The Green's Hill Novellas Read Online Free PDF Page B

with his brilliance, and Charlie decided that casual anticipation was a joke anyway and hurtled across the clearing into his arms.
    “You came!” he said breathlessly, Whim’s big hands cupping his bottom and his legs firmly wrapped around Whim’s waist. Whim gazed at him with something so close to adoration that it made Charlie’s heart stutter in his chest.
    “I promised,” Whim told him gravely. “You packed fruit. I can smell it. What do you think they ate here before they grew fruit? Did you know things like peaches and oranges did not originate in California? How was school?”
    Charlie laughed helplessly. He had forgotten that Whim’s conversation was exactly that—whimsical. He wiggled a little so Whim put him down, and then he grabbed Whim’s hand and led him to the picnic itself, ready to be the maître d’ to their first real date.
    “You did not answer my question,” Whim said imperiously after he was seated with a paper plate of cut melon in his lap. He picked up the melon pieces between his thumb and fingers and scooped them elegantly into his mouth, and Charlie thought with admiration that Whim could make any act look sexual.
    “Which one?” Charlie asked, his own mouth full. He really loved fresh fruit, and on a hot summer’s night, you couldn’t lose.
    “How was school?” Whim closed his eyes as though to savor the taste of the fruit, but his head was still slightly cocked. It was clear that he was waiting.
    “Fun,” Charlie said, thinking about it. He spoke then of getting on stage, of writing his own pieces, of the joy of knowing people he hadn’t grown up with—even, when Whim showed no signs of jealousy, of the few hurried kisses, the touches on the hand, the shy bouts of flirting that had taken place in between times.
    “Did you take a lover?” Whim asked after listening with uncharacteristic single-minded attention. He almost sounded hopeful.
    Charlie blushed and cast him a slantwise look in the moonlight. His cloak of hair—and Charlie wanted to see it in the sun, because he was pretty sure it had just shifted from chartreuse to magenta, but the moonlight made nearly every color a variation of silver—hung sideways as he balanced his lean torso on his elbow, and his face was rapt with attention for Charlie and Charlie alone.
    “No,” Charlie said truthfully. If Whim couldn’t lie, he couldn’t either—at least not for the sake of pride. “I kept, uhm, thinking about solstice night, you know?” Nervously, Charlie began to pack up the picnic, putting the paper plates in a bag and the Tupperware container of fruit into the box he’d brought to hold it, but he needn’t have worried about telling the truth.
    Whim’s slow smile had charm and heat behind it. “How very symbolic,” he said softly, “but I’m pretty sure they sacrificed virgins at Beltane, so we’re just going to have to make love instead.”
    Charlie couldn’t help it. His grin literally hurt, it stretched so far, and a warm chuckle rumbled out of his chest. “I’m so glad,” he said when his stomach stopped shaking with laughter, “because I went to a lot of trouble to seduce you.” He sat back on his heels and began to sweep off the picnic blanket.
    Whim grinned back and then sat up in a fluid movement that belied how totally relaxed he had been seconds before, scooting out of Charlie’s way so he could fold the thing up, leaving them on the opened sleeping bag. “You seduced me last year. I was just waiting until you were ready for consummation.” And suddenly he made one of those abrupt conversational shifts that had marked their time the year before, and Charlie had a little bit of whiplash following him.
    “Here. I want to give you something. I started making toys this year. Tiny ones. They’re… they’re….” And now Charlie could swear Whim was blushing. He could feel the heat that big, powerful body put out under the oppressive summer sky. “Green and Adrian say they’re