A Flicker to a Flame (Mosley Coven)

Seven

SEVEN

CATO

Broken bodies in need of care

I ’ve never tasted sadness quite so heartbreaking as Xavier’s.

Mossville isn’t a utopia. There are good days and bad, but the memories of the world before The Rupture still linger in the histories our Griots share, the altars carved into each homes, and especially in the large grave next to The Night Gate, where we were forced to bury the Ancestors without names. Mossville knows sorrow, but Xavier’s despair proves the adage that people like us are only safe there.

But what happened to the ones who left? I don’t even remember the first time I asked mama this question, not that she ever gave me a satisfactory answer. It was Grandma Sarah who told me stories about the Lost Ones while her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears.

“They didn’t know,” she used to say, rocking herself back and forth like a baby desperate for comfort. “And by the time they did, it was too late to find their way back home.” I press my palm to Xavier’s and feel the wreckage Grandma Sarah knew.

I lead him from the bar at the edge of the dance floor but only make it a couple steps before I turn to look over my shoulders, shocked to see that he’s real.

“What?” he asks, raising his voice to carry over the music.

I shake my head, then turn around to face him and lean close to speak into his ear. “Nothing, I’m just…thinking.”

We’re pressed against one another, caught between the occupied barstools on one side and the packed dance floor on the other, floorboards bouncing under the weight of a full house.

His tongue glides over his mouth. “About?”

“You.”

His shy smile makes my heart beat faster. I feel it from my chest down to my feet. We stand there, smiling at one another until the music changes from slow and silky to hard bass and a stomping beat. So, not my heartbeat after all.

We both turn toward the dance floor and I stare in confusion. “Where did all these people come from?” I yell.

Xavier sucks his teeth. “So now you care.” I glance at him, and we smile at one another until those smiles become soft, shared laughter.

I can feel my sisters’ magic all over this place, even in the floorboards. I feel a fleeting urge to find them and tell them to behave, but I’m standing next to a Lost One with sad eyes and a beautiful mouth. I decide to leave Billie and Fredi to their own devices.

Xavier’s mouth brushes my ear and his arm moves in front of me to point. My breath catches in my throat, but I follow the line of his arm as he points across the room. “I think that’s an exit,” he says, loud enough for me to hear.

My eyes shift to the front door… Or where the front door had been. I could probably undo whatever magic that closed that portal, but it would cost me time I don’t want to waste on anything that isn’t Xavier. So I follow his directions and weave through the pulsating crowd with him close at my back.

A rough wooden sign branded with the word ‘EXIT’ sits crookedly above a swinging door. We’re almost there when Fredi appears in front of me, and I jump back and bump into Xavier. He sets one hand on my back and the other on my waist.

Fredi’s eyes dip to his fingers curling around my side. “Whatcha doing?” she teases, smirking up at me.

“Nothing,” I hiss.

“Don’t look like nothin’.” She leans to the side and I move with her, blocking her view of Xavier.

“Maybe your eyesight isn’t as good as you think,” I shoot back. “Now go on.”

Her gaze moves to my face, and I try to close my mind to her. It doesn’t work. “He’s pretty,” she whispers as the smirk falls from her lips. “But so, so sad.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and nod once slowly.

Fredi studies me like a spell, and I brace myself for whatever will come from her mouth next. But the silence drones on until a strong, dark hand wraps around her arm and she lets the unknown person pull her away. I try to track her, but the crowd swallows her and her companion up in an instant.

“Who was that?”

“My sister.”

“Do you need to leave?”

I shake my head and turn to him. “No, and even if I did, I wouldn’t. Not yet.”

Xavier ducks his head to hide his smile and I catch a glimpse of Billie jumping out of the crowd. She’s smiling, laughing, looking more carefree than I’ve ever seen her. We lock eyes over Xavier’s head. Her smile tilts into a lopsided grin when her eyes shift to Xavier’s back. A man jumps off the dance floor and crowds close behind her, wrapping possessively around her waist.

I open my mouth to say something, but Billie shakes her head, bringing a finger to her lips, shushing me without a word. We watch one another as she steps back into the man’s hold. He tightens his arm around her waist and lets her push him back onto the dance floor.

“You still wanna get some air?” Xavier asks, pulling my attention back to him. “Or do you…want to dance? Maybe?”

His question catches me off guard, but so does my desire. I start to say no, but a ‘yes’ falls from my lips. Xavier’s face lights up at my words, and he wastes no time pulling me into the throng of swaying, sweaty bodies.

He charts a path toward the center of the dance floor. We claim a small scrap of bare floorboard and face one another as the crowd jostles us closer and closer with each drum-heavy beat. We laugh and reach for one another slowly, carefully, and everyone else disappears.

I smooth a hand over his shoulder while his settles on my waist again. Our chests press together, our feet tangle, and I never want to let him go. We’re the same height, but he’s thick at the waist where I’m lean, soft where I’m hard, warm where I’m hot.

I feel like I’ve waited my entire life for this.

I don’t mean to, but I can’t help but compare Xavier to David. Not physically, but in all the other ways that matter most. Xavier is soft where David was hard. Open where he was closed. Wounded where he’d been guarded.

I wrap my arms around his shoulders as he pulls me in at the waist.

I brush my mouth against his soft cheek and kiss my way up to his ear. “See, I told you it would be okay.”

* * *

XAVIER

I was sixteen the first time I let a boy break my heart. I can’t even remember his name anymore, just his face and the way I felt when he touched me. I used to wake up in the middle of the night covered in a cold sweat, my heart racing, soul heavy with shame. The shame didn’t go away when he got a girlfriend and stopped talking to me because I buried it in the fertile ground of my own sadness, just like I would every heartbreak after.

And maybe the path that brought me to that sterile clinic room started all those years ago, but it also brought me here, to Cato’s fingers scratching circles over my pounding heart. To my own fingers slipping under his shirt to feel his hot, sweaty back.

I can see heartbreak coming a mile away, but I can’t turn away.

Life has been so short on tenderness that I chase even the spirit of it.

I confuse it with kindness.

I mistake it with care.

I long for these mirages to lead me to love, but they never do. They’ve brought me to quick fucks in public restrooms, leading strangers to my home even when I can’t remember their names. They’ve brought me sorrow and pain, and brief, bright moments of happiness that never erased all I’d endured before. But I long for every scrap of tenderness still.

Cato’s breath comes in ragged puffs against my ear. His kisses feel like a cool compress on a hot day. I want him closer and closer, even though I know he can only break my heart whether he wants to or not.

“It’s okay,” he whispers in my ear, pulling me close.

I run my hand up his spine and then curl my fingers to scrape down. His loud moan makes me shiver in arousal. I close my eyes and focus on these new sensations.

“You hear me?” he asks, kissing his way over my face, his mouth searching for mine.

“I heard you,” I sigh. “I just don’t believe you.”

He places a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth and I feel his lips curl into a smile. I turn toward it, seeking his joy as a substitute for my own.

Our mouths touch. His lips press forward, making me smile when he does. “You don’t have to believe me,” he whispers into my mouth. It’s not a kiss, it’s more intimate than that. Cato’s words taste like prayer on my tongue. “You still deserve love in times of despair.”

I don’t have time to think before I feel hot tears falling down my face. Cato brushes them from my cheeks with his thumbs. I open my eyes to find him watching me. Waiting for me.

“You can’t lock dreams away. You have to wish out loud if you want them to come true.” I start to speak, but Cato presses his mouth to mine, whispering onto my tongue. “Dreams are like magic. Magic is intention. Whatever you say plants a seed. Be careful.” His lips press against mine every few words, tasting my sadness and desire. And maybe even the last shreds of hope.

“I wanna feel something besides the loneliness,” I admit. “I wanna know what love feels like on the worst day of my life.”

My vision goes blurry with more tears, but I hear Cato’s voice loud and clear. “Let it be.”