Love Thy Neighbor ✓

nine

MID MAY

LUCA WAS WAITING for Blake on the slanted roof beneath his window, his feet flat on the surface and his elbows propped on his knees. The sun was steadily beginning his descent below the horizon, lazy and settled, and his sister, bathed in her silver glow, hung pale in the sky, shyly waiting for his departure.

Evening was passing and the voyage of night was beginning, but when Blake arrived, pushing his window up and easily climbing out, swinging one leg over the other, he still said: "Hey, sunshine."

"He's gone," Luca remarked, gesturing his head towards the sinking sun.

"No, he isn't," Blake replied, a faded golden glow splashed across the plane of his cheek, flat beneath the crown of his cheekbone and curving towards his mouth. "I'm looking at him."

When he sat down, he mimicked Luca's position; knees up, elbows propped, fingers loosely interlinked. There was a hushed delight spilling from the corners of his lips, the moons of his dimples, the calm of his eyes, waves gently lapping over a shore. He was wearing a t-shirt that Luca liked and its mellow blue adorned the endless radiance of his eyes, their tranquil haloes and the speckled pearly stars that burst through them.

Somehow, once he was outside, the smell of the air sweetened and the light of the sun blinked at them, seeming to reward Blake's presence with a beam of light, warming their skin one last time before his full body disappeared. Somewhere, a bird was whistling, distant and content. Luca couldn't remember hearing it before now.

"Charming," Luca replied dryly, rolling his eyes even though he knew Blake could see his lips dancing into a smile.

"I try," he grinned, boyish and amused, his eyes glittering.

"There's something I wanna ask you, actually," Luca announced, hoping to seize the moment before it skipped away from him. "While I've got you here."

It was something that he had been thinking about frequently the past few days and he had been waiting for the right time to approach it. Now seemed as good a time as any.

"Go on," was the tentative reply, disguised curiosity echoing through the hollows of his voice.

"Do you remember when we went to the lake?"

"I do," he confirmed.

"Remember when you and I broke off from the group?" Luca inquired, gazing across at him. "And we sat by the water?"

Blake nodded, his eyes glinting openly with intrigue. The air was beginning to feel cooler now, the darkening sky and the pale silver light gently cleansing the heat of the day's sun with a gentle breeze.

"You said that you didn't know why you didn't talk to me before you moved next door but that it was probably because of your nerves," he continued, clearing his throat quietly. He paused, glanced away and glanced back at Blake. "Does that mean you were interested in me before we started talking?"

He smiled. "I've always been attracted to you, if that's what you're asking."

Shrugging, Luca grinned at his lap, the petals of his heart flourishing open, and glanced back at Blake. "That's what I'm asking," he agreed through a smile, "but that's not my actual question."