Ice crusted the ground beneath Jaylin's feet and his breath rolled through the air like smoke, but despite the below-freezing temperatures, he hardly felt cold anymore. If anything, he'd been running hotter than normal since the Bad Moon.
December had come on quickly, laying a brutal frost across the Western side of the state. Harshest winter since Reagan, the news had said. But there was something in his blood now that made the cold almost too comfortable. He did feel it when the chill hit his skin, but it was like a furnace burned in his belly and heat consumed him within minutes.
It reminded him of his dreams. Of walking in a snowy wonderland but feeling none of its frosty bite. But Jaylin was not so accustomed to the ice as he was to the cold and he slipped on the slick cement as he ran to meet Alex on the curb of the road.
He'd been digging around in the back seat since he pulled up, shuffling around cardboard boxes and mounds of dresses and jackets. And from his mountain of contents, he retrieved the box of Anna's videos—the VHS tapes filmed in dust and worn to a nearly gray complexion from all those years in front of the attic window.
"Are you sure it's okay if I take these?" Jaylin asked, balancing the box on his leg while he thumbed through the tapes.
"She'd want someone to enjoy them. I'm sure there are some tapes of her old ballerina recitals somewhere in there. Probably a few of me. There were too many and I couldn't look through them all, so—"
"I'll let you know if I find any home videos." Jaylin plucked a tape from the top, snorting at the peeling label for Mr. Nanny. "Thanks, Alex. It'll be a while until we can afford internet. This should keep me occupied."
"No problem," Alex grunted, clapping the door shut. He rounded the front of the car and spun on the slushy ice to offer Jaylin one last look at that boyish smile. "I think that's why I like you, Jaylin. You have the same awful taste my sister did."
Jaylin gave a grin of his own in return. It didn't feel so much like an insult anymore, to be compared to Anna. Instead, somehow, it warmed him.
"Where are you taking the rest of her stuff?"
Alex glanced to the back seat, where heaps of Anna's belongings blocked the back window. His shoulders jumped in a slight shrug. "The church. Mostly clothes and furniture. We kept what really matters, but—this is good. For mom, for all of us. For Anna too, I think. Kinda felt like we were imprisoning her in a way. The idea of her at least."
There were a dozen things Jaylin could have said to try and comfort him, but not a million condolences could bring his sister back. Only time could help the Sigvards now. Instead, Jaylin looked to the road, glistening with frost and the skids of wayward tires. "Drive careful. It's slick."
Alex nodded with that sweet smile of his, and he slipped into the driver seat. Salted ice crunched under the chains of his tires.
Jaylin carried the box back into the house, where Tisper was balancing on a stool and whipping the cobwebs from the ceiling with a kitchen rag. They'd spent the last week gutting the place of all its useless fillings. It took living in the riches for a while to realize their home had been a pit of dreary squalor all this time. That it wasn't normal to live in a house that was splintering at the foundation—a home where most of the windows had been buried beneath decades of garbage. A home that hadn't seen the sun in ten years.
Still, it was his home and he loved it but knowing the clean, comfortable luxury of the upper-class made this place feel like decay, so Jaylin tossed the things that didn't matter. First and foremost, his father's belongings. They'd loaded up Matt's wrangler and dropped off old clothes and furniture and dusty knick-knacks at the second-hand shop, where his mother had made off with most of the treasured garbage to begin with.
He'd done it all in his mother's absence. She and Lisa Sigvard had hit it off over the venison dinner that night. In weeks time, Julia was running off with her new friend to spa's and shopping centers, dinner and movies. The moment he heard they'd be flying off to Florida together, he leapt on the opportunity to purge their home of its clutter. It wasn't so much a vacation as a business opportunity on Lisa's part—a chance to sell a large portion of land Mr. Sigvard had purchased on the Miami coast. She wasted no time inviting his mother, and Julia wasted no time fleeing the bitter cold of an early December.
Lately, she'd been looking for every opportunity to experience the things she'd never experienced before. To taste food she'd never thought to try, to take midnight trips to the city just to ease her restlessness. So Jaylinwasn't surprised when she'd packed her things the day after Thanksgiving and kissed him farewell from the window of a taxi.
It gave him time, at the very least, to clean up the mess they'd made of their lives.
It looked like a new home entirely by the time they'd finished. The floor so sparkly clean, he'd slipped on it three times in the span of a day. The dishes he'd chosen to keep had been washed and dried and put away—and the chewed up, plastic old mementos gone to a box in the closet. The only thing he left alone was her room because he knew the things inside of it were too precious to tuck away in the dark.
As he dropped the box of Anna's dusty old VHS tapes on the living room floor, the door rattled with a knock. Jaylin cracked his back as he stood and dug his wallet from his pocket. At the front steps, he greeted the pizza boy, who stood there shivering in the cold. He couldn't have been more than seventeen; scrawny and chattering, a bundle of papers atop his sleeved pizza. "Hey, uh. Your mail—it was overflowing so I think the mail guy just started leaving it on the sidewalk. It's covered in snow, but I thought you'd want it."
Jaylin took the bundle from him, damp and cold, and tucked it under his arm while he fetched a twenty from his wallet. A fair enough tip. Matt swooped in for the pizza and the boy plucked his cash before he went on his way. And while the others dove in front of the TV and stuffed themselves with pepperoni, Jaylin went through the bundle of bills in his arms. So many pink envelopes, so many final notices. Electricity, water—medical bills from his fractured ribs and his mother's treatments. He blanched at the sheer amount of debt—once his father's, now his mother's, soon to be his own. He'd hardly had a start on life and already he owed so much.
Then, finally something too large to be a bill. He thumbed open the envelope, and at the sight of the bold, purple W at the top, the rest of his mail scattered to scoured floorboards.
"Accepted." He said it quietly. To himself. To no one.
"Matt just sneezed over the pizza!" Tisper whined from the next room over.
"It's all the goddamn dust in the air."
"It's okay," Sadie assured her. "This half's fine."
And still,Jaylin stared at the paper in front of him. Accepted.
"Jay, hurry up before Matt inhales the whole thing." Tisper came skipping over, her hair messed with sweat and breaking free from its pony. When she saw the paper in front of him, her effervescence scattered. She gaped at it the same way he did.
"Jaylin..." she ripped the paper from his hands and read it for herself. Then came the excitement, like a tsunami of elation. "Jaylin! You got accepted!"
"What?" Both Sadie and Matt barked in unison. They dropped their pizza and clamored to their feet, and the both of them peaked around Tisper to see that purple W for themselves.
"Jaylin!" Sadie exclaimed.
Matt squinted his eyes to read the words from over Tisper's shoulder. "How the hell...you have a GPA of like, one."
Sadie jabbed an elbow into his ribs. "Shut up."
When Tisper saw that Jaylin wasn't smiling like the others, she folded the paper neatly across the crease and handed it back. "Why don't you look excited?"
"Because"—Jaylin furrowed— "I never applied. I never finished the essay. I never..." he paused then, thumbed the smooth paper beneath his fingers.
"Quentin?" Sadie was the first to say it.
The others sobered in the obvious, but the sound of his name felt so icy to Jaylin. Quentin. He hadn't seen him, hadn't heard from him—not since the day they'd left the Sigvard's home. It wasn't that he didn't think about him. He did. He thought about him often. Quentin was always a thought, sometimes passing, sometimes lingering. But he was always there, at night when Jaylin couldn't sleep. In the day when he found himself drearily drifting away. He'd been a constant in Jaylin's mind, but the only thing he hadn't been was here. Physically.
"Well," Matt said, "guess money really can do anything."
Then Tisper blanched and searched her pockets for her phone. "What day is it?"
Sadie gave her a curious, side-long glance. "The fourth?"
Suddenly Tisper was running her hands through her messy hair, bounding it back into a fresh ponytail. "Okay, uhh—Jay, let's make a run to the store."
"Now? For what?"
"Uh beer—no, we have beer. We're out of bleach," Tisper said. But when she realized they'd finished cleaning an hour ago, she shook her head. "We need to pick up more pizza, Matt sneezed on that one." And before he could protest, she was grabbing her purse and slipping on her shoes. And the next thing Jaylin knew, she was dragging him out into the cold.
-
After five minutes of her car's sticky heater and the sound of festive Christmas music grating through her blown speakers, it became painfully obvious to Jaylin that they weren't headed to the store at all. After ten, he knew just where they were going.
"Tisper, what's going on?" he asked, twisting the stereo volume down. "Why are we going back?"
She eyed the rode. "I left something."
"No, you didn't. We haven't been there since that night. What are you doing?"
"I don't know, but I have to do it," was all she said. She wouldn't answer any questions after that. She bumped up the radio and Jaylin was left staring through the foggy windows, watching the gray sky and the little frozen raindrops that stuck to the icy glass.
By the time they'd pulled up to the Sigvard's home, snow had begun powdering the ground—tiny flakes that looked like nothing more than mist. And in the whiteness, a black suit crossed the stone-cut path, one hand in his slack pocket and the other carrying a suitcase at his side. He gave a passing glance their way but continued towards a black Sedan—a car that surely wasn't his own. The driver popped the trunk and Quentin tossed his suitcase in and shut it with graceful ease.
Jaylin looked to Tisper, who was gnawing her lip as she watched. She hadn't said anything, but he caught the way her fingers roamed the stitching of the steering wheel.
"He's leaving?" he asked.
Tisper said nothing, but as Jaylin reached for the door handle, all the locks clicked down in unison.
"I wanted to tell you." Still, she didn't look at him, but to Quentin. "Don't be mad, Jay. He has his reasons."
"Where's he going?" Jaylin panicked. "How can he just leave? Tisper I need to go talk to him." He popped the lock, but before he could push the door open, Tisper caught him by the arm.
"Tisper—" he'd started to protest, but she let go and reached into her purse.
"Just hold on." Then she popped the cap off of her chapstick and rolled the sticky wax onto his lips.
Jaylin scowled and wiped the oily feeling on the back of his hand. "Seriously Tisper?"
"You'll thank me." She popped the cap back on, and Jaylin flung himself out into the cold.
The chill bit through his jeans and his sweater, and his ears burned as the cartilage warmed against the heat. Tisper had dragged him out so fast, he'd only left the house in jeans and a sweatshirt, but his body was a beacon of heat against the icy snow. He could have stood here in it forever if it weren't for the fact that Quentin was leaving. That after everything, he was leaving. And without a goodbye.
Jaylin cut through the grass in a run—the blades frozen, crunching under his feet like glass. He could see his breath and feel the flakes hit his face, and he slipped once on frozen dew, but Jaylin picked himself up and ran again until he'd reached the Sedan.
Just as Quentin was cracking open the passenger door, Jaylin slammed it shut again, hands on either side of him. His breath caught his throat and he stared at Quentin's back—at the pressed seams of his suit, at the expensive fabric between them.
He didn't move, he kept Quentin pinned, the cold of the car window burning into his hands.
"Jaylin," Quentin finally said, still ensnared there between his arms.
Jaylin pushed off from the door and took a step back into the snow to demand an answer, but when Quentin turned to look at him, he wasn't prepared for the stark, dark of his eyes. The way he'd let his stubble grow in, how it darkened him more. He was a sharp contrast against the white snow—against the flakes that had thickened as they fell to his shoulder.
There was something different in the way he looked to Jaylin. An acceptance in his eyes that tasted both sweet and bitter. He wondered what he'd done in the month-and-a-half they'd not spoken. If he'd forgiven himself. If he'd tried to. If he still couldn't accept that it wasn't his fault.
He looked older, rugged. It'd only been a month but he looked so worn—not in a bad way, but like the weight of two years had fallen from his shoulders. Like this was his way of finally resting—by no longer pretending he was held together by anything more than the responsibilities of an alpha. In a way, it made him more beautiful. It wasn't fair that he could be more beautiful.
Jaylin didn't teeter though. He strode forward again and shoved that beautiful man back against the passenger door. "Why didn't you tell me? Why are you so—why are you such an asshole?"
Those stark eyes softened, but Quentin didn't say anything.
"Why are you leaving?" He swallowed the last word and fell back to look into Quentin's eyes. To demand an answer from them. Anything.
"We're in debt, Jaylin. If we want to keep the house, I need to—"
"How long will you be gone?" Jaylin stared him in the eye, tried with all he had to stand tall—to not waver under the pressure of that gaze. But Quentin's eyes flickered to the harsh swallow in his throat. Then back up. There was no hiding anything from Quentin Bronx.
"I don't know," he said. "Six months. Maybe a year."
A cord in Jaylin snapped. "A year? What the hell, Quentin. What am I supposed to do?"
"Go to school," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Get an education, Jaylin."
"And what? Pretend I'm not a ten-foot tall transient monster? What about Ziya?"
"I told you, I'll contact you as soon as I hear from Qamar's council."
Jaylin shook his head and brushed a snowflake from his eyelash. "That's not good enough. If you're gone, how am I supposed to—What happens if I change again?"
"That shouldn't happen again for a while. And if it does, if for some reason the chrysalis starts again, Felix is here to watch after you. And I'll take the first flight in."
Jaylin searched his face—and then his mind for excuses. For reasons that could possibly convince Quentin that he was needed. Here.
"Questions. I still have questions."
A crooked smirk caught Quentin's face. "You can text me."
Jaylin raised his chin. "I don't have a cell phone."
There was that grin again. Splitting his lips. Turning Jaylin to fire, while the icy flakes furled down.
"You have a cell phone," Quentin said softly.
Jaylin felt like cursing Tisper's name. But before he could find her car and send his typical disappointed-in-you glare through the windows, Quentin held out a hand.
"Give it to me."
Jaylin reached into his pocket, curled his fingers around the fifteen-dollar flip phone replacement and dropped it into his palm. Quentin gave him a strange look as he turned the device over in his hands. It was a bulky, outdated plastic brick of early two-thousands technology, but it was the cheapest phone on the cheapest plan Jaylin could acquire. And after a few moments of thumbing over the buttons, Quentin clapped the screen closed and handed it back.
"Short contact list."
"Shut up." Jaylin could feel his ears burning, that splotchy red flush climbing up his neck. He refused to look at Quentin though, instead to the device in his hands and the snow at his feet as he dropped the phone into his back pocket.
"Bye, Jaylin." The snow had grown thicker. Beyond his voice, Jaylin only heard the sound of flakes hitting the ground, the smooth idle drone of the car's engine. He wished they were in his world, on that frozen plane where nothing existed but the wilderness. A place where money and suits didn't matter—a place where he had no reason to leave.
Jaylin needed him here. Maybe he didn't have the leverage to beg Quentin to stay. Maybe he didn't have that many questions. Maybe he wasn't that concerned about Ziya coming back or the bad moon rising again. Maybe he didn't fear those things as much as he led on. But the idea of Quentin not being here—that terrified him.
Quentin's eyes swept away, and when the weight left of them left, Jaylin nearly felt abandoned by the loss of it. He scoured his thoughts—searched every crevice of his mind for an excuse that would make him stay. But Quentin was turning, reaching for the handle.
Jaylin caught him by the lapel of his suit and pushed against him—pressed him into the passenger door until it slammed shut against his back. And like a grip had slipped in Quentin, he leaned in just as quickly. Their lips met with a force and Jaylin clung to him, pressed himself too tightly against Quentin's form, capturing that sculpted jaw, feeling the rough grit of his scruff beneath his fingers.
But it was more than simply feeling him. Every place he touched reverberate beneath his fingertips. Every time he felt Quentin's lips move against his own—felt the brush of his tongue, the taste of him, it was like a current. Like an electricity that moved down his wrists and burrowed into his spine, and he pined for the next wave.
He felt arms around him—felt the cold invade his lower back as his clothes were wound in Quentin's fists. He pulled Jaylin in by the fabric and clutched for more, gathering him in as if there were any space between them. As if they weren't pressed so flush together, Jaylin could feel the rapid drum of his heartbeat pulsing against his chest—at the tips of his fingers as they ventured down the crook of Quentin's jaw. One synchronized beat, bound again. And it wasn't until he'd sounded into the kiss—a quiet, unwarranted noise—that Jaylin realized what he'd initiated.
He drew himself reluctantly from Quentin's lips, but Jaylin lingered there with not an inch of space between them—his face burning, his lips burning more. He should have been wondering how he'd explain himself, he should have been seeking those excuses, but Jaylin's head was empty and all he could think about was the breath he felt, hot against his teeth. How he couldn't tell if it was his own or Quentin's.
Then Quentin took him by the chin. He drew Jaylin in again and kissed him once more—harder this time—and Jaylin hung on by the tie around his neck, lost to the plethora of gratifying electricity that intoxicated his bones and his blood and all the bits and parts of him in between. And he could only move deeper into the kiss, because something was swimming in his veins. That electricity was beautifully toxic and Jaylin suffered sweetly at the power of it. He only wanted more. More of his mouth, more of his tongue. More of Quentin.
Until, by the grip on his chin, Quentin forced their lips to part.
Jaylin didn't want to open his eyes. And when he did, it was a different face he stared into. No longer stark, no longer sad, but bewildered. Warm breath steemed between them, his lungs desperate for the air he'd lost. And, though breathless himself, Quentin was looking at him like he simply didn't make sense. Like he was a math equation with no answer or a puzzle with no edges
It was only silence and the snow between them—until finally, Jaylin stepped back, out of Quentin's arms. Away from his hands. And only when he felt Quentin's heat leave did he feel how truly bitter the cold was. Quentin's eyes consumed him. They set there, not like he was looking at Jaylin, but looking at something deep within him. Then they drifted away, and Quentin didn't say anything else—but turned to the car and cracked open the passenger door, and this time Jaylin didn't stop him. He had no appeals left to give. Quentin was leaving and there was no stopping him.
He took his seat, and as the door shut, Jaylin saw nothing but the heat in his own face, staring back in the tinted windows. Flush devoured his cheeks and the cold was doing nothing to numb the flames in him. He wondered if Quentin felt the same high he'd felt. If he'd felt anything at all.
Jaylin watched as the car pulled out, slowly rolling over unsalted ice. He looked nowhere else but that tinted glass. And though Tisper's footsteps grew closer, her presence felt so distant to him. Distance even, when a pair of gentle arms wound around his neck and he felt her chin come to rest on his shoulder.
"He'll be back, Jay," she promised, but they were only words.
And as the car gained distance against the frosty gravel road, Jaylin felt that steady metronome in his chest slip away into something shallow and erratic. That strong, pulsing melody that wrapped so warm around him was gone now. He hated the loneliness of the one left behind.
"Thanks for the chapstick," he whispered to Tisper, but he couldn't look from the car in the distance.
When Quentin left, he took his heartbeat with him.