“Will it be like old times?”
“Yes.”
It was indeed like old times. S?ren took the bed and ordered Kingsley to take the f loor. But better one night on S?ren’s f loor than a thousand nights elsewhere.
“Can I at least have a—”
A pillow landed on Kingsley’s face.
“Merci,” Kingsley said from underneath the pillow.
“Velkommen.”
“No Danish,” Kingsley said. “Not unless you tell me what you said.”
“I said ‘you’re welcome.’”
“Not now. I meant in the car.”
“You seem to be getting more drunk and not less. What car?”
“The Rolls Royce we took to see your sister that day back at school. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I think I would remember the day I met Claire for the first time.”
“Do you remember what you said to me in the car while we were—”
“I remember,” S?ren said, his voice so low it was barely audible. But Kingsley heard it.
“What did you say to me?”
“I said ‘Jeg vil v?re din family. Jeg er din familie.’”
“What does it mean?” “It means,” S?ren said with a tired sigh. “I want to be your family. I will be your family.”
“You married my sister three weeks later.”
“I wonder why.”
“S?ren—”
“It’s ancient history,” S?ren said. “Let it go.”
“But—”
“Go to sleep, Kingsley. Please.”
If S?ren hadn’t added the please at the end, Kingsley wouldn’t have gone to sleep. But something in the way S?ren said “please,” the way another man might say “mercy,” silenced Kingsley’s need to keep talking. Ancient history. Let the dead bury the dead. Instead of digging up the past, Kingsley slept.
When Kingsley awoke it was five in the morning. He was sore all over, his whole body. Now he remembered why he’d cut back on the drinking. Next time he decided to pass out at S?ren’s, he’d do it on the couch, not the f loor.
He called for his car, splashed water on his face and threw up on principle. Wouldn’t be a good binge without a little purge to top it all off. After his self-induced sickness and drinking half a gallon of water, he felt human, more or less.
Kingsley found S?ren still asleep, lying on his side, the white sheet pulled to his stomach. In his lifetime Kingsley had fucked a thousand people, and he’d yet to meet anyone—man or woman—who surpassed S?ren in sheer physical beauty. Unable to stop himself, Kingsley crawled across the bed and brought his face to S?ren’s neck. He inhaled and in one breath smelled new snow in the midnight air, ice on pine tree branches, the world frozen still and silent.
S?ren pinched Kingsley’s nose. “I thought you were asleep,” Kingsley said in a pained and nasal voice.
“I was asleep until a Frenchman started sniffing my hair.” S?ren released his nose.
“You smell like snow.”
“Snow has no scent.”
“It’s like the winter all over your skin.”
“I do not trust the sensory perceptions of a man who, not five hours ago, thought he was on a boat.”
“Has no one ever told you that you smell like that?”
“Elizabeth mentioned something about it a long time ago. And someone else. Recently.”
“Who?”
“Eleanor.”
Eleanor. The Virgin Queen. It comforted Kingsley to know Eleanor could smell the winter on S?ren’s skin. It seemed portentous somehow—Elizabeth, Kingsley, Eleanor—the three who’d loved S?ren, the three who’d been or would be his lovers. Maybe S?ren was right about this girl. Maybe she was the one they’d dreamed of all those years ago. Kingsley dipped his head and pressed a kiss on to S?ren’s right shoulder. He kissed S?ren’s shoulder blade, his neck, the back of his neck, tasting the snow on his skin. Kingsley kissed his way down the center of S?ren’s back as he trailed his fingers over his rib cage.
“What do you think you are doing?” S?ren asked.
“I’m trying to find out what a priest sleeps in,” Kingsley said as he slipped his hand under the sheet.