Chapter 4: The Masterpiece

Anthony's apartment smelled like laundry soap and the oranges he kept in a bowl on the counter. I had been here maybe a dozen times, and every time it felt like walking into the one room in the world that wanted nothing from me. Tonight it felt like walking into a courtroom.

He shut the door behind us and leaned against it, watching me with a soft, curious look. "You've been strange since the party started," he said. "Did something happen?"

"No." The answer came out too fast. "I just missed you."

It was a lie dressed up as the truth, which made it the worst kind. Anthony's face went gentle, the way it did when he thought I was being sweet, and he crossed the room in three steps and took my face in both hands.

"We've been in the same room all night."

"I know." I caught his wrists. "I still missed you."

He kissed me then, slow at first, then not slow at all. I kissed him back like I was trying to prove something to the ceiling. His hands slid down my back and under the hem of my shirt, warm against my skin, and I made a sound I hadn't planned on making. Anthony smiled against my mouth, pleased with himself, and walked me backward until my knees hit the edge of his bed.

"Is this okay?" he whispered.

"Yes," I said. "Don't stop."

I meant it, which was the confusing part. I really did want him. His shoulders were broad and familiar under my palms, and the sounds he made when I bit his lip were honest and sweet and a little shy. I pushed his shirt off and he tugged mine over my head, and for a while there was only the hum of his skin and the slow slide of his mouth along my jaw, my throat, the hollow below my collarbone.

I wanted to drown in it. I wanted it so badly to be enough that I closed my eyes and tried to make it so, the way you press on a bruise to see if it still hurts.

"Hey," Anthony murmured, his breath hot on my ear. "Where did you go?"

"Nowhere. I'm right here."

"You're shaking."

"It's cold."

He laughed under his breath, and the vibration went all the way down my spine. He pulled me closer, his arms wrapping tight around my waist, and pressed his forehead to mine. "Then let me fix that."

He did, with patience and an almost embarrassing amount of care. He worked me open slowly and watched my face the whole time, and when I finally arched under him and said his name, the look in his eyes was so tender it made my chest ache. I held on to his shoulders. I told myself this was real. And it was, it was, every word of it was real, which was exactly why I felt like a thief.

Afterward we lay tangled in the sheets with the lights off and the city glowing orange through the curtains. Anthony traced idle patterns on my stomach and I stared up at the ceiling, trying to breathe normally.

"I want to leave a mark," I said suddenly.

I had no idea where the words came from. Anthony went still, then lifted his head and gave me a sleepy, startled grin. "A mark?"

"On your neck." My face was burning. "If you'll let me."

"Since when are you possessive?"

"Since now."

He laughed, a real one, and tilted his head to the side to give me access. "Okay. Go ahead. Make it a good one."

I leaned over him and set my mouth just below his ear. I could feel his pulse beating there, steady and trusting. And I thought, for one fleeting, treacherous second, about a pair of cold dark eyes and a hand pressed flat against wood. I bit down harder than I meant to.

Anthony hissed and then sighed, pleased. When I pulled back, a dark, perfect bruise had already started to bloom against his skin. It looked deliberate. It looked like a signature.

"Wow," he said, touching it with two fingers. "That's definitely going to show tomorrow."

"I know," I said, and hated how small my voice was. "That's the idea."

I did not know why I had done it. I knew only that some part of me wanted the whole world to see it, and I could not have said whether I wanted Anthony to be seen or whether I wanted Lucas to look.

Anthony fell asleep first, as he always did, his arm heavy across my chest and his breath slow against my shoulder. I lay awake for a long time listening to it.

I kept replaying the party. The way Lucas's fingers had been warmer than I expected. The way his eyes had changed, just for a second, from ice to something raw and strangely hurt, as if I had touched a bruise he was trying to hide. I had spent three months learning every inch of Anthony and I could not recall a single time he had looked at me the way Lucas had in that one moment, like I was something he had lost and found and did not know how to hold.

"That wasn't affection," I whispered into the dark. "That was surprise. People are allowed to be surprised."

The system did not answer.

I waited. It was strange, the silence. For days, that voice had nagged and chimed and hummed inside my head, and now there was only the soft tick of the radiator and Anthony's breathing.

"Hello?" I tried. "No countdown? No snide comments about my performance?"

Nothing came back, no chime, no hum, not even a sigh. I almost missed it. That was the most insulting part. I turned my face into the pillow and tried to sleep, and the last thing I saw before my eyes closed was the dark mark glowing on Anthony's neck, a small proud lie sitting right out in the open, waiting for morning. I had no idea who was going to find it first, and some small, honest part of me already knew whose face I was hoping to see when they did.