Everything he wanted was up at the top of this hill. He savored the moments before he reached him like an aperitif. Jack was the feast, the fullness, the satiation. Here in this quiet space, just Theo inside his own mind, he reveled in anticipation.

When he’d left Jack this morning, Jack had barely woken to receive a last kiss, eyes tightening against the light. Theo kissed his lips, and his closed eyes, and that place on his neck, and he mumbled words across the tanned skin, endearments, teasing, sharpness, tenderness. Words like “love.” He’d never called anyone that before. It tasted good.

He had—he’d denied it, pushed it away, wanted to hold himself back, but it was true, so true, the way he felt, and the way Jack must feel about him, because he said so. And he thought Jack might be ready; he thought about all of those affirmations which Jack needed, and he realized he would give those affirmations, joyfully, for the rest of his life.

Halfway up the hill, and his lower body ached, that place where he and Jack joined. The place that he had claimed. Last night, coming home, Jack had pulled him down to the bed, gently guided his legs over his shoulders, pushed in with a fragile desperation, kissed him in that wrecked way. He was so beautiful, that look on his face, dark hair falling into his blue eyes, and Theo hadn’t known that he could love anything this much. He carried the evidence in his body. It almost felt like his genetic code was irrevocably altered, mutated. Nothing but this.

He felt a smile bloom over his face, unrestrained. He felt so good, so wonderful. The sun, the pale mist, the greenery of the college campus; the gray stone, and the pavement, and these few breaths, waiting.

He reached his building, the three-story house, birdcages in the windows above his own apartment. His window, which they’d struggled to close, that day when he cradled Jack. He saw no movement in his apartment; Jack was probably still asleep, or maybe lazing about with one of his much-loved novels. Theo was filled with an incredible vulnerability.

He belonged to Jack; Jack belonged to him.

Just a few days left of summer, of this August which had brought him so much—kisses, a hot bath, doing the shopping; falling in love with the man he had probably loved for his whole life, and saying it out loud.

He took his time, again, walking up the stairs. Savoring.

He thought about forever.

He opened the door.

In the study, Theo opened his eyes.

Jack was still there.

Chapter Twenty-Five

It turned out that a vacation was the first thing—doubtless one among a long list of reparations Jack would happily pay as long as he was asked—that Theo wanted.