Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
SHARD
I’ve made up my mind.
“Rooney,” I say the moment he enters the dressing room, turning away from my conversation with Nova, which was at its conclusion anyway.
“Chill out, tiger,” Rooney says, waving me aside as he walks to his place beside the mirror.
I am a being born from space dust and I’ve been alive for more millennia than I care to count.
Yes, I chose to remain in Earth’s dimension, but only for the purpose of studying and collecting experiences I could never access at the farthest reaches of the universe.
I do not lower myself into a sulk just because a snarky human has denied me attention.
Except this is my snarky human, the best one of them all, and I am absolutely sulking at his dismissal when I have been preparing for this all week.
Even having given himself to me—in a manner of speaking, as he strongly objects to being, in his words, a “kept man”—Rooney maintains a firm, often caustic, spirit of independence.
He doesn’t like to be coddled or bullied, even when I’d rather like to coddle him and have instincts that veer dangerously close to bullying.
Loving instincts, but still bully-adjacent ones.
So I wait by the door like a good partner, nodding stiffly as the other employees take their leave.
Rooney’s relationship with me stopped being a subject of gossip when he slapped Sara last month for calling him a— That is, he accused everyone in the room of agreeing with her, then thanked her for saying the quiet part out loud, and demanded anyone who had something else to share stand up and say it to his face.
Nova put a stop to the open conflict, Sara quit, and I dragged Rooney back to my apartment to calm him down.
Thoroughly. Until he couldn’t speak anything but my name and please.
After that, it didn’t have the same thrill, so I became more of a door-stopper than a superior, what with Nova having taken over managing Caution far better than its previous owner.
Which was a not-insignificant element leading to today’s conclusion.
Rooney has half a skip in his step when he meets me, wrapped in warm clothes for once, as he learned quickly I wasn’t going to compromise on his safety just because he was used to the aesthetic of a tortured artist. Spring will come soon enough, and he’ll be able to stomp around in his preferred garb again.
I take his hand, warmed to my core as I always am when he’s in a good mood and feeling affectionate.
Rooney hasn’t changed for our dynamic, nor would I want him to, so the shifting colors of his energy and the sharpness of his tongue often have me treading carefully.
I knew that Rooney’s baseline disposition wasn’t a dealbreaker for me when I first began pursuing him, but then, even a few short months ago, I didn’t know what that would feel like, or how a life where I was allowed to witness him untethered was going to look.
I enjoy it more than I could have imagined—and, as a being who has witnessed the birthing of new dimensions, I possess familiarity with many wonders.
But none so flawlessly unrefined as the man I now call my partner.
“Let’s go home,” Rooney says the moment we’ve turned the corner toward the parking lot.
“No late-night excursions today?” I tease.
“Did you see the heels I was wearing tonight? Gods, fuck no. You owe me a foot massage for that.”
I wrap my arm around the small of his back, pulling his chest flush with mine. “Did I ask you to wear ten-inch platforms?”
“No.”
“Then why am I offering penance for it?”
Rooney smirks. “Because you like me, or something.”
I don’t have anything to say to that, so I kiss his forehead, then his nose, then finally his lips, slow and sweet.
His eyes flutter closed, and for a moment I drag him through a second, two, our kiss frozen in the vacuum of space, before I draw him back down to solid earth and we’re standing in our living room.
I had thought it’d be more of an argument to get Rooney out of that repulsive building he was living in, but he made the decision to move here before I’d even brought it up. Small mercies.
Rooney trots off the moment he blinks the stardust from his eyes, leaving me to sigh after him.
He disappears into the bathroom to shower, and I pull a plate of fresh sushi out of the fridge.
While he’s going through his nightly decompression routine, which has become mandatory, I meticulously arrange the sitting lounge: chilled white wine, rose-infused massage oil, and dark chocolate-dipped candied orange peels, which unexpectedly became one of Rooney’s favorite treats.
But many things about Rooney are unexpected, so I provide the best I can conjure up, and gladly.
Once Rooney emerges from the shower, soft and pink-tinged, with frizzy half-dried hair, the next hour passes in a sleepy haze for him, and an anxious gauntlet of indecision for me.
How do I bring this up? Will he see it as me springing it on him, now that it’s three in the morning and he’ll be ready to sleep soon?
I sense the take me to bed energy when Rooney’s muscles tense, preparing to pull his feet off my lap. I tighten my grip on them, prompting a curious look; when the thought gets stuck in my matter, he jiggles his leg as a sign for me to get the fuck on with it. Not unfair.
Fighting through my uncharacteristic bout of nerves, I blurt, “I gave Caution to Nova.”
Rooney blinks owlishly. “You what?”
“Nova has been acting as the manager for the last few months,” I explain, hurrying to get it all out when Rooney raises a brow in the that’s shit I already know fashion.
“My goal in acquiring the club has been achieved, so there was no reason for me to keep it in my possession.” Forging paperwork was unbelievably difficult, anyway.
Collecting fragments of dimensional detritus while floating in space as a nebulous concept was far easier than taxes.
Had it been a legitimate business venture, I could have paid someone. Alas.
“So you just gave her the club?”
“I don’t have any use for it. After so many years of putting out fires, she deserves the authority, don’t you think?”
He shrugs. “Sure. But why are you telling me this right now?” Right to the heart of my plan.
I take a moment to consider my next words more carefully. ‘I told Nova not to expect you tomorrow’ won’t go well. It needs to be presented as a question. An option. Not just about his safety, but my feelings, which I’m not yet used to expressing.
“I was wondering if there’s anything you’d like to do that isn’t…”
“Stripping?” he deadpans.
“Yes.”
“Sure, but…” Rooney turns toward the window, the curtains thrown wide. He’s become mildly obsessed with the nightly view, although he hasn’t told me why. I don’t mind. The stars are—were—my home.
“Rooney, my jewel, I think you should quit your job,” I finally say, exhausted by my lack of delicate words.
“I can offer you everything. Anything you wish, I can provide. I’ve never had a reason to pursue anyone else’s desires, and don’t have many of my own.
My being has long been an experiment, collecting experiences instead of celestial debris.
With you, I could be so much more. We could be more. ”
Then I hold my breath.
Rooney stares at me for a long time, long enough that I begin to squirm like a lovesick youth. Finally, he narrows his eyes and says, “I don’t need anyone to save me from my life.”
“So you’ve said,” I allow generously. It’s a mantra of his.
“But…”
“But?”
“This is about more than me, yeah?”
I tilt my head. “I suppose. I mean, yes.” My brow furrows at the simple way he presented the observation. “I want to give you more.”
“Alright,” Rooney says on a yawn. He pulls his feet out of my lap and stretches, curling his fingers above his head and arching his spine so beautifully I nearly forget what we were discussing until he adds: “On one condition.”
Ah. There it is.
“You need to taste me first.”
My back goes straight, every muscle tensing. Rooney crosses his arms and shifts to the other end of the couch, hazel eyes blazing with challenge.
“My jewel…”
“Not even a whole bite,” he allows. “A sip.”
I run my hands through my dark waves of hair. I’ve never held an appearance for so long, enough to develop familiarity with a body. It’s yet another thing that has changed with becoming Rooney’s partner. Included among that is, of course, the desire to leave his soul untouched.
Except while it was easy to refuse the first time we discussed it, having been so close with him, the temptation to indulge his request is near unbearable.
“Rooney, I’ve told you why I don’t want to do that.”
Tilting his head, Rooney seems to genuinely consider how to proceed, which bodes poorly for me. He’s far too smart, especially when the logic is premeditated. “I trust you,” he finally says.
I had been expecting more, but those three words feel like a gut punch.
Rooney hasn’t told me he loves me, and I’m not sure he ever will.
Which is fine, because I don’t care about the human concept of love.
Especially not when my feelings for him veer much closer to metaphysical obsession than something so pure and simple.
Thus, ‘I love you,’ while a cornerstone of human devotion, has little to no importance to me. Trust is something entirely different.
“What if I don’t stop?”
Rooney laughs. “What if? I always expected to die young. At least then I won’t end up an unclaimed body at the morgue.”
The thought fills me with distress and rage.
I surge up from my corner of the couch, every particle of my being exploding through my physical form.
I see myself reflected in Rooney’s wide pupils, nebulae of icy blues swirling within a filmy contour, barely keeping its proper shape.
Half of one hand is transparent when I cradle the back of his neck, finding the opal under of his skin to ground myself.
Rooney pushes colorless hair from where it’s fallen over my eyes and tucks it behind my ear, unafraid of the magnitude of my being.
“When your earthly time comes to its end, I will carry your soul into the stars with me,” I swear. “You will be an infant star, and I’ll hold every particle of your being within mine until it’s time for us to expand. Together.”
Rooney fists his hand in the long locks of my hair and drags me close, kissing me with searing heat that brings me back to myself, my shape firming again.
When he pulls away, he holds me by the hair so I can’t follow.
“That’s insane, I hope you know. And really fucking awesome, but before you get me to agree to it, you need to give me this. Okay?”
“Give you a—”
“I want to be the most important thing inside you,” he announces, clear and pointed.
Stunned, I regard him, taking in his sincere expression. He allows my hair to slip from his fingers when I lean in to press our foreheads together. “Alright,” I concede. “One sip.”
A gentle smile transforms Rooney’s face.
The nearer I draw, running the tip of my nose down the line of his jaw, the louder his energy thrums. Under his skin.
Calling to me. I tuck my face in the crook of his neck, inhaling deeply, smelling him.
Intoxicating. Perfect. More radiant than any galaxy, no matter how far-reaching.
Lacking anything else to say, I part my lips the smallest fraction, allowing a breath to caress his skin, disturbing the most infinitesimal particles of what makes him Rooney, my jewel, the soul inside the flesh.
On the next inhale I allow a smoke-like curl of his essence to pass my lips, running over my tongue like a drop of fresh spring water.
It’s so exquisite my entire body shudders, overwhelmed by the pleasure of consuming him.
I’ve never taken so little of a soul before, having needed more to keep and examine, but Rooney is an elixir more potent than anything I could collect from anywhere, anyone else.
“You taste like the purest starlight,” I inform him, whisper resonating against his skin, now covered in shivery bumps. I rub his shoulders, holding him in place so I can meld half of my being into his, giving him part of myself as well. We blend like a tight harmony, endless singing prisms.
Rooney wraps his arms around my neck and breathes a contented sigh. “How much did you take?” he asks in a sleepy murmur.
A smile barely touches my lips, the slight contact standing fine hairs on end. “Just one sip, as you said.”
“Was it enough?”
I nuzzle behind his ear, then scoop him into my arms, keeping our bodies aligned and our souls intermeshed. “More than enough,” I answer.
Dark eyelashes fluttering with exhaustion, Rooney spares his own ghost of a smile. “Told you.”
Full, enough so I could expand into a dimension for just the two of us, I carry Rooney to bed.
fin.