Kylux + 15 ("Shhh, they'll hear us") please? :)
(Modern Benarmie, for your reading pleasure!)
They are in a part of the college library that other freshmen hardly ever frequent, only the grad students hard at work on their theses, and library assistants who want to take a break and sit down without being scolded. It is on an upper floor but it feels like a basement, because there are no windows and hardly any light. Dust motes hover like fairies in the dimness. It is finals week and hot. The air has risen up to this infernal attic, and they have been wilting into one another, sweating nice and sweet while they kiss.
“I want to ask you something,” Ben says, and Armie hushes him.
“They?” Ben asks, quieter, but more irritated. “Who’s they?”
Armie points. There are two librarians coming around the corner, talking about the finer points of next school year’s budget, and Ben and Armie flatten themselves against the shelf where they’ve been standing, kissing each other hot and stuffy and sweaty in the close musty air. It feels like ten minutes before the librarians are gone, though it’s probably shorter, since it just seems like an agonizingly long time. Armie’s hand stays soft and clammy on top of Ben’s, rubbing the top of his hand with his thumb.
When they’re certain they’re alone again, Armie turns to Ben. His face is half-hidden in shadow, but his eyes are bright. Mischievous, almost, except Ben has never seen him engage in mischief.
“Okay,” Armie says, soft. “Okay. Tell me what you wanted to tell me.”
By now Ben has just about lost his nerve. He’s been overthinking as they waited, tethered to his desire to say it only by Armie’s hand.
“Tell me,” Armie says again.
“What are we going to like. Be. When next semester happens.”
The dust is irritating Armie’s nose, and he rubs it with his free hand. He hasn’t taken the other one away from Ben’s.
“What we are now. Or, I dunno. More, maybe. I guess it just depends on what you want.”
“I don’t know what I want…”
There’s a pang of hurt in Armie’s eyes, Ben can see that even in the dim light, and he hurries to explain himself. “I–I don’t know what I’m allowed to ask for.”
“Allowed? You can–you can ask for whatever you want. I guess, within reason?”
They both sound so uncertain, like they weren’t just kissing with the deepest degree of confidence, like they weren’t both thinking they had never kissed anybody that just felt–right–that way. The spell seems, well, not broken, but interrupted. Ben is wondering how to get them back into that comfortable groove, worrying that he is responsible for the universe going briefly off kilter.
“I know I want to keep–doing this.”
“Sure. More than that. If you like.”
Armie squeezes his hand. “Will you wait for me? This fall, can we…?”
It is an agonizing length of time to wait, sure, but it is something to anticipate. It is worth being three hundred miles apart all summer long, if it will lead to this.
“You have to promise, Ben.” Armie pretends to sound huffy, but he can’t, he just sounds tender. “I’ll only accept it as a promise.”
“I promise,” Ben says, unhesitatingly.
And that is all Armie needs to let go of Ben’s hand so he can pull him closer for another kiss, another, another, until they cannot stand the warmth anymore and go in search of air conditioning.
