And now…
“Brysden.” Kai nudged him at his sudden change. “You all right?”
“I—yeah, of course.” But Baz let go of Kai as the slow song came to its end and the music picked up speed again. “I think I need to have a sit, though,” he said, clearing his throat. “All this dancing.”
He tried not to dwell on the look in Kai’s eyes—disappointment, perhaps. The start of a melancholy storm.
“May we cut in?”
Clover and Thames had joined them, looking as breathless as they were from dancing. They made quite the pair, with Clover dressed all in white and Thames in dark crimson, the same golden threads mirrored in each of their outfits. It took a moment for Baz to realize Clover’s hand was extended toward him.
“Oh, well, I—”
“If Kai doesn’t mind, of course.”
“What?” Baz sputtered, laughing nervously. “Kai’s not—we’re not—”
“We’re just friends,” Kai said with an easy smile. “Baz can dance with whoever he likes.”
Just friends. The words sliced through him like a knife.
“Although, didn’t you say you needed a break?” Kai asked.
Baz thought it sounded like a challenge as Kai’s dark eyes held his.
“I could use a break if you want some company,” Thames chimedin. He looked about as uncomfortable in this party scene as Baz felt. “We can leave these two to their dancing.”
“Wonderful,” Clover said jovially, pivoting to Kai with a crooked smile. “Shall we?”
Baz watched them take to the dance floor, where they seamlessly settled into the quick rhythm of the dancers around them. He was still trying to figure out what had just happened as he followed Thames to the drinks table. His gaze kept drifting to where Clover and Kai danced. Too close, he thought bitterly. And did Clover really have to lean in to whisper so intimately in Kai’s ear?
“Cornelius is like that with everyone,” Thames said with a placating smile.
“Like what?”
“A shameless flirt. It used to bother me, too, at first.”
“I’m not—this doesn’t bother me. Like Kai said, we’re just friends.”
He tried not to read into the knowing look Thames gave him. There was an air of melancholy to him that had Baz thinking Thames wasn’t as unbothered by Clover’s flirtatiousness as he made himself out to be.
Desperate to change the subject, Baz pointed to a wet patch on Thames’s suit. “You’ve got something there.”
Thames looked down at the stain. “Must have spilled some wine,” he said with a laugh that sounded forced. “I best go clean it up…”
Baz was left to himself, sitting forlornly on a divan with no one to talk to. He thought he saw Kai’s eyes linger on him at one point—as Kai leaned into Clover, suggestively enough that even Baz understood he was flirting with their Tides-damned literary idol. It was almost as if Kai were trying to make Baz jealous.
But no, that couldn’t be right. Kai wasn’t interested in Baz that way… was he?
Thames’s words wormed into his mind. Maybe hewasbothered by all this. And that left him more confused than ever.
The thing about Baz was this: he scarcely ever noticed his own attraction to people. He was aware of beauty conventions, sure enough, and appreciated features that were striking and visually interesting to his eye. But he recognized beauty more so in the way that an artist looked at picturesque scenery or a sculptor studied the human form so they could replicate it in the most perfect of ways. Physical attraction manifested rarely in him, and only if an emotional connection was there to begin with—or sometimes even just a fabricated one, the hope of an emotional bond, when Baz would imagine himself sharing intimacy with a person and feel an inkling of desire as a result.
But such thoughts scared him, and so he rarely if ever acted on them. Emory had coaxed out that side of him, and though it had terrified him to ever act on his feelings, it had also felt right to do so when he finally had.
Kai, on the other hand…
Baz wasn’t sure what to think. But he couldn’t keep sitting here doing nothing. Suddenly the party was too much, so he slipped out of the secret room to seek solace in the quiet of the library. He was surprised to find Cordie sitting on the floor, her face stained with tears.
