showered separately, the stall too tiny to hold them both, but Luca pressed Sebastion’s wet, naked body to the bathroom wall and kissed him, jerking him off with rough strokes of his dry palm until he came all over Luca’s shirt. It was a good excuse to change since he hated what he’d picked anyway, and it allowed his erection time to flag because he knew he was too wound up to come, no matter how hot his husband was.
As he stood staring at the door, knowing it was time—that it was now and maybe never—Sebastion wrapped his arms around him and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. “He’ll be there.”
“Promise me,” Luca said, the words unfair, but he couldn’t help them.
“He’s not a fool,” Sebastion said. “And I don’t think he’s the kind of person who would beg us to come all this way for nothing. He’s waiting on us, Luca.” He spun the man in his arms and held him by his wrists. “He offered his heart to us, and he’s waiting to see if we’ll take it.”
In Xan’s absence, in the way he’d fled, and the letter he’d written, Luca had never let himself think about it that way. He hadn’t realized that it was Xan taking the risk, putting his own heart on the line, waiting to see if his absence had been enough for them to move on for good.
He nearly laughed, but instead, he kissed the other man gently and then backed away, reaching for the door. The hotel hallway was filled with laughter, the faint scent of weed, and a tinge of spilled alcohol. Luca let the energy fill him as he led the way to the stairs, and they took it slow so Sebastion’s knees wouldn’t suffer.
It was a long way to the Place de la Bastille, and the metro stations were teeming with so many people, Sebastion took his hand and pulled him close. “Let’s walk. It won’t be so bad.”
Luca was petrified of getting lost and never finding it, but he trusted his husband. It would be a battle enough to find Xan in this crowd. He could tell they were getting close after half an hour because it became damn-near impossible to move. The sky was black, lit up with the occasional burst of a roman candle, and he could smell food and booze and smoke on the air. Music was coming from somewhere—a band playing, maybe. The whine of guitars over-took the sound of the voices coming from the mics, and it was all just noise.
But it was beautiful all the same.
It gave him a rush. It made him walk faster and hold on to Sebastion tighter and push through groups of drunk people decades younger than he was with more life in them. And he thought about Xan—about their Alexander the Great. About the man he could have been if his own journey hadn’t held the weight of the world in it.
But he liked to think that in spite of having years on him, maybe they could share his burden. Maybe he’d smile like these people someday. Maybe he’d breathe a little easier.
Maybe he’d be able to forget some nights.
“We’re never going to find him,” Luca shouted in the crush. He felt something like despair after nearly forty-five minutes of staring around at the wall of people, but he felt Sebastion’s hand on him tighten with something like shock.
He glanced back at his husband who was staring up, and then his hand lifted, and he followed the line of his finger.
In that moment, Luca knew there would never come a time—ever again—where he wouldn’t recognize Xan. Even in a massive crowd, he’d know him. Of course, their little conqueror had made it easy for them. He was perched on the edge of a statue, one hand hanging off the stone, the other holding a roman candle in the air. His head was tipped back with absolute delight as colors shot from the end. He was laughing.
He was happy.
“He’s waiting for us,” Sebastion said, right up against his ear. He gave Luca a shove, and that was enough to get his feet moving, to erase the hesitation and fear in his steps.
They elbowed through the throng of people until they came upon the tent Xan had mentioned in his letter. It was practically in tatters, and the edges looked burned. There was a group of people under it, near a little table, and they were