“Yeah. But then what does it say about me that I fell for him?”

Ash looked at him very seriously. So seriously that Truman got scared and dropped his eyes to the floor. Ash put a hand under his chin and gently raised it. His eyes burned.

“It says that you’re kind and generous and probably give people the benefit of the doubt even when they don’t deserve it.”

Truman swallowed hard and blinked fast to keep from tearing up.

“I—”

But before he could say anything, Ash’s phone chimed. Which was a relief because Truman had had absolutely no idea what he was gonna say.

Ash was looking at his phone intently, then cocked his head and glanced at Truman. “You think I’m probably a good kisser, huh?”

“What!?”

Then Truman remembered his amnesiac text to Greta the night before. “Oh god,” he groaned.

Ash smiled. Not a smile of amusement but one of pleasure. “Truman.”

“Nope.”

“Truman, hey.”

“I can’t believe she told you!”

“She’s my best friend,” Ash said gently.

“She’s my…my… Yeah, fine, she’s my nothing. Fair point.”

“So.”

“So.”

Ash looked at him and quirked an eyebrow.

“We can’t kiss now!” Truman exclaimed. “You just got a message from your friend about a drunken text I don’t even remember sending. That is not romantic.”

Ash’s smile was warm and fond and grew into a grin. “Okay,” he said. “I disagree. But I get it.”

“You disagree? I drank a bottle of wine in the bathtub and got sad cuz you left our brainstorm and I was thinking about your lips?”

Ash shrugged. “I’m not, like, up on my grand gestures or anything. But I think kissing after you yelled your feelings at me in the middle of the ocean after we discovered that our teenage years are kind of mystically linked by the cave that we’re currently in all alone is, yeah, kinda romantic.”

“Grumble, grumble, grumble,” Truman said. Because when Ash put it that way, damn it, he was right.

“Did you just say grumble?”

“Okay, c’mere.”

“What?”

“Come here. You’re right, it is romantic.”

“Well, now you’re glaring at me, and it’s not seeming that romantic anymore,” Ash said.

They both fell silent.

“This is super awkward now, huh?” Truman said miserably.

“Yup.”

“Should we go?”

Ash nodded and stood. He held out a hand to Truman, and his grip was warm and sure.

Truman let himself be pulled up, and then they were standing face-to-face in the dimness of the cave.

The blue-gray of Ash’s eyes was swallowed by his pupils, and Truman wished they were lit by candles the way Clarion and Aerlich were the first time they sought refuge in the cave. The flickering light would carve Ash’s jawline and cheekbones, glow in his eyes, and paint the fine honey hairs of his eyelashes gold.

They stepped closer.