Page 14 of Until the Last Leaf Falls

“Only one way to ensure dinner is to your liking,” his mother had told him when he’d complained about lime-green sponge cake in home economics class. Then she’d taught him to cook, and Niles had never stopped being grateful. He didn’t like to eat in crowded restaurants and didn’t want to subsist on takeaways, and while he usually cooked just for himself, he did have the necessary skills—and well-equipped kitchen and larder—to cook dinner for two.

So Niles cooked, watched Orren, and tried to work out what he was doing.

Orren would be leaving soon. Niles wanted to show him how much he had appreciated Orren’s company, and that the gift Orren had bestowed, while looming large and overwhelming, was appreciated too.

Showing Orren what he could have if he stayed was equally important. Companionship and food, certainly. A place to work on his research. Hot chocolate, whenever he wished for it. And maybe, in the furthest reaches of Niles’s mind, swirled other dreams he didn’t let himself contemplate, lest it make the parting too painful.

When the scent of roasting vegetables filled the kitchen, and the saffron risotto was just the right hue of old gold, Niles picked a large handful of sage leaves and threw them into foaming butter.

“Dinner is ready,” he announced a moment later, and Orren’s interest—muted while he’d watched Niles work—sparked bright.

“Tell me what you’ve made,” he requested.

“Saffron risotto,” Niles said, dishing food onto two white plates. “Mushrooms simmered in tea. And roast butternut squash in sage butter.” The plate, when he presented it to Orren, looked like a feast matching the season.

Orren got the message. He raised his wine in a silent toast, and they clinked glasses and drank before tackling the food. Orren ate slowly, savouring each component of the meal separately and then in combinations. And when his plate was bare, he eagerly accepted seconds.

Niles let Orren enjoy his food and fought to stay in the present, though their future separation weighed on his spirit. He took note of the tiniest details: the movement of Orren’s wrist as he lifted the fork to his mouth. The glints of red the candlelight struck in his hair. And the heat in Orren’s eyes whenever they rested on Niles.

It was beyond unfair to have something amazing and wonderful just in reach, and have it snatched away before he could gather the courage to do anything about it.

They kept silent until they sat with coffee and glasses of port in the glade, wrapped in Niles’s fluffiest blankets.

“You told me not to fear the empty branches, but it’s not just trees that die of loneliness, you know?” Niles blurted, awkward as always with anything interpersonal. He could present data to a conference hall full of people, but when it came to chatting over coffee, he was lost.

Except with Orren.

Because Orren heard him, slipping his arm under the blanket and pulling Niles into his side. And Niles soaked up Orren’s warmth and used his solidity and strength to find courage for another question.

“What would make you stay if asking isn’t enough?”

“I’ve told you all I’m allowed to.” Orren traced Niles’s cheekbone with his fingertips. “You’ll work it out. I have every faith in you.”

A moment later he jerked off the bench, dislodging the blankets, and turned in a circle. When Niles followed suit, he saw what had startled Orren.

Autumn had come to an end, even here in his glade. The trees stretched bare branches to the night sky, with only the gingko clinging to a single golden leaf.

Niles forgot propriety, shyness, and his own worries. He took two steps right into Orren’s space, and Orren opened his arms and closed them around him. They clung to each other, and Niles couldn’t breathe through his grief. How had the seasons turned so fast? Why did Orren have to leave?

“I’ll be back,” Orren answered the anguish in Niles’s heart.

“I’ll wait,” Niles whispered back. “Even if I’ll never see you again, I’ll wait.”

A sob fought its way free of his throat and Orren loosened his hold by a tiny degree. “Do you remember how we watched the maple shed its first crimson leaves? It let them go with grace so they could dance on the way down. Treat your doubts this way. Let them go without fear, because your heart, your fire, the core of you—that’s the tree itself, standing strong, even in a storm.”

Niles was a couple of inches shorter than Orren, and when he raised his head, Orren was looking at him with an expression Niles hadn’t seen before—undisguised want. The space between them was too wide and too narrow all at once, and it was Niles who moved first.

Their lips met for the first time, with warmth, assurance, and a rightness Niles felt in the searing crush behind his ribs. He tasted wine and coffee, Orren’s fingers twined in his hair, and Niles made a sound between a sigh and surrender.

“I don’t want to—” Orren started, voice cracking like old wood under a sudden weight.

Gold flashed in the periphery of Niles’s vision, the air shivered, and Niles stood in the glade, arms empty, as alone as he’d always been.

Keeping, Not Hoarding

For all his life, Niles had been an early riser, greeting each day with a mind brimming with ideas and plans. After Orren’s departure, he struggled to fight his way out of bed before noon. His days stretched, endless and empty, and he could think of nothing to fill them with.

The library, once his pride and joy, no longer brought him comfort. His work, full of the challenges and excitement his busy mind needed, felt flat and stale.