Tags: be gay do crimes, bipoc character, first kiss, homosexual character, magic user, meet cute, mlm, non-graphic sexual content, past tense, pov third person limited, transgender character
*
4 a.m. felt like the witching hour to Toby. Nothing seemed entirely real, as if the divide between the mundane and arcane was brittle and the world had yet to settle on a choice.
“Good morning,” he yawned into his headset, straightening his star-print apron. “Order whenever you’re ready.” Lightly, he scratched his short beard, waiting.
Waiting.
“Mrm,” came a grunt in return: a man’s raspy baritone laced with some hard-to-pin trace of Eastern Europe. “Large latte. Three espresso shots.”
Toby froze. Then, as he gave the total, washed his hands, and rushed to get the drink poured, his ears began to ring. Caleb the Red? How? Why? Trouble must have been brewing nearby if the mage was here—some robbery, some scam, something that was going to bring the Guild’s investigators sniffing…!
Stiffly turning toward the pick-up window, Toby desperately tried to pour faster. Good gods. The truck waiting there was surely only running as the result of necromancy. Toby couldn’t tell if it was painted brown or if that was just rust, and its engine bled a pneumatic rattle. From its window, Caleb’s handsome, high-cheekboned face parted shadows that were as dark as his short, kinked black hair, his clever, irritated gaze piercing right into Toby’s soul.
Okay! Don’t panic! If he did, his chest binder would make it harder to breathe—damn it! Where were the lid refills? Finally, finally, Toby clicked a cap over the cup and passed it over, praying he wouldn’t be recognized. Their magic community had never been large, but he’d never risen beyond being a lowly apprentice before leaving. Even so…
Wordlessly, the man examined him, then paid in cash—with exact change. However, he didn’t pull forward. He just peered, sipping his coffee, his umber fingers smoothing down his white button-up shirt and leather jacket. Must have gotten wrinkled during all this excessive staring.
Toby said the only thing he could. “Is everything all right?”
The cup was placed back on the sill. Slowly. Precisely. “Only two shots. I ordered three.”
“Oh!” Ha, yes, Caleb could level the building and make it look like an unlucky electrical fire, and this barista genius had screwed up his order. Perfect. On-brand. “My sincerest apologies. I’ll re-make it. Just a moment.” Okay: scurry back. Get the cup. Coffee. Draw the steamed milk. All right. Let it settle and turn a soft brown. Add the shots. Mix. Three? Yes, three.
Those dark eyes dissected his back the entire time.
Okay. Okay.
Magic wasn’t something to be flung about: it could weave in ways unpredictable. But what Toby called on now was a simple, harmless sigil. Quick! Discreet! Nothing that would call the attention of the Guild. Harmony, he traced over the paper cup with his forefinger and thumb, so the flavors within would meld precisely the way they were meant to.
A glimmer flared from the paper’s surface. Then it was gone, and the casting was done. Caleb would love his coffee and forgive all… hopefully.
“Here you are,” Toby said with his most friendly smile. “Sorry for the extra wait.”
The proffered beverage was taken. Caleb closed his lips carefully around the edge, sampling the brew so smote with caffeine it might launch another soul into space. “Mm,” he said neutrally, nodding with what might have been approval.
Then his expressive eyebrow rose. Pearly teeth glimmered in a smile. Toby’s stomach dropped somewhere near the vicinity of his ankles, and he could only smile back like enthusiasm would make the sun rise faster to save him.
“Thank you,” Caleb said, popping a dollar in the tip jar. His eyes peeled away ever so slowly as he drove off.
It took Toby a full ten seconds to hear another throat clearing inside his headset, heart pounding in his ears. “Hello?” a woman said gruffly. “Ah… I want a double-shot mint-mocha. Large. With soymilk—no. Almond milk. No! Soy.”
“Good morning. We also have coconut,” Toby said faintly.
It was fine. Everything was fine. The mage was… gone.
There was an old sorrow bubbling in Toby’s chest, but he pressed it down deep and returned to his mundane day in his mundane world. He pulled down chairs from tables. He turned on the lights. He waited for dawn, and he unlocked the doors, letting in the manager and two impatient customers lounging on the curb. They all demanded things from him and gave no thanks or gladness in return. No one smiled so early, he supposed—no one but Caleb. That was how the man was: all cocky, lean, and slinky flow, flaunting his leather jacket as if this city was a runway and not humble Dorchester.
Mages were often like that, even ones on the outs with the Guild.
The exception was Toby, of course, drab in his button-up and khakis, sporting a haircut so standard it had its own number on the barbershop wall. An unwillingness to attract attention was a good habit for a former whistleblower, though—once on the rise up the magical ranks with a highly respected mentor, now he brewed coffee to make ends meet.
Quiet. Hidden. That was his life now. It couldn’t be helped.
He swept his mind of it. He swept the floors. He pushed through his shift to mid-afternoon: there were bills to pay, regrets to nurse, and a studio apartment to go to for a nap at the end. Finally, all that was left for Toby to do as time spun on was to hang up his apron, notching one more day off his life.
He turned to make for the back.
He nearly collided with stars-cursed Caleb the Red.
Caleb was leaning over the front counter, smiling at him the way orcas looked at baby seals. What? Wasn’t Martha manning the…?
“Hello there,” he purred.
“How can I help you?” Toby’s customer service recording switched on, a half-octave too high, his blindsided gape too wide.
“Just need a medium caramel latte. Whipped cream. Wrapping up the afternoon.”
“Coming right up,” Toby agreed, engaging his mechanical memory as Caleb kept up that eerie peering. Cup. Coffee. Don’t look back. But he did anyway; long, articulate fingers were turning counter items over for examination and putting shirt wrinkles to rights again.
Draw the steamed milk. Careful.
Really, Caleb had the most… limber hands. A delicate touch. A keen, exacting sense of control. One could see how he could draw such beautiful rune-circles.
Toby pumped caramel syrup all over his fingers instead of into the cup. Caleb’s lips twitched.
“I’m so sorry,” Toby croaked a rusty laugh. “Long day. I’ll do this over for you.”
“No rush.” That little smile wouldn’t fade. “Your do-overs are worthwhile.” Caleb leaned farther over the counter—he’d taken a regrettable curiosity in how everything worked beyond the invisible line separating customer from caffeine bombs. Slowly, that gaze shifted, cataloging every last topping and packet of tea. “You’ve worked here long?” came the drawl.
“Just three months.” Toby couched this with the same upbeat tone he’d have used to comment on sunny weather—though gray, dismal rain pattered the glass—and he drew another cup from the stack.
“Paying your way through college, or…?”
His ears warmed. It was a surprising question; Toby didn’t think he looked young enough—his facial hair was streaked with stress-white. “No, no,” he said, keeping his smile chipper. “Just needed a change of pace.”
“Mm. I understand that.”
“Oh?”
“I… freelance. Have to be adaptable.” That gaze had a delightfully cheeky glimmer, the exact same one from Caleb’s many questionings at the Guild. Not his fault, he’d always say, that his crimson-inked scrolls kept turning up at crime scenes. Surely it was a problem with vendor background checks.
“What do you do?” Toby certainly did not mean to pry.
“Writing and calligraphy.” Articulate fingers danced a complicated pattern over the counter surface—Caleb had better not have laid down some minor sigil for his own amusement…
“How interesting.” The brew was drawn with a hiss of steam. “What do you write?”
“Whatever the clients want. Nothing noteworthy.”
“I’m sure you’re underselling it.”
“…maybe… hm. I suppose I have a few exciting pieces. I do love a good mystery.” Shiny teeth flashed oddly sharp.
This conversation was too dangerous. In went shot one of caramel. There went shot two. “Sorry for the wait,” Toby found himself saying for the second time. Featherlight fingertips brushed his as Caleb took the drink.
…warmer than the cup, somehow…
Caleb the Red didn’t pay with an information-revealing credit card; once more, he had exact change. While Toby dropped quarters into their drawer, Caleb went to the corner of the shop and curled up in a chair, knees to his chest, a small roost—an odd and pensive posture for such a man. His eyes scanned the street, the other patrons, the walls… never lighting back on the baristas, though he also didn’t pull out a phone or other distraction.
There he remained until Toby, stalling, couldn’t put off ending his shift any longer. So slowly, he pressed by Caleb, heading out the door.
“Oh. Right,” his personal time-bomb breezily said as if he’d remembered something at the last minute. “Take this.” A fiver was pressed forward, precisely bent in half. “As a tip.”
Cautiously, Toby accepted. “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re quite welcome.” That raspy rumble thrummed softly. “You know, I’d like to talk with you again sometime.”
“You… would?”
Caleb’s nod was gravity-heavy despite the grin. “I also think,” he said, “the Guild should have treated you better, Tobias Caldwell.”
Toby forgot every word he’d learned in his thirty years on the planet.
“Consider it. I can’t help but imagine… maybe we’d get along. Your hands… when you pay attention, anyway… they’re precise. You know your work.” Warmth bloomed in Toby’s stomach, up his neck. “Also…” Caleb rose. “I like how you smile at me.”
And then he strode on out.
Gone again.
Toby walked home in the opposite direction. Walked fast. He was going to have to get a new job, wasn’t he? Damn. Damn! It was only as he got inside, put his things down, and pulled Caleb’s money from his pocket that he realized a slip of paper had been folded into his tip. Slowly, he unbundled the message.
A… phone number…? Beside it lay a small harmony sigil in the most careful, exacting penmanship, a smiley face etched beneath.
Toby’s heart thudded. …oh! Slowly, he laid back on his bed, listening to the mad drumming in his chest, hypnotized by the white popcorn ceiling.
He didn’t call Caleb that night. He didn’t.
But he fell asleep with his phone over his heart, a new contact saved, a question on his lips.
Morning came: another day, another shift, another tally on the calendar. The previous afternoon seemed a dream, an irrational longing for connection with the old days made real… with someone who understood. Toby had to let it go. But after he showered, he unthinkingly traced a sigil in his bathroom mirror’s steam, right across his sandy-brown chest:
Harmony.
He sighed. There hadn’t been any magic in the gesture, his intentions too wide and scattered. Yet, it gleamed damp against his reflection, almost hopeful.
A misplaced hope.
A few hours later, a Guild investigator came into view through the café window. Toby knew her marble-white skin and long, silver braids, knew her wool coat of swirled orange hues. He watched her pacing in the bleak smattering of rain, pretending to check her phone under the eaves. A cold pain thudded in his chest.
Mrs. Agatha Pinne.
The Pinnes were wealthy and dangerous; they’d kept enchanted silkworms and sheep herds for generations along the Eastern seaboard, selling fibercraft extraordinary and rare. But none of them ever laughed… or smiled… or blinked. Everyone knew something was very wrong with the Pinnes, but no one ever dared talk about what.
The investigator’s piercing gaze flickered through the window, and Toby whirled, pretending to shuffle inventory, praying to the gods that she didn’t know he was there. But she had to. She had to! Nothing Mrs. Pinne ever did was an accident; everything followed the weave of her design…
He turned back around—oh, thank the gods, she was facing away.
Unfortunately, Pinne placed a casual hand to the window frame behind her back, where no customers sat or could observe. Strings snaked out of her sleeve—glimmers, almost like mirages. Tiny bundles of threads wafted up the building’s side, little poofs of fuzz floating on an unseen breeze, easily missed by the untrained eye. They settled in subtle gutters and nooks out of view, where they could wrap themselves tightly—the hell…? Were those artifice servants? Fibercraft spying constructs?
Pinne spun and walked off like she had somewhere else to be.
Toby’s phone was up to his ear by the time the edge of her coat whipped out of view. It rang twice before silence filled the breach. “Hello?” Toby tried. “Hello? It’s—”
“Tobias Caldwell!” How dare Caleb sound positively delighted. “I admit, I hadn’t expected you to call so soon. Did you want to meet?”
“Er… I…” Toby rallied. “Agatha Pinne was just at the café.”
“Oh? What did that old spider want?”
The flippancy nearly made Toby stall out again. “I don’t know; she’s done some enchantment. I think she might have gotten wind you were in the area. Or she’s here for me. Either way, you probably won’t want to come back.”
“Hm. Odd!” Was he put-out about this at all? “Circled the perimeter, I take it? Deployed some threads?”
“Yes! She—”
“When is your shift over?”
“Two hours?”
“Perfect. I can fix the matter and buy you a drink for the trouble. Hold things down until I get there. But don’t go outside—I’ll see you and your smile after you hang that apron up.”
“…uh… but…?”
The line had already gone dead. Toby stared at his phone, flummoxed. What? What? All the coiled gray tension of Pinne’s intrusion evaporated, and his brain wasn’t sure what to do.
Had Caleb just arranged an after-work date with him?
Maybe?
What?
Still floundering, Toby carried out the remainder of his shift. Several times, he considered sending a questioning text, but pulling up the app made his thumbs feel stupid. A trip to the restroom made him feel worse. He was in no condition to meet and converse with anyone; his beard was uneven and his shirt was getting a hole in the armpit. Great. Under the unflattering fluorescent glow, he wondered if it might not be smarter to run out the back, pack his things, and drive to some other city.
As if he’d been anywhere else in his life.
Toby slapped his face a few times, remembering nothing could be built on panic. He had to slow down. Think. Breathe, before anxiety made his chest ache again.
Slowly, his fingers traced meditative runic drills on the edge of the sink. Forward. Left. Back. Ush. Kratyl. Sensho. He’d written them ten-thousand times each—it was expected that every mage-in-training be capable of perfect rune-writing blindfolded and drunk. And now, even without power behind them, they soothed. Channeled his stress.
Okay. He could loosen one or two buttons at his throat, right? Change up the work look a hair. Then, he could borrow a sharpie from his manager and scribble some sigils of danger-warding in discreet places. He had to remember he wasn’t powerless, even if the first spell he’d done in three years had been last night. He could still feel the memory in his hands: the warmth, the connection, the sheer, laser-focused, beautiful intent to make the world a little better, a little more harmonious, even if it was just by creating a perfect cup of coffee.
Caleb arrived promptly as the shift ended, as Toby stayed fixated on the west-side glass. Like Pinne, he was dressed warmly in a wooly coat against the cold patter of rain; unlike her, he wasn’t the least covert about his oddities. He gawked at the roof while adjusting his bright-red scarf, then traced in the air with his fingers like a man on some sort of drug.
And yet people kept walking by, forgiving his strangeness as just one more day in the city.
Suddenly, in the brief catches of light drifting between the clouds, Toby saw them: Pinne’s silken creatures falling dreamlike and thick. Caleb kept chanting. Unspooling, shimmering, they melted around his face like strange snow—and he beamed up high, his smile almost childlike, bright and wondering. The passersby probably only saw something like wayward dandelion puffs on the wind. Toby’s heart skipped a note. Then, the constructs were gone. All that remained was a man bouncing backward around the shop, fingers waving as if conducting some invisible symphony. The warm undertones of his cheeks were bright from the cold air as he finally entered the store.
“It’s taken care of,” he said simply. “You done for today? Come sit.”
“…are you sure it’s okay?”
“Of course. And besides, I have a tattoo of Morton’s Greater Scrying Ward. While you’re near me, even Pinne’s creatures couldn’t get a good look at you.”
Toby’s brow furrowed. “That… that’s a complex… you have it tattooed…?”
“Yes, and I’ve been known to let those I particularly like sometimes have a peek.” Caleb winked and sat.
The hot flush haunting Toby’s ear-tips set up permanent residence. He sat, too, not knowing what else to do. “I, uh… don’t suppose you need more caffeine?”
“Always. And, as I promised, I’m going to buy you something. Wait here.”
“Okay?” Toby wasn’t sure he wanted anything, but Caleb didn’t ask. When he returned with two orders—one a whipped-cream-and-sprinkle-topped monstrosity for himself, the other a far less flashy Americano roast—Toby was too perplexed to pick the gesture apart. Plain coffee? Nothing in it?
Cheap, if this was a date.
So he fidgeted with the cup, though he nodded his thanks. It wasn’t easy for him to fight back his social awkwardness; he’d been trapped in a box of paranoia for years and hadn’t tried making a friend in a very long time. “I… well… I’m sorry. I’m bad at this. Caleb… may I call you Caleb?”
“I have no idea what else you’d call me.”
“It’s just…” Toby’s lips twitched up in spite of his mood. “You really want to get to know me better?”
Caleb shifted in his seat. “I suspect you’re a man who can weave a damn fine bit of transformational arts. Of course I’m interested. And you know… Pinne’s sort aren’t the only kind of mages in the world—or even this city. Truly, I mean you no harm. I say this because I’m wondering how many temporary wards you’ve put on yourself today.”
Another flush. “Not that many.”
“You’re almost buzzing!”
Toby deflated somewhat.
“Tobias… if I may call you Tobias.” Those teeth flashed merrily once more.
“…just Toby…”
“Toby—if I make you uncomfortable, I can leave.” Caleb’s thumbs started to fidget, then his middle and index finger followed suit, tracing patterns in the table.
Runic drills. Forward. Left. Back. Ush. Kratyl. Sensho.
Oh! He was… nervous? Somehow, that filled Toby’s chest with unexpected warmth. Caleb seemed so untouchable. For him to be nervous… “It’s okay. Really. I just… if you can’t be scryed, then what was Pinne doing here?”
Caleb stared ruefully into his sprinkles. “My fault. Someone I’d given a lift to snatched my lucky charm from under my truck’s passenger seat, and, with it gone, the Guild’s locators could get a sense of what region I was in. Very rude. I fixed it.”
Toby sighed gratefully: he remained safe. They hadn’t found him. The soothing clink and bustle of the coffee house was a fine balm to his nerves, too; there was security in its familiar rhythm. “I’m sorry. Something’s also killing me: do you really have Morton’s Greater Ward tattooed—”
“You only get to ask where if I’m also allowed a personal question.”
A feathery flutter lit up Toby’s chest. “All right.”
Caleb leaned in, crossing his arms, and whispered intensely, “Very well. Yes, I do. It’s on my ass, so I can invite those Guild bastards to kiss it when they get too nosy.” He erupted in infectious snickers, and Toby croaked out something startled and scandalized and dangerously amused. He hadn’t expected this glimmer of down-to-earth humor to exist alongside all Caleb’s dangerous slinking about, and he didn’t know what to do with that revelation. “My turn. You obviously have some talent for magic. Truly. Best coffee I’ve ever had. But you never made it out of an apprenticeship—the Guild shut you out hard for making them look a little awkward.”
Awkward. That was… one word for it. Two of the Elders had been using mind spells on local politicians, and Toby had sort of… loudly insisted they not.
“I think they knew there was something special to you. So tell me… what was it you wanted to study most? What did they stop you from achieving?”
“…I… don’t know if I have a good answer…”
“It’s magic. There aren’t wrong answers.”
Sipping his coffee, Toby winced. Urgh. Bitter. “I don’t know; I mean, my most memorable assignment was modifying a car exhaust pipe so it could shoot birds.”
“Not quite what I asked,” Caleb said with a soft laugh.
Toby curled in on himself.
“You know… I’ve got this old friend, Dorokhov. He liked fusing pigs and pigeons into half-ton chimeras.” Caleb’s nose scrunched in merry disapproval. “I’m pretty sure one or two of his train wrecks are still trundling around in Siberia, forging local legends. So you can see I won’t judge you. Go ahead. Tell me what you wanted to do.”
“Ah. Well. I… I mean, I was still an apprentice when I left. My mentor was an investigator for magical crimes, and wanted me to follow suit, but…”
“No wonder you’re so cautious! Trained to be a magic cop.”
“No!”
“Magic cop!”
“I…” Toby huffed a chuckle, then stared down at his feet, embarrassed. “Maybe the coffee gives it away. I wanted to specialize in transformative arts,” he admitted.
Caleb considered this answer a long moment—Toby understood; most people made assumptions about why he was interested in transformation the moment they noticed the binder straps on his shoulder and too-patchy beard still growing in on his chin. But magic to enact such complicated and delicate changes on the human body was no small thing, and Toby hadn’t wanted to endure thirty years of study to figure it out. He’d gone the way of mundane doctors, as most had before him.
“Transformation’s not a cash-cow field,” Caleb finally said, tilting his head.
He was right; most applications were too noticeable for the Guild to allow them in non-magical society. “Well… I actually wanted to…” Toby swallowed. “…to see if it could quietly be applied to gene editing. I have part of a biochem degree under my belt.”
“Good gods… that’s more than I expected. Medical therapies?”
“Yes, by altering small groups of cells that propagate. Manageable! Theoretically. I never got far; I mean, things went down at the Guild well before I had a proof of concept.”
An awkward quiet bloomed: a moment of silence for a dead dream.
“You know,” Caleb whispered. “It’s for the best.”
“Hard to feel that way most days.” The crack of loneliness was impossible to bury.
“But you’re free.” Caleb reached out then, took his hands. It was warm, shockingly intimate, even though it was only a light cradle. And somehow, inside it… Toby felt the flicker of the sigil he’d cast… like it had absorbed into Caleb’s blood from that coffee, a spark of magic he’d gifted that was now gifted back to him in turn. His tight chest eased. The stinging beginning in his eyes faded.
He’d stood on his own without the Guild every day since that wrong. The hurt mattered, but it was old news, and it didn’t define him.
“Imagine being under the thumb of people like that for the rest of your life,” Caleb continued. “It’s more dangerous out here, sure. It’s harder. But one can get by.” He released his friendly grasp. “Promise.”
“Do you…” Toby felt out, “…have your own suppliers? Independent of Guild contacts…? How is it that you just…?”
“Of course; I have some friends who can hook you up if you’d still like to tinker! And I can bring you into the circle. Psh. You don’t even need to ask. I just had to be sure you had the backbone to do something with it.” Caleb waved a dismissive hand like this was all expected.
But it wasn’t. It was offering water to a man dying of thirst.
“What’s the catch…?” Toby said. “There has to be a catch. I’d never find the black markets on my own.”
“No catch! I mean—yes, I will try to persuade you to enjoy a quiet discussion about it with me in one of our private homes, eventually. But that’s entirely separate.” Caleb rolled his eyebrows in a charming wave.
“I… maybe I… wow. I think I need to think…”
And those eyebrows just kept going! Wouldn’t quit! “Please do. Now… may I offer a lift? You seem tired from your work.”
Toby straightened—Caleb really had just wanted to get to know him a little today? Just… flirt and offer genuine help, then give him space to think about it?
Truly nothing like the mages of the Guild!
“I’d like that,” Toby rasped. “Thank you.”
A warm hand of solidarity grasped his shoulder for a moment. “Come on.”
Together, they walked toward Caleb’s old truck, its large presence almost bullying the cars parked beside. Toby realized, to his surprise, that he felt relaxed, a crisp drizzle lighting on his brow. He felt safe around Caleb, a man who could be playful and decent despite his reputation—and they were safe from scrying eyes, too.
Maybe Caleb… maybe he had his reasons for being on the outs with the Guild. Maybe it was more complicated than Toby knew, or that he had the right to ask about… yet he wanted to, eventually.
He wanted to truly get to know Caleb too.
Before either of them could peel away for the vehicle doors, Caleb poked the plain coffee Toby cradled still. “Actually, I’ll need a quick payment. I’d like you to show me that spell you did last night.” Toby nearly fumbled the cup into the gutter. “Go on. No one’s watching!”
Was he serious? Apparently… yes. He pressed closer, until Toby could feel the warmth of the drink inside his palms and of the chest against his knuckles. Their foreheads nearly touched. Okay, Toby suddenly agreed. Despite his nerves, he already felt the magic fizzing at the base of his brainstem and in his fingertips, lightheaded and wild. Heck, if Caleb had asked him to do a bank heist, he might have nodded. And this task, it was everything he wanted to do anyway. That last spell had been like breathing. It had been what he was born for, a shot of lightning in his blood: magic, joy, creation. He didn’t even have to think; its light was the smallest burst of sunshine in his hands, tracing itself into the cup and sparking fires in Caleb’s dark eyes.
The light faded, and Toby found he was giggling like a child with a secret. The sigil disappeared after searing itself into his gaze, memory, and heart.
Caleb took the cup, smiling too, broad and proud—and after he sipped, when those eyes fluttered in pleasure again, Toby’s joy soared. “Oh, goodness. Perfect. You want to try…?”
“Yes! Of course I—”
Caleb leaned in and softly pressed their lips tight. It was so sudden, so brash and breathless, that Toby nearly jumped. That kiss, that tongue, that breath… it was all sweet cinnamon and rich sandalwood, perfectly melded, spiced by a question and a taste of arcana that sizzled into Toby’s blood and made him feel like he could fly.
Not a single bitter note.
His eyes fluttered shut. He wanted to drown in this cologne and this promise that he wasn’t entirely alone in this world.
But Caleb drew back, smiling in that devil’s way of his. “See? It’s good.” Quietly, his knuckle edged against Toby’s hand: another question. An offer.
Toby took it. The world seemed balanced and perfect and right… even if it was an impulsive decision… he wanted to let his walls down just a little longer. He wanted to enjoy this.
They finished their drinks, and he invited Caleb up his apartment’s rickety, old stairs, those agile steps seeming to dance behind him. Toby traced a ward of silence on his door, and that night, he traced harmony onto Caleb’s back, into his hair—onto both of them, and his guilt and fear of the past years were gone. And in the morning, he pulled Caleb close, heart beating slow and steady and true.
The apartment was warm in a way it never had felt before, like an entirely new space. Maybe that’s what the transformational arts were. Today, Toby didn’t feel like the same man he’d been yesterday, not at all.
“If you’re off work… would you be up to meeting some of my connections?” Caleb whispered. “No pressure. I just think you shouldn’t waste your talent going forward.”
Somehow, Caleb still tasted of sugar and medium-roast. Toby marveled at it before pulling away from his lips again. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
“Mm.” Caleb’s smile glittered again, and it seemed so genuine and lazy-happy. As he stretched, working out the cricks in his back, he was beautiful. “All right. But first, I’ll need some coffee.”
“No worries,” Toby whispered, kissing his brow. “You relax. I’ll make some.”