“I am. You can’t bear to look at me.”

“That’s not why!” protested Ángel. “God, you must think I’m such an asshole.” He met Oberon’s transparent-jade eyes steadily, though his cheeks heated with a blush. “No. That’s not why. It’s just that your face doesn’t ever move. So it seems—if you were one of us, I’d think you were hiding something. Like a mask. And it’s a little—it’s a little spooky. That’s all, Oberon. I know that’s normal for your face, but it’s distracting. But if I don’t look at you, I can concentrate on your voice and I can smell you, and I think I understand you better.” He paused. “It’s not—you know—that I think you’re ugly.”

“Oh,” said Oberon softly. “I didn’t understand that. Thank you for explaining it to me.” He added, “You can look back at the chair now, if you like.”

Ángel smiled, dropping his forehead back onto the cushion.

They sat together in companionable silence for a few moments, then Ángel added, “I really don’t think you’re a Thing. My monkey-brain thinks you’re a pride of lions, but it’s starting to get used to you.”

“Monkey-brain is a metaphor for your primitive instincts?” said Oberon, his voice amused again.

“We evolved from . . . well, from something like monkeys. Very nervous about lions.”

“We . . .” Oberon’s voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. “We live in trees. We love leaves and flowers. We love to sing and to learn. We aren’t predators.”

“I wonder why you’re so much braver than we are. There’s one of you and billions of us, and we’re all freaked out, and you’re, like, a songbird.”

They sat side by side, close enough to kiss. Ángel ran through the mandolin harmony Oberon had played—so beautiful, so unique but so exactly right—which gave him the courage to ask, “Do you have sex the same way we do?”

A resinous smell, like pine, mixed with cinnamon, mixed with musk. A purr. Oberon said, “No one has ever done an adequate study of the question, but judging from the videos and pictures I’ve researched, yes, it’s essentially the same.”

Ángel opened his eyes and looked at him sidelong. “Did you just make a joke about watching porn?”

“I did. Was it funny?”

“Not bad.” Ángel laughed. “You should wiggle your eyebrows a little, so I don’t have to ask.”

“I don’t have any muscular control over my eyebrows,” Oberon said, thumbing his brows. “Or I would.”

“I’m sorry I’m such a coward, Oberon. I’m still sort of—”

“It’s all right, beloved. Anything you like.”

“Touch me.”

Oberon’s palm was warm and broad on Ángel’s neck, fingertips sliding around to his nape, under his hair.