Page 8 of As Many Stars
“It makes me go to sleep. I’d rather not.”
“What can I do? There must be something. Anything. Tell me.” He did not like the fever-color of Ash’s face, the necessity of pillows for support. “A second opinion. Some sort of rare plant. A remedy from one of your ancient Greeks.”
“I’m not certain—” Ash paused to cough; it shook his whole thin body. “That the ancient Greeks would be of much help. Unless you’re planning to feed me barley soup with honeyand vinegar; it’s supposedly good for diseases of the chest…”
“I’m happy to make you horrible soup. Do you have barley?”
“Come here.” Ash held out a hand. “Sit with me. Tell me one of your stories. Someplace you’ve seen, something beautiful. Something that made you happy.”
Something beautiful. Something that made him happy. Blake’s heart lurched and coiled, in distress. He wished he could give it to Ash, if that’d help. His heart, his lungs, the strength in his body.
He poured more lukewarm tea. “Drink more. For your throat. And I’ll tell you about, oh…let’s see, would you want the story about the opera singer in Vienna, she was entirely beautiful, and she sang out loud at certain moments…no, maybe not that story, it’s more fun if I let you imagine it.”
“Blake,” Ash said, dismayed, scolding, gazing up at him.
“No, something beautiful…” He took the cup when Ash’s hand wobbled. “All right. There was one morning, out on a tiny island near Venice…they have glass-blowing workshops, all sorts of colors, like drops of rainbows, you’d love it…not that, though. Just a morning. I woke up early, and went down to the shore, and I took off my boots and sat down in the sand, and I watched the sun come up. Only me, no one else, me and the sand under my toes and the roll of waves and the light coming up in the sky, and it was…” He did not know how to explain. “Lonely. But not. That’s not the word. Like being small, when the world was so big and so pure and so wide around me. So much of it, and then me. Allowed to be there, to see it all.”
Ash was gazing at him. Eyes tender and awed, as if seeing a familiar wonder all over again: made new.
Blake shifted his weight. The gaze made him want to duck away, to hide from being seen, to run. Before Ashley knew all his secrets. Every last confession, every word spilled out of his soul.“It was just a moment. And I got sand in my trousers.”
“You didn’t put that moment in a book.”
“It wasn’t exciting. Only me and the ocean.”
“It was a moment that made you happy. And you gave it to me.”
“Well,” Blake said, because it was true, “you asked. You should try to sleep.”
“I asked,” Ash said, “and you told me. Blake…”
But the cough was worse, and cut off his words; he lay down obediently when Blake tucked him into bed, after.
Blake sat with him, watched the rise and fall of his chest, observed every catch and every wince of discomfort. He knew Ash wasn’t feeling well; that was fretful sleep, restless sleep, and Ash’s skin felt hot, and then hotter, under his hand.
Was the room too warm? Should he open a window, against medical advice? Would fresh air be helpful? Or was that indeed truly inadvisable, given the air of London?
Ash murmured something in his sleep. His forehead furrowed.
“Shh,” Blake told him, “I’m here,” and stroked hair out of his face. Fewer blankets? More? Ash was shivering, despite the warmth.
He said, softly, “I’ll tell you all my stories. Any time you ask.”
The afternoon, inexorably, worsened.
Ash woke a few times, weak but coherent. He tried to get Blake to leave, to go home; Blake said, “I hope you’re not trying to tell the Earl of Thorns what to do; I do precisely as I please, haven’t you heard?” and attempted to get him to consume some weak broth, a sip of tea, a bit of toast.
Ash managed a few swallows, but shook his head, and curled back up into the pillows. “You must have appointments…celebrations, parties, readings…meetings with your publisher…you’ve only been back in London a day…”
“Two days. I don’t give a damn about the celebrity, you know that. And I have an appointment. Here.”
That made Ash laugh, which turned into a cough. He fell asleep again, after a while.
Blake sat there beside him, aching with uselessness, desperation pounding his body like bruises. The headache, the one he’d woken with, had returned or never left. It was worse now. Everything he could do, everything he’d done, every adventure—
He couldn’t solve this. He couldn’t go on an expedition and come home and write a successful story for this. He couldn’t make the words go the way he wanted.
He should’ve come home sooner. Ashley had missed him. Had needed him. Had been trying to cope with a new title, a dukedom, a life completely unexpected, versus university spires and libraries and a life tucked away in Oxford halls. Had worked himself to exhaustion through all of that. And Blake hadn’t been here, because he’d been running around islands and glaciers and mountains, falling into beds in various countries, gathering decadent hedonistic stories for the next lurid memoir, and the next—
