saints, their eyes hollow, their halos cracked. A sacred heart flared over his real one, pierced and blazing beside the Virgin Mary, who clutched a rosary made of tiny skulls.
Even the few bits of negative space felt deliberate, like they were simply waiting their turn. Enzo looked less like a man and more like a gothic cathedral, but it suited him.
“My eyes are up here,” Enzo teased.
“But your tummy’s down here,” Seven shot back, reaching out and pulling Enzo in by the knot of his towel.
He recognized some of the famous religious works. Unlike Nico, Seven had excelled in art history. And Enzo was a living, breathing museum. Michaelangelo. Caravaggio. Hieronymus Bosch. They were all there, their broken saints and fallen angels splashed across his skin. On Enzo’s body, religion didn’t look like salvation, but the opposite. Seven couldn’t stop himself from reaching up to trace his fingertips over the words written in fancy script across his side.
Coram Deo, in tenebris.
“Before God, in darkness,” he murmured.“Very dramatic. Very villainous.”
Enzo chuckled. “Of course, you speak Latin.”
“I’m a law student. It comes in handy,” Seven said. “And don’t change the subject. Why are all your tattoos so…dark? Did you have an emo phase or something?”
He laughed a little at the idea of Enzo in all black with guyliner, a lip ring, and scene hair.
“Are you laughing at me?” Enzo asked, though he seemed to be enjoying the attention.
