“If we’re talking about the first time, it was actually when we were probably eleven or twelve years old. We were playing a team from Winnipeg in the championship. And I remember we ended up winning the championship with Jonny having like three goals and everyone was like ‘Who is this kid from Winnipeg?’ I mean he was special right then and there.”
“The words spark and burn in the narrowing space between them. Patrick smiles, looking up at Jonny with his face clear and open, the whole world in his eyes. And – it’s a beautiful world, Jonny thinks suddenly, with all the vehemence of a prayer. He reaches out to mirror Patrick’s touch against his face. It’s miraculous, even, this world – this one – where the sun is shining on the still surface of the pond and the crickets are singing. Where Patrick is looking back at him and smiling.
This world, where Patrick is pulling his head down and kissing him, warm and open-mouthed.
Laughter is bubbling up inside him, something bright and fizzing. Springs of living water, he thinks. My cup runneth over. Jonny is laughing, then, and Patrick is too. He wants to capture the sound, the way their voices intertwine. He kisses Patrick again. Again, again. He never wants to stop.”
“I think that none of us knew that you and Jonathan had the sort of relationship in which…”
“We don’t!” Patrick interrupts. “It’s not like that. It’s not.”
“Then what is it like?” Elgar asks, gentling his habitually crisp diction, and lowering his voice even more.
Patrick’s glad for the dim lighting on the plane. His ears still feel hot. “It’s just Jonny bogarting my daemon,” Patrick says. “And it’s Puck being all ‘I can’t be tamed!’ You know how he is. That’s all. It’s not…it’s not anything.”
![kylezy: [x] Important journalism, probably](https://64.media.tumblr.com/89e1517917dcb20a0f883804fd695126/tumblr_oxn4mwl3rP1qegzg0o1_640.png "kylezy: [x] Important journalism, probably")
