My name sounded raw and vulnerable as it left Thallor’s mouth. It sounded like he was releasing some far-off part of himself as he said it. Like I was somehow slipping through his fingers more quickly than he could cling on. For the majority of the time we spent together, Thallor opted to use my nickname, Sterling. Of the other times he'd used my first name, it always sounded sweet, precious, reverent. He had whispered them into my skin in between frantic kisses and tugged off clothes, but this?
Gentle wasn't even the word for it. It sounded muted. Reserved. And if I hadn't been paying attention, if I hadn't been looking out for it, my name would have been carried away before I even had a chance to notice. I turned from pulling on my jumper to look up at him. There was a timidness to Thallor I'd never seen before. It struck me like thrashing waves against a cliff face, not because it tried to make me feel something but because that was simply its nature.
His shoulders hung low, and his eyes seemed happier staringat the floor than staring at me. Of all the Thallors I’d come to know, this version wrecked me the most. I took a few tentative steps toward him, slightly unsure if he would let me get closer. But he did. He always did. I placed two steadying hands on either side of his face and took in the beauty of his eyes. They were magnificent and enthralling, and I had to work to keep my breath steady when I looked up at him.
Instinctively, he moved his arms to wrap them around my waist, tugging me closer until my head rested against his chest. His breathing was more frantic than it usually was, and I could feel the thrumming of his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest as he stroked my hair.
“Quincey, I’m scared.” He let the words slip, letting them go quietly. “I’m scared of what I’ll do if someone hurts you.” He pressed a soft kiss to my head, an act I knew was for him more so than for me.
“Hey, look at me,” I said, as I shifted in his arms, pulling away slightly so I could meet his eyes. “There is nothingyou could ever do that would change the way I feel about you, Thallor.”
And it was true. Truer than anything I'd ever said before. After the year I'd had, the one that left me battered and bruised, I'd felt so weighed down by everything that had happened. Sorrow and despair had filled my pockets like stones as I walked into the sea, ready to face the waves of my own emotions. For a while, I’d been sinking, drifting ever further from the surface. I'd spent months gasping for oxygen, but Thallor? He was the first breath when I finally broke the surface. He was like fresh air to my lungs.
Loving him was defiance. An audacious revolt against everything the universe had tried to throw my way. To me, Thallor was hope and wonder, and once I'd accepted how I truly felt about him, that love had expanded outwards in a radiant joy,pushing on the walls of my heart until I was consumed completely by a feeling that was both new and exciting. A feeling I'd only ever get to experience with him.
“You don’t know that,” he whispered as he looked at me, eyes searching mine for both certainty and reassurance. I knew in the way he was clutching me, the way he was holding me close, that he would never let anything happen to me or the people I cared about. That he would set fire to everything around him. Everything in his path if it meant keeping me safe, all the while making sure his flames never touched me.
I cupped his face and smiled. “Before you, I thought I knew what love was. I’d seen it in my grandparents, in Isaac and Ez. I’d seen it in movies and hoped, even in my cynicism, that one day I’d get to experience it. But I wasn’t looking for it, not really. Whilst I thought I knew what love was, I realise now that I didn’t have a fucking clue.” I let my thumb caress his face as he leaned into my touch. “And now? All I know is how I feel about you. Nothing could ever change that. Nothing could ever come between us. All I know now is that I would chase you to the ends of the world and into yours if it meant never being apart from you.”
“You’ve made it so hard not to fall in love with you,” he said, the ghost of a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth. “You look at me like I’m worth something. You see me, you see the monster behind the surface–you see everything, and you’re not scared. I’ve never experienced something like that before.”
He paused.
“The first time I saw you, I felt cracked open. I was numb, Quincey, so numb, solost.And then there you were, all fluffy slippers and defiance. And then yousaw me.And I thought…I thought that was it.”
“You’re not a monster, Thallor,” I said, pouring every ounce of truth that I felt into those words. “You are beautiful.”
“See, that’s just it. You…you came back. I don’t think you understand how truly shocked I was by that. It really took every bit of my restraint not to kiss you. I acted like an asshole because that was easier than dealing with what I felt inside,” Thallor breathed.
“And then you just let me into your life. And I fit. I finally feel like I’m where I’m meant to be. Every day with you felt like coming home. I didn’t want to let myself feel it at first. I wanted to keep you at a distance. But it was hard. You made it so fucking hard. You chipped away at my walls with jam jars and spicy books. The first time I heard you laugh? Fuck, Sterling, it took all my willpower not to fall in love with you right there and then. And well, at some point along the way, I feel like you gave me your heart.” He whispered the last bit like a question, and I nodded. He smiled softly and blushed, his cheeks erupting in a pink I wanted to bottle up and keep close to my chest.
“Well, when you did, I think you took mine in return,” he continued. “I just don’t want to scare you or lose you…”
“Thallor,” I said, tilting his face and guiding his gaze so his eyes were locked on mine. “My soul belongs to you. I give it willingly. I give it wholly. And once we find the book, we will make all this official. But I want you to know, you never have to question how I feel about you. You are every good thing in my life.”
I could see the smile tugging harder at the corner of his mouth.
“You are movies on a Sunday afternoon and the records that play in my head when I am gardening with my grandfather. You are warm oversized hoodies and the last slice of pizza in the box. You aren’t just the good things, but the best things in my life.”
Soulmates didn’t exist for me until you.
He searched with the fevered need to find any hidden meaning behind my words. But there wasn't any to find.Because I knew deep within my heart that he would never lose me. Slowly and carefully, he leaned in to kiss me. And this wasn't like any of the other times we'd kissed. It was passionate and slow. And when our lips touched, there was nothing in the world that existed other than Thallor and I, everything we'd said and everything we still had yet to say.
I could taste the uncertainty on his lips post op the questions that still remained despite my proclamation. So, in my kiss, I made a promise. A promise that said I love you and I will until the end of time. His arms tightened around me before one of his hands found the back of my neck, tilting my head slightly so he could kiss me harder, deeper. And then, as slowly as he leaned in, Thallor pulled away, brushing one last kiss against my lips as if the thought of being apart pained him. Flushed and a little breathless, he held me to him as we stood there, our surroundings fading back in. He was shaking, trembling even, in a way that I didn't know was possible for someone like him.
“I love you,” he said, placing one last kiss to my cheek.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
We moved at the same time Isaac did onPlace My Pals. Esme had been watching her phone like a hawk, keeping an eye on Isaac’s every movement. Where he had cut me out completely, blocking out the bombardment of ‘what the fucks?’and ‘are you fucking serious?’messages I'd sent him, Esme may still have had access to his location.
He remained in roughly the same spot until about twenty minutes ago, when he finally left his university house and got into a car heading to the outskirts of town. Esme had barrelled into our bedroom in a frenzy of blonde hair and tears, but a determination set across her face.
Thallor and I hadn’t been able to finish our conversation, and I still felt like there was a lot left unsaid. I wanted to tell him a thousand times over how much I loved him. And that I had done for a while. In fact, far too long for any sane, reasonable person to have gone without saying. But I'd woven it into all the things I did manage to say, and I hoped that, for now, that would be enough.
We had piled into my little old green VW Beetle. Esme had hurled instruction after instruction as I drove. One near-death experience and a few choice words between us later, and we were sitting outside an abandoned building around forty-five minutes out of town.
This has to be the universe’s idea of a sick joke.I looked up at the old Gothic church. The path stretched ahead, lined with crumbling headstones and overgrown weeds, in total mockery of the dead. At the end sat the church, its tall central structure dominated by worn stained glass windows. Time had clearly taken its toll on both the church and its surroundings, leaving everything looking both weathered and neglected.
