Page 82 of Never Leave, Never Lie

“I know.” Ian stepped away and began undressing. “You’ll swim with me, though, won’t you?”

Alek nodded, forcing a smile.

The water was delightfully freezing, like an alpine lake that made his ears hurt and his heart pump with exhilaration. It was deep too. When Alek’s feet touched the bottom, he was completely submerged. His fingers didn’t even break the surface when he lifted his arms.

Ian swam a few laps around Neptune, then threw a towel down beside a pallet of neatly stacked bricks. He rested on his stomach, head turned, cheek pressed against the earth, dark eyes pensive. Sunlight made the water on his skin glisten and scattered shadows over the muscles in his back. Alek allowed himself a long look. For all he knew, thiscould be the last time he’d lay eyes on Ian in all his naked glory.

He swam over and propped his elbows on the pool’s edge. “Thank you for this, for everything you’ve done for the Victorian, and for me.”

Ian made a grunt that could be construed any number of ways.

“What room are we going to work on next?” Alek asked, emphasizing thewebecause he didn’t like the way that Ian was looking at him right now like he knew everything inside of his head.

“I haven’t given it much thought yet.” Ian gestured his hand in a lazy circle. “There’s still too much to do here.”

“Have you considered the library?”

“I have considered it each of the times you’ve tried to direct me into choosing it next,” Ian said dryly. His gaze still lingered unnervingly on Alek.

Silence stretched between them, charged and heavy.

“I’m ready to marry you,” Ian said, and it was like a rock dropped into a pond. Alek could see the ripples. “We could go to the courthouse. They accept walk-ins. I already checked.”

Of course he had.

“We could go today.” A hint of hope slipped into Ian’s voice.

Alek hated Ian a little bit then, for having such terrible timing, for finally giving him what he wanted most when it was too late. It wasn’t that Alek didn’t want to marry Ian anymore. There just wasn’t any point.

Now he would have to say no, and Ian would look sad for a fleeting second before he pretended that it hadn’t hurt because they were both fucking lying.

Gently, Alek said, “What about your mom? She’s working today, isn’t she?”

Alek heard from Ian’s mother every day at lunchtime. Not by choice. She’d started the routine when he was discharged. If he didn’t answer the phone, which was more and more often lately, she left a one-sided conversation of a voicemail that rambled about her day, what she was eating for lunch, what she was sewing for him, almost as if she knew he was on his way out and she wasn’t going to let him go without warning him that she’d be left with a bunch of unworn shirts that wouldn’t fit anyone but him.

“I haven’t told you everything yet,” Alek tried next. They’d never resumed their game of question and answers since their last big fight.

“I know enough.”

“But I want to get married here.”

There it was. A flash of hurt. A quick blink of Ian’s eyes.

“Before the fall, you would have said yes,” Ian said.

“Nothing is what it was before the fall, least of all me.”

Alek exhaled all of his air and sank down until he was sitting at the bottom of the pool. There used to be a pool in his uncle’s courtyard. On hot days, Alek would sit on the bottom and pretend to pour tea until he ran out of air. His uncle had taught him the game, said he and his father played it when they were young.

Alek’s uncle and his father had always been close. There was one Christmas when Alek—No. Aleksandar—had been very young. He was sitting on his uncle’s lap at the kitchen table. Both brothers had been drinking. His father slung his arm around his uncle as they sang slurred versions of old songs uproariously. Aleksandar felt very special to be included. The song crescendoed. Both brothers leaned back and extended their arms wide. The world tilted and slipped out from under Aleksandar as all three of them fell backward. His uncle had scooped him up, so when they landed he was completelyunscathed. It was silent for a breath and then both brothers erupted in laughter.

He’d better get back up there, unless he wanted Ian to dive in after him. He kicked up from the bottom and broke the surface, breathing fast to catch his breath.

Ian was nowhere to be found.

34

IAN

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