Page 76 of The Shadows Between Us
“Please do,” I say, and turn my nose to the empty space beside me. He sits, keeping an appropriate two feet between us on the bench. “How did you know I was out here?” Or perhaps he didn’t. Maybe he wanted to go for a turn about the gardens, seeking the outdoors and potential solitude as I was.
“I saw you out the window.”
“And you followed? Were you not in a meeting?”
“I was.”
I look up from my sketch, giving him an inquisitive look.
“I decided I’d rather be out here with you, and I cut it short.”
Pleased, I return back to my sketch.
“Are you designing a new outfit?” he asks.
Again, I find myself pleased. Pleased that he would know exactly what I’m doing, because he knows what I like. “I feel at a disadvantage,” I tell him. “You know my hobbies, but I have yet to learn yours.”
Leandros mentioned fencing and riding when we went out together, but surely there is more.
Kallias cups his hands in front of him and leans his elbows on his knees. “I used to enjoy fencing above all else, but since I became king, I have been unable to have a partner who wasn’t made of straw.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that.
“I do like riding and spending time with Demodocus. I’ve always been fond of animals, but even more so of late.”
As if hearing his name, Demodocus comes bounding back over, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. He sits before me expectantly, waiting for a scratch behind the ears. I oblige him.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I can’t touch another human, but my abilities aren’t affected by animals. Demodocus is the only companion I can have. Some days, I even spoil him and let him in the bed.”
I hadn’t even considered that. That he would seek out contact in other ways.
With his turned-down head, a lock of hair sweeps over his brow. If he were any other man in the world, I would reach forward and smooth it back.
“I used to play the piano,” he says more quietly. “Most everything I learned how to do, I learned from a tutor, but not the piano. My mother taught me herself. She loved music.”
I swallow past a sudden lump in my throat. Is that sympathy? For him? Even softer than his utterance, I ask, “Would you play for me sometime?”
“Do you like music?”
“I think I would like your music.”
He turns toward me, and just like on the first day we met, a jolt goes through me at the connection of our eyes meeting.
The breeze flutters now, sending that lock of hair brushing against his brow.
My fingers twitch, and I look down at my gloved hand.
Slowly, so very slowly, I raise it.
Moving as carefully as I would toward a startled horse or a frightened child, I let my hand drift toward Kallias, toward that lock of hair.
His gaze shifts to my glove, and I can’t begin to guess the trail his thoughts take.
But I move at a pace that gives him what feels like all the time in the world to stop me.
Instead, his shadows disappear. He solidifies before me, so that when my finger touches his brow, it doesn’t go through. It meets warm resistance and brushes that lock back.
