Chapter 38
LEO’S NOTES
Where: Viewed at Harvard University
Favorite lines: Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh no! it is an ever-fixed mark.
Misc: My love for Pandora is an ever-fixed mark upon my soul
Leo was old enough to know that good sex didn’t mean good compatibility, and amazing sex didn’t mean love. Still, he’d never had sex like this before. He’d never lost himself entirely. And he didn’t think it was a coincidence that the best sex of his life was with the woman he loved.
The woman he trusted. Maybe that was the key. He could lose himself because he trusted Pan to find him.
With her drowsy head resting on his shoulder—curls tickling his chin and the taste of sweet cream on his lips—Leo stretched out on the bench.
After a time, a curtain rose and pixies flew inside and covered Pan with silken blankets.
He whispered “Thank you,” and the one she called Violet kissed him on the nose.
The brownies arrived next, with little brooms and baskets.
They cleaned up the dinner mess, threatening each other with lobster claws and beady lobster eyes.
Their antics made Leo smile. Let them play.
Let the pixies fly, let the brownies romp, for he and Pandora were in love.
Let the gnomes unfold a bed around him and Pan, using the bench as a headboard and—wait, what?
He didn’t have a clue how that worked. Well, except he knew exactly how: magic. Magic. Because she’d released new magic into the world—and into his life, too.
“You’re right,” he murmured, after the folk left them in a bed of soft pillows and silken blankets.
“Mm?”
“About magic. You’re right. Things change. The world changes—and it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful, Pan.” He looked at her sleepy face. “You’re so beautiful.”
She opened one eye. “You know what you are?”
“What am I?”
A sleepy, contented-cat smile tugged at her lips. “Besotted.”
“Yeah. I’m so fucked.”
“That, too,” she said.
He snorted a laugh at her juvenile humor, then kissed the top of her head.
Beyond the shelter of the gazebo, the tide crashed, the earth spun. The final rays of the sun touched the clouds lingering at the horizon. Yet with Pan in his arms, Leo felt that he was in the center of everything. This was the axis around which his world turned: him and Pan, finally together.
The scent of her hair intoxicated him and the intensity of his feelings frightened him, yet his fear didn’t bother him.
He lost track of time, lying there, watching her sleep, before he felt his eyes grow heavy and darkness fell.