Lark is grateful for the contact, for the comfort, but his mind drifts. He thinks about the attention he has demanded from Oli during the night, the intimacies he has been allowed. Oli smiles at him kindly, and Lark’s thoughts go to Reed, asleep in the upstairs bedroom. His window overlooks the lawn, where he might look out and see Lark holding hands with his boyfriend in the dark, under the stars.
It’s easy, Lark knows, to misstep. His body says things his mind doesn’t even allow him to think. He has pulled himself apart over these kinds of mistakes—and had others help with savaging.
In Portland, he sang his harmonies for Jules and became something more than he had been before. Singer and songwriter, both. A declaration of self-sufficiency that Max heard even though Lark did not. Without knowing it, he became a rival. And Max was grasping, and Dana worrying. Everything was unraveling.
He doesn’t like to think what his careless hands might have done to Jules and Quinn.
Lark traces that sinking feeling, the particular shame, to a single moment of happiness. The last half hour in the recording studio, listening with Jules resting quietly against him, an elation that left him singing in the parking lot.
He didn’t know what he was doing. Thinks, maybe, now, he doesn’t know what he is doing either.
Oli can hear Lark’s chest working, his breath deliberate, a little shaky on the inhales. Their contact only lasts a moment. Even though Oli keeps a gentle pressure on Lark’s knuckles, Lark tugs his hand away.
“Sorry,” Lark says, his hands up over his eyes. Oli isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for: reaching out or pulling away. Oli considers offering his hand again to reassure him, but then Lark turns his face towards him.
His pale eyes are full of moonlight, bright in shadowed sockets. He pulls in a deep breath, like he can’t get enough air, like any moment he will be pulled down underwater, dragged to an airless depth.
Oli thinks to touch him again might make it worse.
Lark mutters something unclear, then goes quiet.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Oli tells him. “You don’t have to explain.”This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
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