“Nothing. I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do. Go on.” He makes a humming noise with his lips closed. “Do you want to finish it, or do you want me to keep pestering you?”
“Ah. Bit of a tough choice.”
I press my foot into his shin. His stocking has slipped from his garter and is bunched up around his ankle. “That everyone just wants to what, Percy? What is it exactly that everyone wants to do to me?”
“Fine.” Now he’s really blushing, poor boy. He’s not so dark skinned that he can’t still go fantastically red when sufficient cause arises. He blows a short breath, then scrunches up his nose. It looks like he’s working rather hard not to smile. “Though Lockwood may doubt him, / There’s something about him / That everyone just wants to kiss.”
That single word sends a pulse up my spine like a struck lightning rod. Percy laughs and ducks his chin, suddenly shy. I mean to sit back and say something coy so we can play it off as a laugh—I swear to God, I do. But then he licks his lips, and his eyes flit to my mouth in a way that seems a little out of his control.
And I want to. So badly, I do. Just thinking about it makes all the blood leave my head. And the drink has just enough of a hold on me that the part of my brain that usually steps in the path of terrible ideas and halts them with a sensible Steady on there, lad, let’s think this one through seems to have taken the night off. So in spite of being in possession of a full understanding of what a terrible decision it is to do so, I lean in and kiss Percy on the mouth.
I truly intend to make it a peck, just a small one, like it’s only because of the rhyme and not because I’ve been going mad with wanting him for two years. But before I can pull away, Percy puts his hand on the back of my neck and presses me to him and suddenly it’s not me kissing Percy, it’s Percy kissing me.
For perhaps a full minute, I’m so stunned that the only thing I can think is, Dear Lord, this is actually happening. Percy is kissing me. Really kissing me. Neither of us is sober, or even sober-adjacent, but at least I’m still seeing straight. And, damnation, it feels so good. As good as I’ve always imagined it would be. It makes every other kiss I’ve ever had turn to smoke and disappear.
And then it’s not just Percy kissing me—we’re kissing each other.
I can’t decide if I’d rather keep my hands in his hair or do something about getting his shirt out of the way—I’m feeling frantic and scrambly, unable to commit to a single place to put my hands because I want to touch him abso-bloody-lutely everywhere. Then he slips his tongue into my mouth, and I am momentarily distracted by the way the entirety of my being spills over with that feeling. It’s like being set aflame. More than that—it’s like stars exploding, heavens on fire. Kissing Percy is an incendiary thing.
I tug his bottom lip between my teeth and work it gently, and he lets go a bright, weighted breath as he slides from his chair onto my lap. His hands go under my shirt, tearing it out of the waistband of my breeches in handfuls, then his arms slide all the way around me, and I’m struggling to stay soft, trying to think of the least arousing things possible, and it just isn’t working because Percy’s got his legs on either side of my lap and his mouth is open against mine and I can feel his palms up and down my back.
I run my tongue down his jawline, so enthusiastic that my teeth scrape him, at the same time working my fingers against the buttons of his breeches until the essential one pops. He inhales softly with his head tipped skyward when my fingers meet his skin. His nails dig into my spine, my shirt rucked up in his fists. I know we should be careful—it’s a private box, but not that private, and if anyone saw us like this, we might get in real trouble—but I don’t care. Not about who might be lingering nearby or the pillory for sodomites or my father’s threat of what will happen if I’m caught with a lad. Nothing matters right then but him.
“Monty,” he says, my name punching its way through a gasp. I don’t reply because I’m far more interested in sucking on his neck than in doing any talking, but he takes my face in his hands and raises it to his. “Wait. Stop.”
I stop. It may be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, though it should be noted I have not had a very hard life. “What is it?” It’s ridiculous how winded I am, like I’ve been running.
Percy looks me dead in the eyes. I’ve still got one hand spread like a starburst on his chest, and his heart is pounding against my fingertips. “Is this just a laugh to you?”
“No,” I say before I can think it through. Then, when his eyes widen a little, I pin on hastily, “Yes. I dunno. What do you want me to say?”
“I want . . . Nothing. Forget it.”
“Well, why’d you stop, you goose?” I think we’ll take up where we left off, so I lean in again, but he ducks out of the way and I freeze, my hand hovering between us.
Then he says, very quietly, “Don’t.”
Which is not a particularly fine thing to hear when I’ve still got one hand down his trousers.
I don’t move right away—give him a moment to change his mind and come back to me, though it’s clear from his expression that I’m fooling myself in thinking he will. It’s a fight to keep my face straight, pretend I don’t have years’ worth of wanting attached to this excellent kiss with the most gorgeous boy I know, but I manage to say, “Fine,” without giving away how much that single word feels like the trapdoor of a scaffold falling out from under me.
Percy looks up. “Really? Fine?” he repeats. “That’s all you have to say?”
“Fine by me.” I shove him off my lap, which is what I think I would probably do if this were a laugh, but it’s harder than I mean to and he falls. “You started it. You and your daft poem.”
“Right, of course.” Suddenly he sounds angry. He’s fiddling with the buttons of his breeches, refastening them with more force than necessary. “This is my fault.”
“I didn’t say it was your fault, Perce, I said you started it.”
“Well, you wanted it too.”
“Too? I wanted it too?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I really don’t. And I really don’t care. God, it was just a kiss!”
“Right, I forgot you’ll kiss anything with a mouth.” Percy picks himself up with a bit of a stumble and winces.
I reach out, even though I’m too far away to help. “You all right?”
“You just shoved me and now you’re asking if I’m all right?”
“I’m trying to be decent.”
“I think you missed that chance a long while ago.”
“God, Perce, why are you being such a prick?”
“Let’s go home.”
“Fine,” I say. “Let’s go.”
And so we conclude what might have been a fireworks-and-poetry sort of evening with the most uncomfortable walk home ever shared by any two people in history.
5