“Sorry,” Skye says. “Was I interrupting?”
“Not at all.” Grayson clears a space on his less-than-tidy desk. “You’re early.”
A small shrug. “I wanted to see your mural.”
Grayson follows his gaze to the half-finished project at the back of the room, where he has laid down layers of paint in a long, flowing ribbon of pigment and light on a fourteen-foot mural of The Plain.
Skye’s words might have been an excuse once, a reason to spend time in Grayson’s classroom when other students weren’t always kind to the new Were student. But now, he is here because he wants to be with Grayson. And maybe, after all the years it took to get here, that still feels enough like a miracle to steal Grayson’s breath.
Skye places the basket on the desk, and the scent of something made with love at Ruckus makes Grayson’s stomach rumble.
“Yeah?” There’s probably more, but if there’s one thing Grayson knows about Skye, it’s that he will get to it when he’s ready.
Skye moves around the room touching random pieces of artwork with a single finger, every high point, until he reaches a carving of a large tree with branches and roots made from a single piece of ironwood. “Who made this?” he asks.
“A student in my third-year class. Why?”
“I like it.”
Grayson isn’t surprised, given it has a similar shape to the tree in the nest room sanctuary he’d considered his own until he was twelve, before he finally moved to the children’s wing of the compound.
Skye finishes his circuit of the room, finally arriving back at the desk, where he gently removes Grayson’s hands from the basket. “Pops says not to let you eat dessert first.”
“Dessert? What are we talking about here? Tiramisu? Pie?”
“Green stuff first. Salad, soup, and some bread.”
“Did you help him make it?”
“Not this time.” He shakes his head but doesn’t elaborate.
They find seats on the two ancient upholstered chairs he’d taken from Professor Shaw’s office, with plates on their laps and cups of minestrone on the small, crowded coffee table. They eat in silence for a few minutes, as Grayson watches Skye out of the corner of his eye. It’s not that Skye doesn’t seek him out, at home in the Art House or for a run on Saturday mornings. It’s that Skye is obviously mulling something over, and given that it’s not Luca or Leo he’s bringing lunch to, Grayson is understandably curious.
“Hei-Hei?” The sweet scent of neroli has gone bitter, reeking of something Skye rarely shares these days—uncertainty.
Finally.“Hmm?” He chooses a tomato from the salad and is careful not to give Skye his full attention.
“I want to teach. Kids like me.”
Oh.
“Magical kids?”
“No.” Skye tears a piece of bread in half with long, elegant fingers. “Little ones. Maybe early primary. Maybe kindergarten.” He thinks about it for a second and corrects himself. “Actually, not maybe. Definitely.”
Grayson sets his fork down. “That’s specific.”
“It should be.” Skye shrugs one shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while.” He says it in that calm, maddeningly understated way of his.
“What brought this on?”
Skye reaches for the dressing, though there’s barely any salad left to justify it. “Piper asked me to cover one of the Saturday art blocks last month. Then again, two weeks ago. The twins were there, plus four others.” He glances up. “They listen better than adults.”
Grayson laughs before he can stop himself. “That’s a low bar.”
“No lie.” Skye slides the dressing back to the center of the coffee table with exact precision. “They were good. Loud. Sticky. One cried because I used the wrong shade of blue for a whale. Another one bit a crayon in half and then lied about it when the evidence was literally in his mouth.” He pauses. “I liked them.”
A plainly stated fact about himself that he has already tested and found true.
