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Then he lay down next to him.

He arranged himself the way the living do it, on his back, hands folded on his chest, his shoulder a few inches from Nate’s.

They looked at the sky.

“I get it, I think,” Leo said. “Everything else changed. The cars, the phones, the price of gas.” A pause. “But not the stars.”

Nate hummed his agreement, and the two of them lay in silence for a while.

The floor cooled beneath them and the house made all the odd little noises that old houses make at night and Nate watched the stars until his eyes adjusted and there were more of them, and then more, and when he finally turned his head, Leo wasn’t looking at the sky.

He was looking at Nate.

His gaze dipped, briefly, and came back up. There was a kind of want in his expression that made Nate’s heart stop.

There was nothing for them to want here.

And yet…

If Leo were alive, Nate would have kissed him.

He’d have closed the distance and kissed him, right here on the dusty floor, and dealt with the consequences in the morning.

“This feels familiar,” Leo said, voice low, almost a whisper. “Lying together in the dark and…” He let the sentence hang. He laughed, briefly, at himself. “Dead or alive, I always want the things I shouldn’t.”

Chapter

Thirty-One

Nate woke on the turret floor with the sun in his face and his back complaining about his poor decision making.

Not that he’d actively made any decisions.

He’d just slept here, on the bare boards, without a sleeping bag, without Bartholomew, because he hadn’t been able to make himself go back down and return to reality.

Now reality was painful in more ways than one, as his stiff neck informed him while he turned his head.

Leo lay beside him still.

“You snore,” Leo said. Morning light filtered through him.

“I don’t.”

“You do. Not loudly. It’s more of a hum.”

“That’s not snoring.”

“Whatever you say.”

Nate sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. “What time is it?”

“About time you got up, I’d say.”

Nate did. He stood and went down the stairs and Leo followed and neither of them said anything about last night.

Nate got the coffee maker going and stood in front of it, his phone sitting useless on the counter where he’d left it, screen down.

Talk to Mom before she calls you.