Chapter Twenty-five
Skies and sharks.
Ceres
“You’re practically twins,” Mars says, so I stop puffing out my cheeks and staring intently at his hamster. Tonight, apparently, is date night for his brother, so I have once again been invited into the Rogue household, this time—I can only assume—to meet Gingerbread, and be regaled by shark facts.
It is, of course, all worth it considering…
I sniff. “Don’t be so mean to me while I’m mourning Jove’s availability.”
Mars’s shoulders droop. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were still keeping that gag running. Since it’s been. You know. An hour.”
An hour of joy. An hour of bliss. An hour of twitching eyes.
And shark facts. So many shark facts. It’s honestly a skill I’ve managed to squeeze any Jove lamentation into the cracks between did you know that the hammerhead shark has 360 degree vision?
and they also are known for giving birth to live pups, not laying eggs .
The evening has proceeded roughly as follows:
He says, Did you know that some sharks lay eggs?
And I reply, Did you know that I’m very saddened by the ratio of shoulders in this household at present?
Super fun.
Having a great time.
“Jove’s date night…” I sigh, deeply, and pet Gingerbread’s head while she searches my hand for more treats to stuff in her cheeks. “With not me . Woe. Sorrow. The only ideal male specimen in my vicinity has been taken off the market. What will I do now? Go to Indiana and beg on Brian’s doorstep?”
Mars rolls his eyes and puts the plastic sharks he’s been playing with back in the massive glass enclosure, also known as his hamster’s home.
The sprawling five-billion gallon tank takes up a significant chunk of his modest living room.
Glancing my way, he mutters, “Particularly intent on chipping down my confidence, aren’t you? ”
“What can I say? I like my men broken.”
He tugs on my necklace, eliciting a smile when the chain pinches. Melting, he says, “Mischievous princess.” He kisses the lock before freeing me and scooping Gingerbread from my hands. “Back into your shark tank, little one.”
The second her paws meet the fluffy ground of her tank, she jets toward a hovel she’s built down into the terrain and begins unloading her cheeks in a nest visible against the glass. “She’s storing her booty,” I say. “Like a little pirate.”
“No. No pirates.”
“You don’t like pirates?”
“Pirates hunted and ate sharks.”
My brows rise. “Did they really?”
“According to the sources I’ve found, many did. But, even barring that, pirates in our current age should be shot. Or tortured.” Mars narrows his eyes on Gingerbread’s nest. “Both.”
“You have strong feelings about piracy? You? ”
He turns a look on me. “Now, whatever is that supposed to mean?”
“Just seems like another crime to add to your checkered record.”
“Pirates pirate creative content, which makes it infamously difficult to gain a footing in an already saturated business. Stealing work from true creators and passing it off as either free or their own in places where it’s difficult to remove can destroy chances for artists to make a living.
In our current climate, robbery is aplenty, and even if we say that the information robbed isn’t stored in a database for reshuffling, it is still stored as knowledge .
Decades of real people and real learning get broken down and put in a machine that spits out nightmare fuel just passable enough to be worth the cut costs and instant gratification. ”
“You’re talking about AI.”
He snaps, “Of course I’m talking about—” He cusses a modest stream of swears, then his nostrils flare as his chest fills.
“It’s little more than socially-accepted, and even promoted, cyber pirates…
” He mutters, “It’s a Doctor Who episode heading charmingly toward proud declarations of a thirty percent human workforce . Therefore,” he grits, “ no pirates .”
“No pirates,” I repeat. “Sorry.”
Cutting his fingers through his hair, he releases the tension in his limbs and rubs his neck.
“No, I’m sorry. I know, ultimately, life will adapt and creativity will persist. It’s just the adaption part paired with the frustration of a society on the brink of change.
I don’t much care for change. I prefer familiarity and predictability in those around me. ”
Same.
“Is that why you like me?” I ask. “You know I’m going to stay home and read a book, all day, every day?”
“Except on shopping day.” He rises, smiling down at me. “And, apparently, right now.” Like a dark, alluring prince coaxing me into his wicked domain, he offers me a hand. “Come.”
“Into the unknown? With you?”
His smile stretches.
And I place my hand in his.
The last thing I expect is for him to take me out his back door and into a clear, crisp night. Thick cypress trees barricade this space from the view of my own backyard, so I’ve never before known that the Rogue brothers…have a trampoline.
I cannot, for the life of me, see Jove climbing through the net and bouncing around, so this must be Mars’s. Mars’s trampoline.
A giggle escapes.
“Oh, hush,” he murmurs, helping me within the screened world. “Everyone should have a trampoline.”
With the sky open above me and a slew of blankets and pillows piled on the jump mat before me, I have to agree. Following Mars down into the cozy nest, I say, “It’s like a spaceship.”
“Exactly.” He wraps a soft blanket around my shoulders.
“We’re burrowing, like Ginger.”
Eyes catching starlight and gleaming like uranium, Mars chuckles, flops down, and stretches out. With a yawn, he peers at the eternal expanse above us, the inky dark speckled in glitter.
Nothing looked like this in the city. In the city, lights played in a different way. Night unfurled like a black canvas for the buildings and streetlights and windows.
I never hated it. I thought it was beautiful. I loved the skylines and the architecture. Knowing people planned, designed, and built everything I could see always filled me with a sense of grandeur.
But this?
I lie down beside Mars and let it all consume me.
This hits different.
“Fridays are date nights?” I ask, sending my voice out into the buzzing world cocooned in darkness.
“So Jove says. Who am I—younger brother that I am, fewer days upon this earth—to suggest otherwise?”
“Jupiter’s word is law, yes. You are correct.”
Mars fixes a scowl that I more feel than see on me, so I nestle closer to him. Reluctant, he mutters, “Am I ever going to get you to stop calling him by his government name?”
“I love names with syllables. They’re just so much better than names with…well… syllable , don’t you think?”
“Ceres?”
“Mm, two whole syllables in my name. Love it. Anyway. What were you saying, single-syllable boy?”
Pinching my cheeks, Mars shakes my head a bit and glowers at me. “Do you have any limitations, at all? Is nothing about me sacred? What if I’ve spent my entire life comparing myself to my brother and you keep pouring salt in the wound of my complex? You could be deeply, psychologically hurting me.”
I flutter my lashes. “It’s so pretty, the song of your heart as it shatters.”
“Am I to take that as a no, nothing is sacred ?”
“Nothing at all.” Except this. This moment. This is sacred.
Mars scoops me into a puddle of warmth against his chest and whispers into my hair, “Cruel goddess.”
“According to the myths, I am nurturing and protecting . And I absolutely didn’t cause a famine that one time my daughter had a fling in the Underworld.
That would be stupid. I mean, seriously, famines kill people.
Why would I send more subjects to the guy who took my baby girl?
” I free a nefarious giggle. “ Unless of course , I was always pro kidnapping and a big fan of shipping Pluto and Proserpina and wanted her to have more pathetic mortals to lord over.”
Mars squeezes me. “Evil mastermind.”
“Benevolent and supportive mother, thank you very much.”
His breaths quiet, going steady.
“Mars?”
Drowsy, he says, “Hm?”
“Are you falling asleep on me?”
“No,” he murmurs. “I’m not on you. That would be…” He yawns. “…so inappropriate.”
“Villain.”
His muscles tense, dragging me in fractionally closer. Closer, closer, closer.
I ask, “Are we tempting the fate of the critically-acclaimed, massively-popular only-one-trampoline trope?”
He snuffs a tiny laugh. “Scandalous.”
Scandalous indeed. I’ll have to tell Rouge about this before it gets oversaturated. Only one bed? Tired. Only one tent? Used. Only one trampoline? Fresh, new, cool, and…
Magical.
Listening to Mars’s heartbeat, I let my eyes close.
“I like your name. Mars is my favorite planet because it matches my hair. I like the way you look, too. Your eyes are the most beautiful shade of green, and your smile makes anything seem possible. Being around you is gentle. I’ve never met anyone as thoughtful as you.
Your kindness is an anomaly. Your honesty is refreshing.
Your chaos feeds my very soul. You’re insane, Mars.
Utterly insane. But—” I breathe a curse through the fabric of his clothes, straight into his skin. “—I love it.”
His lips settle hard against the crown of my head. “Marry me, Ceres.”
I tsk. “This is why you don’t get compliments, Mars. Look how irresponsible you are with them.”
My back hits the trampoline, and uranium eyes glitter down at me, dark strands of hair framing pale skin. Blankets waterfall off Mars’s shoulders while the moon lights him in white.
I have never seen anything more beautiful in my life.
“Marry me,” he repeats, as though he knows I’m entranced and doesn’t care one bit so long as I say yes .
“Make me,” I say.
He dips, kissing my forehead, the birthmark on my cheek, the corners of my eyes. “How do you imagine I go about doing that?”
How do I imagine he should force me into marriage?
Hm…
I stretch my toes, abandoning my shoes somewhere on the outskirts of the blanket and pillow nest. “Kidnap my favorite books…”
“The signed editions of your Rouge collection?”
I cut my attention off him. “Oh, who could say?”
“What am I to do with the kidnapped books? Hold them for marriage ransom?”
“Don’t be boring. Obviously, you have to kidnap me next, then threaten to burn my books right in front of me if I don’t comply. Props if you have the infrastructure to chain me to the ceiling with just enough leeway so I can kneel.”
Mars arches a brow. “I’m beginning to think you don’t know how to behave even a little.”
“I need the freedom to fall dramatically to my knees in anguish as you hold the most precious things I own near a crackling death.” Drawing my arms out of the blankets, I raise them above my head against the jump mat, taut. “Can you picture it?”
Molten lava couldn’t look as hot as Mars’s eyes right now. Roughly, he murmurs, “Vividly.” His fingertips dance up my arm, then his grip tightens around my wrists.
My heart leaps toward him.
“Look more eager for me, why don’t you?” He buries his face against my neck and tortures me. I squirm while he kisses, nips, tastes, wraps his teeth around my choker lock and pulls . As the metal tightens, his face returns to my field of view.
And I am dying .
I feel my swallow against the cold metal of the chain as starkly as I feel my heart racing for this man.
It is a painting. He is a painting. An exclusive, special-edition-only painting. Full color. On the first inside pages. Against the hardback cover. For a complete, delectable flat lay.
When he drops the chain from his teeth, I am unprepared for the way it thuds against my chest. When he rolls off me, I make an embarrassing sound in protest. When he laughs, I dissolve.
“You know what to do if you want more,” he says.
“You’d tease me even if we were married.”
He tilts his head toward me. “You’d beg me to.”
Oh, I would most definitely plead. “Your point?”
“No point. Just…” Unraveling his arm from the blankets, he offers his hand. Unwittingly, I clasp it, and he tangles our fingers before plunging them into the warmth of the blankets again.
His eyes close. He says, “No point at all.”
Peace caresses his features.
I murmur, “Mars?”
“Yes, my dearest love?”
Everything inside me comes undone, and I melt against his shoulder, wrapping my free arm around his waist. “Nothing.”
Natural as breathing, his body angles itself to accommodate me, and then—right as I think we’re going to nod off—we talk.
About everything. Anything. His mom. Mine. His brother. My favorite foods. The way he wakes up and what his morning routine consists of. The way I hoard makeup that I have used maybe three times in the past three years. All within the same week.
My voice goes raw first, but I don’t want to stop, so I murmur anything to keep him talking. Right around the time his voice is starting to get hoarse, he whispers into my hair a disconnected, heartfelt, “I love you,” and I’m glad my throat can’t handle a response.
Because I’m almost sure my heart echoes the words.