“Sick, maybe,” I said. I’d been sick a lot as a kid.
“Yeah, I think that was… right before you got your tonsils out?”
“Was that when we were nine?” I frowned, trying to think back. Without calling my parents, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pinpoint how old I was then.
All I remembered was Kieran coming in every day to tell me what’d happened at school. And Kieran climbing into the little hospital bed with me and making me promise not to die or he’d have to make the trip to the underworld and drag me back.
We’d both just watchedHerculeswhile I’d been sick with yet another round of tonsillitis.
“Think so,” Kieran said. “Can’t’ve been much later.”
“Well, I’m sorry for not protecting you from the big bad piglet,” I said as seriously as I could. When we’d been growing up, I couldn’t remember Kieran ever being afraid of anything.
He was like a superhero to me.
Hearing that he’d been so scared of apigletthat he’d cried was kind of a revelation. I almost wished I’d been there to see it.
“So you should be,” Kieran said, his hand brushing against mine again. “What’s even the point of having a best friend if he can’t protect you from one little piglet?”
I snorted, draining the last of my wine glass and feeling it go straight to my head.
“Carter ever protect you from a piglet?” I asked, hating myself as soon as the words were out.
I sounded jealous, and Ireallydidn’t want to.
“No,” Kieran admitted softly. “He didn’t replace you,” he added.
Clearly, I wasn’t hiding that jealousy I didn’t want to feel all that well. OfcourseKieran had made other friends—I’d made other friends, too—but…
Kieran’s fingers curled around mine, warm and gentle, his thumb stroking the back of my hand. “No one ever replaced you,” he continued.
And I knew it was the wine talking, and I knew the cascade of tingles falling from the base of my skull were atleasthalf becauseanyonewas touching me and it’d been a few weeks since that’d happened, but that didn’t stop me risking a glance at Kieran’s face.
Kieran’s soft, open, hopeful face, eyes glazed, lips wine-stained and barely parted, cheeks flushed.
His pace, my brain insisted.You promised him his pace.
But I’d wanted this most of my life. Kieran was the first person I’deverwanted to kiss, the first person I’d understoodmatteredto my life, the first person who’d ever broken my heart.
He was going to break it all over again if I let him get too close, and I was still trying to gather up all the pieces from last time, but Kieran…
Kieran was myfirst.
My hand was already on his cheek, fingertips light as summer rain on the rise of his cheekbone, and great,nowI was finally thinking in poetry while I was already embarrassing myself.
Kieran blinked at me.
“I was starting to think you didn’t want…”
“I want,” I said, eyes falling closed as I leaned in.
Kieran tasted of wine and the chocolate mousse he’d broken out after dinner, bright and sweet and just a little tart. Soft lips parted with an even softer gasp, letting me in so I could tease the inside of his lower lip with the barest hint of tongue.
A tiny, needy whimper spilled between us, so much more innocent than I would’ve expected. Kieran wasn’t new to kissing, I assumed, but hewasnew to kissing a man.
Maybe that made more difference than I’d thought it would.
“Felix,” he murmured as the kiss broke, mouthing his way along my jaw, needy sounds vibrating in the back of his throat, laughter bubbling up as he missed my ear and ended up nuzzling my hair.
