Any Way the Wind Blows: 3 (Simon Snow Trilogy)

Fine, you fucker. Have me. Just have me.

Do your worst, you stubborn twat.

Be the death of me.

You’ll be the death of me.

Plus, as soon as Baz is unhappy, that’s all I can think about. I’m crazy about all his little fretful faces, and I also want to be the thing that chases them away. I think I might be willing to make him miserable just for the thrill of making it better. That’s fucked up, isn’t it?

“If it were me,” he rasps, “if I were you…”

He bites and bites.

“I’d drain you fuckin’ dry, Baz, and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

Snow nods. “Yeah,” he says, “of course.”

Like it’s obvious.

It isn’t obvious. It has not been obvious.

“You never said,” I say.

“Haven’t I?”

“No.”

He frowns. “I thought—I mean . . . I’ve killed so many things for you.”

“I’m right here, love, I’m yours.”

Snow has never been to my flat, not in all the time we’ve been together—too far from his beloved sofa, I assumed.

father doesn’t need me in Oxford; it’s very important that I stay in London and eat toast in Simon Snow’s bed. On his new striped sheets.)

We held hands the whole day. At lunch, he sat with his arm resting on the back of my chair. “If you can’t be gay at Ikea,” Snow reasoned, “where can you?”

Was this the best day of my life?

I’m nearly certain.

You’re in me so deep, I wouldn’t know how to dig you out.

He catches my chin. “You did. I do. I let you down. And yet you don’t stop . . .”

“I don’t stop?”

Simon swallows; it’s my favourite show. “Loving me.”

“Simon . . .” I kiss him. He kisses me back. My arms are tight around his waist. My head is in his hands.

I’ve wanted this . . .

With Simon . . .

Since I knew how to want.

But it isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s like I dreamed of kissing him in black-and-white, and now I’m kissing him in colour. And his mouth is sour. And his face is shining with summer morning sweat. There’s hair under his arms and down his stomach, and the skin on his forearms is three shades darker than on his chest.