Take my heart

Chapter XXV

There's a weird kind of fountain with lights that change colors behind the venue where they're having the party. In warmer weathers, parties extend to this part too, people crowd the balconies and the gazebos and the gardens. Now it's empty, because no one actively chooses to come here and shiver under the cold just to watch the fountain.

No one except Connor and Caesar, apparently.

He crouches down on the edge of the water, and Caesar stands next to him, hands in his pockets and calm expression, tapping his foot to the beat of the faint music. Connor stares unseeing at the shimmering lights, trying to decipher the pattern in which they change color.

Sometimes he can't stand people. Which is stupid, because he loves parties, and dancing, and taking selfies, and having to yell to be heard over the music. And he loves people, from their school and from other countries, rowdy and elegant, friends and acquaintances and past hook-ups.

Ash described it as his social battery running out. It doesn't happen to the siblings, it sometimes happens to Adryan, Darren runs out before the interaction even starts. It's okay and it's natural and it's not his fault. He hates it all the same.

"Walk with me," Caesar breaks the silence. "We'll freeze to death if we stay still."

Connor straightens up and lets Caesar lead him along the cobbled paths that run through the gardens. They walk in silence for a while, and their elbows brush together once or twice, and part of Connor feels like apologizing. He'd seen, of course, the girl and Caesar's smirk and them coming closer. He hadn't meant to interrupt, despite the twist of his stomach; hadn't even meant for Caesar to notice something was wrong. Caesar wasn't even supposed to, wasn't he occupied with something else?

"Name your favorite food from the party," Caesar says when they stop at one of the gazebos, wrapping a hand around one of the iron pillars.

"The croquembouche," Connor replies, and puts his hand a few centimeters below Caesar's.

They're illuminated by the dim yellow glow of the fairy-lights tangled with the climbing plant above their heads. It washes Caesar's eyes in a golden hue Connor can't accurately name.

"Ah, I didn't get to try those."

There's a smudge of purple lipstick where Caesar's jaw meets his neck. Connor's eyes keep being drawn back to it, no matter how hard he tries to focus on literally anything else. Caesar tilts his head, studying him with a pensive expression, and it just exposes the mark further. He loses it then, and they both freeze as Connor's thumb meets the boy's skin, wiping the mark away with one swift motion.

When the smudge is gone, he doesn't pull away. Caesar lets him, stays very still and looks him straight in the eye. His fingertips brush the shorter ends of Caesar's hair at the back of his neck, his thumb grazes slowly up and down, and he can feel the soft echo of Caesar's heartbeat under his touch.

'Let's get out of here', in a gesture of Caesar's chin.

A surprised smile pulls at Connor's mouth.

'Are you crazy?' his eyebrows shoot up.

Caesar shrugs. "Come on. I'll drive."

"Where?"

He gets no answer, so he tries a different approach.

"My step-sisters will kill me if I bail out of my own birthday party," Connor says in a hushed tone, like he's afraid the girls will hear him. They've come from different corners of the country specifically for this occasion, so they won't be happy if he disappears.

Caesar grabs his hand and brings it to the front of his face, until Connor's thumb brushes against Caesar's bottom lip. He doesn't have to repeat himself.