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Everyone retreated below deck to their makeshift, curtained rooms early. I lay there and listened to the sounds of the ship slowly quiet. I tried to sleep. But I couldn’t stop running my fingers over the threads of my mind, again and again and again, checking for whispers and movement until I was about to drive myself insane.
And finally, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I pushed back the curtain and padded barefoot up the stairs, exhaling in relief when I reached the deck and was greeted by an infinite blanket of stars. Like the whole world just opened up. I stopped and took a breath, trailing across the deck–
–and stumbling as I almost stepped on a face.
Specifically, Max’s face. Max, who was lying on the wooden floor, hands folded over his stomach.
He didn’t flinch as I leapt aside and let out a Thereni curse.
He opened one eye. “Careful.”
“Max. What are you doing?”
“Lamenting.” He opened the other eye, both meeting mine in the darkness. “And, if I’m being honest, trying desperately not to hack my guts up. I’m not made for having anything other than solid ground beneath my feet.”
I rasped out a chuckle.
It was amazing how good that felt. Just to laugh, a little bit, even though it wasn’t really that funny. I clung to that fragment of our former intimacy like it was gold.
I lowered myself next to him, lying down on the floor.
🦋🦋🦋
Things were different down here. I felt the movement of the ship more intensely than when I’d been standing. It was…wobblier. If that was even a word. It could simply be a piece of Tisaanah-speak for all I knew. But I knew that if I spoke my thoughts aloud, Max would understand it. He always understood.
But the ship wasn’t the only thing that was wobblier–I was too. It felt like the butterflies that I was so fond of casting had taken up residence inside my body. Outside it too. I was hyper aware of how close I was to Max, as delicate wings danced along my arm trying to pull me nearer still.
I needed to do something to distract–to break the tension that I was sure only I felt–so I asked him the question that had been sitting on the tip of my tongue for what felt like ages.
“I am curious,” my voice was soft in the darkness, “what are you made for?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re always telling me what you aren’t made for. Extreme weather, social graces, being at sea. But for once, I’d like to know what you are made for rather than what you aren’t.”
Max blew out a heavy sigh. “Oh, I don’t know,” he began slowly. “Any number of things, I suppose.”
A typical Maxantarius Farlione response that revealed nothing of importance. But I didn’t want Maxantarius to answer my question; I wanted Max. My Max. The man who had become more than just my teacher. We shared an intimacy that went deeper than friendship. He understood me on a level that even Serel did not. And I wanted to understand him too.
“Will you tell me one of them?”
A long pause followed. I looked up at the stars, hoping that if I removed my focus from him, Max might give me the answer that I wanted.
“This.” His reply was too vague, particularly with Threll looming on the horizon before us.
“What is ‘this?” I pressed him. “Exactly.”
“Being with you. Talking with you.” I was going to let him leave it at that, but after a beat, Max gave me more. “Friendship. Companionship. Understanding.”
My heart ached at those words. Max had shut himself away from the world for so long. I knew instantly what it must have taken him to admit to me that he needed those things, and that he’d found them with me. It was like the necklace all over again. He was giving me something bigger than his words; he was giving me a part of his heart.
“Anything else?” I ventured after enough silence had unspooled between us.
Butterflies to burst to life again as I felt his hand bridge the gap between us and brush along my skin. His fingers traced over the back of my hand and I turned it over, giving him my upturned palm.
“This too,” he murmured.
Our fingers laced together and all at once the butterflies left me. They dissolved into nothingness, not that I’d actually summoned them. Max and I were completely alone up here on the deck, yet I’d never felt more content–more settled.
He was correct in his words; he was made for this. And I was too.
“You are very nice at it.”
Max chuckled. “Good, Tisaanah. I am very good at it.”
“That too,” I said, wanting to play with the bounds of language for a moment. The right words still evaded me from time to time, but Max’s touch was both nice and good. And I would not be told otherwise.
I turned my head to look at him, and found that Max’s eyes were already on me. My breath caught in my throat as my heart began beating wildly. “Max.” His name left my lips as little more than a whisper. I wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t come. Not because I didn’t know them, but because I’d never said them.
“I think…” Max began only to trail off. He swallowed and I watched the muscles of his throat work. “I think I could be made for this.”
Again he offered me ‘this,’ only that time I knew what he meant. There was no hiding from what his eyes were telling her. Max’s gaze dropped to my lips and the space between us seemed to shrink. Had he moved closer to me? Had I moved closer to him? Or had we both moved together, in an understanding that this was what we both wanted?
“You only think?”
“Well.” He paused as he rolled part of the way onto his side, facing me. His free hand lifted toward my face, fingers brushing gently across my cheek. “It’s a theory that I’ve been developing for a while. But I haven’t tested the hypothesis yet.”
Hy-poth-e-sis. I began to turn the word over in my mind, but when Max’s thumb brushed across my lower lip every other thought flew out of my head. There was only him; only this. And I had no doubts that he was made for it.
“Tisaanah.” I’d heard my name spoken out loud before, but never like that. Max said my name like it was the beginning of something new, something big. It was also a question; one that I could answer as easily as breathing.
“Yes.”
He dragged his thumb away from my lips as he titled my chin up, bringing my fact to his. Max kissed me like he was made for it–like I was made for him. It was slow, allowing me to pour myself into it. I used my free hand to grip his arm and pull us closer still.
I think we would have kissed like that forever–remained lost in one another until the world came to an end–had the boat not sailed across a larger than average wave. We rose and then we fell. And I couldn’t be certain that the way my stomach had dropped hadn’t been due to the sea alone.
“Ascended above,” Max groaned. “I stand by what I said earlier. I’m not made for anything but solid ground.”
I chuckled. “And the other thing? Was your hypothesis correct?” The new word rolled carefully from my tongue; I wanted to make sure that I got it right. I wanted to make sure that I got everything right. This was one situation where relentless brute force would do me no favors. Hearts were won in a different sort of battle.
“I’m evaluating the results.” There was a hint of mischief in his eyes as he answered me. I liked to see it there.
“Perhaps some more testing,” I offered, heart beating wildly.
“Perhaps.” Max grinned. “Though in my experience, testing is usually conducted in a controlled environment.” The boat lurched beneath us once again, not as dramatically as before, but enough that he looked unsettled.
“That’s the problem with life in the Orders. Too much time spent waiting until things are perfect. In Threll, I did not have the luxury of time; I had to act.”
He studied my face in the moonlight; his gaze flicking my mismatched eyes as though he were looking for something.
“Evaluate. Judge. Act.” His words had a practiced cadence to them, as though he’d repeated them hundreds of times before. I wondered who’d taught him the order of them and what importance they held.
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, but then he kissed me. Where before I’d felt my butterflies on me, this time I felt Max’s fire. It threatened to consume me, and I gave myself over to it gladly. His tongue slipped past my lips to tangle with mine. I rolled fully onto my side, pressing myself against him. I felt all of him; recognized all of him. But I was learning all of him, too. I thought I knew his hands, his arms; but they’d never touched me like this.
The thundering of his heart transferred from his chest into mine, urging my heart to beat in time with his–to find the same rhythm. As if that phenomenon would bring us closer still; as if it would forge a connection that would keep us linked together forever. I hitched my leg over his, my knee sliding along his hip. Max rocked his hips against me once. Just enough so that I could feel how much he wanted me–wanted this. I gasped against his mouth, the sound turning into a keen as he drew back. I wanted more. I wanted everything.
Max placed one more closed mouth kiss on my lips before stroking his thumb across my cheek as he studied me. It was like he was trying to map my face, all the fragmented pieces of me.
“I was right,” he said after a while, his soft voice breaking the silence that had settled over us. I’d grown comfortable in those quiet moments with him. “I am made for this.”