“—but do you know what your problem is, Álvaro?”
Noam raised both brows. God, Dara would never get over how much he loved Noam’s eyes: the perfect shade of tree-bark brown.
“You can’t ever let it go,” Dara said. “Once you get an idea in your head, that’s it. You’ll chase it way past the point of reason. Even when chasing that goal means you have to do things you never would otherwise.”
Noam tossed one of the peanuts in his mouth, crunched down. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t really think you’re wrong. But you make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not, necessarily. The way you do it, though ...”
“The way I do it makes it bad?”
“This isn’t coming out right.” Dara grimaced. “I mean—yes, sometimes. I always respected how driven you were to fight for Atlantian rights, for example. Even if we disagreed on some of the practicalities, you were ... it was impressive. It was one of the things that I ...”
The wordlovedcaught in his throat like a half-swallowed pill.
“Yeah, and you think I took it too far,” Noam said, thankfully not seeming to have noticed the way Dara was gulping water all the sudden, washing old confessions down. “You think I took a good cause and made it violent.”
Dara ate a peanut to buy himself time. “I suppose. You don’t—you have to admit, Noam, you have trouble drawing the line.”
“And you think I crossed it. With Lehrer.”
“I don’t want to talk about Lehrer.”
“Okay. We won’t, then. But ... Dara, I’m not gonna apologize for caring about things other than myself.”
“Oh, and Ionlycare about myself? You—”
“That’s not what I said,” Noam interrupted. “I said I have anideology. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’snothingwrong with fighting for something you believe in.” He dropped an uneaten peanut back into the bowl and fixed Dara with a flat stare. “What are you doing here if you don’t believe in this too?”
Of course Dara believed in the resistance.
He did.
He believed Lehrer needed to die.
... Only that wasn’t what Noam meant. Then again, Noam wasn’t asking because he didn’t already know the answer.
“What do you believe in, Dara?” Noam pressed again.
Dara sipped at his soda. Swirled his straw round the glass when he lifted his head again. “I believe Vladimir Nabokov is the best novelist of all time.”
“Dara.”
Dara gazed back at him, Noam’s incredulity written all over his face. Without telepathy, Dara couldn’t quite tell if he was actually frustrated or just ...
But then Noam snorted and said, “Yeah. All right. What else?”
The corners of Dara’s mouth tipped up. “I believe in utilitarianism,” he said. “I believe bourbon is the gentleman’s choice in whiskey. I believe pineapple belongs on pizza. Oh, and the fact that goats eat everything you own just makes them more endearing.”
“You are ridiculous,” Noam said—but he was laughing now, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over this chest.
And—god, Dara had missed this. The softness to Noam’s eyes when he looked at Dara, and even without telepathy Dara still remembered how that expression had paired with a softness to Noam’s thoughts too. Something warm curled up in Dara’s chest.
He picked up a peanut and tossed it across the table. Noam leaned forward to try and catch it in his mouth and missed by a mile.
“And what are you doing with your life, when you aren’t making terrible decisions in the name of the resistance?” Dara asked.
“Running,” Noam said, bending over to retrieve the peanut from the floor. He—disgusting boy—ate it anyway, then smirked when Dara made a face. “And ... I’ve been getting involved with the Atlantian nationalist movement.”
