“I never got to do our date,” Asher said. “Back when we were — in that place.” His voice cracked into something closer to apology. “I said I would take you on your first date, and first dates need candles, but I looked and they’re not here and I —” His hands pressed flat to the counter and he closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I wanted it to be right.”
He’s nervous.
Something behind Levi’s teeth pressed forward — the words, the ones he hadn’t said back. They pressed and he held them, his face suddenly too warm. He walked over to the counter, turned his back to it, and hopped up so he could sit. “Well, come on then,” he said, picking up a cracker. “If it’s a date, you have to eat too, right?”
Asher’s face lit up the same way it did on the Daedalus when Levi had called himdoveyfor the first time — eyes wide, his lips slightly parted, delight creasing the corners of his eyes. He nodded once and hopped up onto the counter beside Levi, leaning back against the wall and letting his long legs dangle over the side.
Levi was blushing. He could feel it — his cheeks, his neck, probably his ears. He kept his eyes on the grapefruit lamp because looking at Asher’s face right now would make it worse, and because this was kind. Actually, genuinely kind in a way he hadn’t expected. He was used to Asher getting him flustered, or getting him aroused at terrible times, or saying things that made his brain short-circuit.
But this was different. Asher had searched the lodge for candles and when there weren’t any, he built one out of a grapefruit, because he’d promised Levi a date, and the promise mattered to him more than the circumstances.
It’s romantic.
This man cleaned blood off a kitchen floor, made me a sandwich by the light of a fruit lamp, and it’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me and my bar is in hell.
“The bread is stale,” Asher said, picking up an apple slice. “And the cheese is from a bag. It was weird — each slice was individually wrapped, and I kept ripping the cheese trying to unwrap it, and it looked bad. I had to peel eighteen individual wrappers.”
“That’s very dedicated.”
“I would have preferred a nicer cheese. Something better than apples for a first date. Something with figs.” He saidfigsthe way most people saiddiamonds.“This place doesn’t have figs.”
“This place doesn’t have a lot of things.” Levi picked up a sandwich half and bit into it. The breadwasstale and the cheese was definitely some off-brand American slice that tasted like the idea of cheese. It was the best sandwich Levi had ever had. His heart hammered and he was sitting on a counter in a bleach-soaked kitchen eating individually-wrapped cheese slices by grapefruit-light and he could not stop blushing.
Say it. Just say it.
He didn’t say it. He ate the sandwich.
“I noticed you cleaned the kitchen,” Levi said, keeping his voice even.
“It needed cleaning.”
“What happened in here, Asher?”
“I don’t know,” Asher said, pinching down the edges of his sandwich slice before peeling off the crust. “They were like that when I came in.”
I don’t know if that’s true.
I don’t know if it matters.
The light flickered across Asher’s face, his mismatched eyes catching different shades — brown darker, green brighter. He was watching Levi eat the way he watched Levi do everything,and Levi let him. He ate the apple, slice by slice; it was slightly overripe, the sweetness almost too much, but every piece was cut the same width.
“Next time I’ll find real candles,” Asher insisted. “Actual ones. Not —” He gestured at the grapefruit.
“I dunno, I like this,” Levi said with a shrug. He was trying for nonchalant. He was not achieving nonchalant. “It smells better than candles. And you made it.” He picked up the last apple slice. “You didn’t even know you knew how to make it and you made it. That’s better than finding candles in a drawer.”
Asher smiled. A real one — small, unpracticed, and Levi’s chest ached at it. The flame sputtered. Asher reached over and adjusted the paper-towel wick, straightening it where it had started to lean, his fingers careful with such a small, temporary thing. The oil spilled over the makeshift wick and the flame went out, and they sat in the dark kitchen for a moment.
“Thank you,” Levi said quietly, his chest so full it hurt. The words pressed behind his teeth again, but he held them, and the holding was getting harder every time. “For this. For all of it.”
He felt Asher go still beside him.
Levi turned his head and kissed him, pulling back before Asher could deepen it, and in the dark he could feel Asher’s breath catch and not come back for a second.
“Next time,” Asher said. “Real candles.”
“I know.”
The group slept in the lounge.
