Page 33 of Forget Me Not

“You don’t like it when we say ma—that word, do you?” Cal was tender. His hand smelled faintly of chocolate and salt, and his fingertips were so much cooler than Ray. Weres ran hot. Cal was warm but nothing next to Ray’s heat. He stroked Ray’s forehead, then his hair. The clicking stopped. “Ray?”

“Hurts,” Ray admitted, too tired to be furious now.Hurtwasn’t the right word, but words were human, and the feeling was hard to translate.

Cal’s hand stopped, then resumed sweeping his thumb over Ray’s temple. “That doesn’t feel great.”

“No,” Ray agreed.

Cal brushed Ray’s hair back for a while in silence. “But this still helps you? Like it would have before?”

Ray didn’t know what before was like.

“You could… you could scoot up. Sleep on me, if you like,” Cal suggested when Ray didn’t speak. “This makes me feel like a fairy in a Dulac illustration. In a good way. The knight’s—or in this case—the wolf’s head in my lap.”

His glitter would touch Ray and Ray would never feel it. Ray straightened his legs and pushed against the couch to pillow his head on Cal’s feet and part of his thigh.

Cal watched him intently, his expression impossible to read but his scent like butter and honey.

“Just like that?” he marveled. “Two years the first time, when I begged. But now I don’t even crook my finger…. If I had crooked my finger then, would you have run to my door?Ah. But you can’t say the word. I’m not sure about that trade-off.”

“Everyone says you’re mine.” Ray could use other words, if not that one. “Yousay it. And you smell so good.”

Cal squeaked, just for a second, before fussing a bit with Ray’s hair, the collar of his shirt. “This is moving very fast, compared to then. I don’t mind,” he added quickly, still regarding Ray with wonder. “You’d die for me, but you don’t know me. I smell good. I’m beautiful. Oh, my shiny Raymond. They took me away, but they didn’t changeyou, the fools. Perhaps they don’t understand you. That seems to be a recurring problem.”

He inhaled sharply, and then, still petting Ray gently with one hand, began to peck at the keyboard of his laptop. The laptop wasn’t new. The keys clacked a little. Ray must have been used to it—Callalily background noise—because it didn’t affect his headache.

He listened to it, to crickets and some night birds in the yard, to a few cars going by in the street but not stopping near them, to Cal’s heartbeat, and eventually, his eyes must have closed, although he wasn’t sleeping.

“What’s that frown?” Cal asked quietly. His hand had fallen to Ray’s nape.

Ray could not remember anyone besides his family and Penn touching him there, yet Cal’s hand was a familiar weight. He didn’t know why he was frowning, but said, “I don’t understand what it means when you say I’m shiny.”

Another car went by, blasting a song from the 1970s. Cal typed for a while longer, then had a drink of what was probably warm soda.

“Shiny means several different, sometimes contradictory things, to fairies.” He sighed, but it didn’t seem an unhappy sound. “Usually, but not always, it means someone who is good, or pure, or… like a beacon of integrity? Not always goodness, though it’s usually indicative of goodness. You could be a shiny killer, I suppose, if your will was unsullied. But mostly goodness. Hmm, I sound like you when you try to explain scents to humans. But anyway, it’s not just the purity. It’s also the drive or will to do something with that. Or, maybe you need that for the first part to be shiny… hmm. One can’t exist without the other? That seems like a philosophical sort of question. I’m no philosopher. Shiny just means bright. It means that energy surrounds you and draws attention to you whether you want it to or not. Even… even this sort of attention.”

Ray opened his eyes. “Different than colors?”

“A part of your colors,” Cal corrected. “Yours…. You try so hard, Ray. To help despite…. Well. To protect. Like you’re supposed to. But also to be what people want… I… You are shiny because of that and in spite of that. Youshine. It’s probably selfish of me to claim that, but I called dibs years ago and that is that.”

Ray released a short breath, tired and confused and pleased. “You’re part of why I shine?”

Cal squeaked again. “Stop doing that,” he ordered breathlessly.

Ray didn’t know what he was doing. That should have been obvious by now. But it was nice to know he could rile Cal up in return, albeit in a different way.

“Just sleep, Ray.” Cal finally huffed. “If I’m gone from your mind in the morning, you’ll just have to meet me again. I’m not going anywhere.”

Ray brought his hand up to curl it around Cal’s ankle.

After a while, another car went by. Cal went back to typing.

Chapter Five

RAY WOKE ABRUPTLY and sat up, listening for strange noises while staring at the version of his living room that had a view of his backyard complete with a birdfeeder hanging from the roof awning. The birdfeeder currently had a tiny brown bird pecking at it. A pillow next to Ray must have been substituted for Cal’s leg at some point. Ray had slept through that as well as Cal rising and cleaning up some of his empty cans and candy wrappers. Ray was either more exhausted than he’d wanted to believe, or he really had learned to tune out the noises his—that Cal made.

Cal.

Ray cautiously thought the name. It summoned up memories of yesterday but nothing else. His head hurt, a low ache that throbbed behind his eyes when he tried to remember more, so he abandoned that for now. It was easier to focus on Cal, who was in the small dining area attached to the kitchen, tapping at his laptop and drinking something.

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