Aiden was so happy earlier that he’s clearly a bit exhausted now.

He’s blinking slowly, a lingering smile on his stubbled face, his fingertips gently massaging my feet. The moonlight gleams silver on his chestnut hair, which is still damp from the spring drizzle outside.

I’m playing a video game while he watches. He really likes doing this, I’ve found, especially when he's stressed out. Or when he's just tired, like he is tonight. I think it relaxes him. He always laughs when I get mad and start cursing out some boss I can’t beat.

The soft patter of the raindrops against the windows is nice and peaceful, and Aiden is starting to grow unwound, one long leg hanging off of the couch. His massive hands are slowing in their movements against me.

I’m focused on the TV, my thumb poised over a button on my Xbox controller. Tracking a winged, undead monster through the scope of my sniper rifle. Leading it slightly, accounting for its movements. I wait one more second, then fire, and the monster drops out of the sky.

I twist to face Aiden, grinning victoriously, then blink when I see that he’s looking at me. Not at the TV at all. Just at me.

His ocean eyes flit away when I catch him staring. He turns to look at the screen again, nibbling his lip.

Smiling to myself, I pause the game, mute the TV, and set my controller aside. I wrap myself around Aiden, who exhales the softest little huff of happiness as he locks his arms around me and puts his chin on the top of my head.

We sit still together for a long moment. I listen to the quiet tapping of the rain. To Aiden’s heartbeat, through his chest.

I want to hear it through the connection, too, so I open it up softly. His emotions and mine flow together. I breathe with his lungs, travel slowly from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Let myself swim through him. Enjoy the feeling of him swimming through me.

Without moving my mouth or making a sound, I let out a blissful sigh. Aiden catches it through the connection, envelops himself in it, floats on it. He loves it, and I feel how much he loves it. My toes curl on the couch, a shiver moving through my body.

I always wondered if one day, having the connection open with Aiden might not feel quite as good as it did before. If the feeling might fade, or maybe I'd adjust to it, wouldn't get so swept off of my feet. I could honestly laugh, thinking about that now. If anything, it actually feels better than it did before. With each new depth of intimacy we reach in each other, we seem to reach deeper places in the connection, too.

It takes me a long time to realize that we’re swaying a little, very slowly, wrapped up in each other’s arms. Or maybe it took no time at all. I lose track of the real world when we’re doing this. I could live in this feeling for days and days.

I'm held in it so completely that anything besides Aiden becomes a distant, abstract concept.

I know that there are two cups of tea on the coffee table. I know that there are people out on the sidewalks below, umbrellas held up over their heads. I know that the moon is shining and that the newspaper with the review in it is folded up on my kitchen counter. I know that cold air is drifting in through the open windows.

So why does it feel like there’s just him, only him?

I don’t know, but it feels so fucking good. I cuddle deeper into his arms, and he traces his fingers up my back, though neither of us has moved an inch. It's all internal, spoken in our secret language.

When we finally break apart and drop back into our own bodies, we both let out a shuddering breath. Aiden opens his eyes, stares hazily into mine.

I move so suddenly that I’m not sure I even realized I was going to do it. I straddle Aiden’s lap, sit with my face pressed up against his neck. His warm, strong hands slide up my back, crumpling up my flannel.

“I love you,” I whisper against him, as if he somehow might not have gotten that message through the connection. “I love you, I’m so proud of you-”

“Stop it, man.” Aiden huffs out another sweet little laugh, one that makes my already burning cheeks turn a deeper shade of scarlet. “It’s too much, like - I can’t handle any more good shit, today. Starting to get overwhelmed. Not an issue I ever thought I’d have, but here we fuckin’ are.” He takes a fistful of my hair and pulls me away from his neck, so he can look into my eyes. “You come with problems I never anticipated, Keane.”

I laugh, then bite my lip, trying to chill out. I climb off of Aiden and settle down next to him on the couch again. The Xbox automatically turned off while I forgot about its existence, but my game is still up when I turn it back on.

“You want to try?” I offer. “Balance out the happiness with some good old-fashioned rage and frustration?”

Aiden groan-laughs, playfully tries to kick the controller out of my hands. I shove it into his fingers, then laugh when he groans again.

“I’m gonna get you killed in like, under a minute,” he warns me.

“Under a minute? That’s fucking impossible, like - c’mon, babe, you can do it. There’s a horde of zombies coming, those enemies are really slow. Just don’t use the sniper rifle, that’s probably too difficult - press that button to open the weapons inventory.”

Aiden does it. The options pop up, and he scrolls through them.

“Oh, there’s a grenade?” he asks, equipping it. “Easy. I can throw a grenade. Should take care of a zombie horde, right?”

“Oh, actually - I wouldn’t use the grenade, there’s a chance-”

I break off, because Aiden has already thrown the grenade. I put my fingers over my mouth as it lands in the cluster of zombies. One of the zombies bends down, scoops the grenade up, and hurls it back at us. It lands on the shipping container our character is standing on, just in time for it to explode.

Blood droplets spatter all over the screen, along with red, dripping words: LEVEL FAILED.

“Oh,” Aiden says, and I burst out laughing.

“Wow! That really was under one minute. That actually might have been less than thirty seconds. When you make a promise, you deliver, huh?”

“Okay, listen-”

“Oh, no!” I press my fingers to my cheeks, make a sad face at Aiden. “Fuck! Now that dope sniper shot I did won’t count! Seriously, Aiden?”

“Seriously me?” He lets out a sputter of indignation. “I literally said that I was gonna get you killed, it’s not my fault that you didn’t listen!”

“I didn’t listen? Did you not hear me say I wouldn’t use the grenade? The high-level zombies in this game have intelligence points!”

“The fuck is an intelligence point? Look, you said it after I already pressed the button, what was I supposed to-?”

“Intentionally ignoring me, and shit." I fix Aiden with a wounded, pouty face. "You fucked up my score, man."

“Again, Keane, you said it after I already-”

“My boyfriend cares more about blowing himself up with grenades than he does about me. Now, there’s an unanticipated problem.”

Aiden lets out a deep, frustrated growl, just like he did when he was mad at me last night. Blazing azure fire flares to life in his eyes.

My heart stands still. I bite my lip, my cheeks suddenly burning.

“Honestly, man.” Aiden’s low, rumbling voice is all fired up. “You have more freckles than you have goddamn brain cells. Like, maybe if-” He breaks off, blinking at me. “Jamie.”

“Mhm?”

“Are you - trying to get my belt undone?”

“No.”

Aiden looks down at his lap, where my fast-working fingers almost have the buckle open.

“No?” he repeats, understandably skeptical.

His belt falls open beneath my fingers. I move to sit astride him again, my knees sinking down into the couch. Aiden blinks up at me, surprised, his hands lifting to hold me in place.

I take two fistfuls of chestnut softness in my fingers. I bury my face into it, take deep, adoring breaths of it. My hands move to the firm warmth of Aiden's neck, his bronze skin against my palms. I feel his pulse kick up, feel his body start to radiate heat. My thumbs stroke along his jawline, savoring every little prickle of stubble.

My entire body is starting to hum with love, the current between us overtaking everything.

Aiden swallows. I feel the movement ride up my palms.

“Thought-” His deep voice is wavering, charged with breath. “Thought you were mad at me…?”

I lift my head, shift back to look down at him. Aiden gazes back up at me, burning blue eyes fixed on mine.

“No,” I murmur, gently dragging my thumb across his parted lips. “I wasn’t. I only said that stuff because I was trying to make you mad. You said you were too happy, right? Couldn't handle it, starting to get overwhelmed?”

Aiden blinks at me, then huffs out a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. “Are you s-?”

“Mhm.”

He laughs again, indignant. Then he nibbles his lip, looking up at me uncertainly.

“So - you’re really not mad? I’m sorry that I fucked up your…”

He fades off, staring into my eyes. I don’t know what he sees in them, but it fully steals his voice from him.

I tip forward again, moving very slowly. I drop my head and place a soft kiss behind Aiden's ear, one on the curve of his neck, one on his shoulder. I linger there for a moment, then keep going. One featherlight kiss on each eyelid, one on the tip of his nose.

I slowly take his jaw in my hands and put my parted lips against his. Let a few tense, silent breaths go by. Then I crush his mouth with kisses. Deep, slow, ferocious kisses, my fingers tightening their grasp in his hair. I don’t stop until I’ve coaxed a soft noise out of him. A rough, husky sound from low in his throat.

When I draw back again, Aiden looks up at me, panting a little. His face is catching the moonlight. The glow from without merges with the glow from within, makes his already breathtaking eyes shine even more brightly. Two perfect, pale blue diamonds, misted and hazy with desire.

He’s throwing off so much heat. I’m bathed in it.

“Can you handle one more good thing today?” I ask softly, stroking his cheek with my thumb.

Aiden, who had spread his fingers on my back, is now holding tight handfuls of my flannel.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice all roughed up. “Yeah, I - I can handle it.”

I kiss him again, then get off of his lap. I drop to my knees on the floor before him. He watches me with enormous, ravenous eyes.

I push up his shirt, drag my nose through his body hair, then start pushing kisses into the hard muscle of his stomach. I take my time with each one, lingering, letting the feeling expand and deepen before I place another one.

Aiden is still panting, but now taking fuller, heavier breaths. His body rolls up a little against my mouth, an involuntary movement, an instinctive response to my touch.

I love his soul with all of mine, love to breathlessly reach it through the connection. But I love his body, too. I could swear it’s made for loving me, and mine for loving him. Every touch and kiss I leave on him is saturated with adoration, and I think he can feel it.

The quiet sound of his zipper mingles with the tapping of the rain against the windows. Followed by the sound of Aiden’s breath hitching, and then a soft, hoarse moan. This last sound fills my every vein with liquid fire.

Aiden watches me, reaches down to stroke the back of my head, warm fingers sinking into my hair. He slowly melts further and further down on the couch, his heels digging into the rug, his toes curling. I left his shirt pushed up, so I open my eyes to watch his muscled stomach rise and sink with his staggered breaths. To drink in the look on his face.

His hands move to grip the back of the couch, so tightly that he’s crushing the cushions. His chiseled jaw is clenched.

He’s trying to focus, I realize. There's the familiar electricity in the air, the one that means something might explode. He’s trying to redirect the energy into something that won’t destroy my apartment.

I close my eyes again, lost in him. I can feel him watching me, feel the recurrent pulse and flare of his magical heat, the way it runs over me, little flames licking my skin. I sense it building around me, and I know that it will break something. I don’t care, so I don't stop.

But I don't hear anything explode.

I open my eyes again, sit back, and find myself bathed in golden, sparkling light. I find myself surrounded by gold dust.

It reminds me of seeing the particles floating in a beautiful beam of sunlight, only so much more brilliant than that. It’s as if thousands of diamonds have been crushed into their tiniest possible pieces, imbued with golden light, and then carried into my apartment on the breeze. The shimmering glow of them fills up the whole room, floats all around us. Everywhere I look.

It’s heart-stoppingly beautiful. Like the raw materials of stars, a golden galaxy. The light gilds Aiden’s bronze skin, his hair, catches on his eyelashes. It makes him look like he’s been dipped in magic. Like everything has.

I’ve stopped still, entranced. I come back to myself when Aiden puts his hand on the back of my head again, strokes the nape of my neck. He lets out a soft, hoarse whimper, his blue eyes begging. I realize that I've been toying with him while I was staring around. He looks desperate, silently pleading.

I sink my fingernails into his muscles and my head back into his lap. He shudders, seizes a fistful of my hair, and holds on tight.

Afterwards, he does his zipper back up, but his fumbling fingers can’t manage the button or the belt. I laugh when he gives up immediately and reaches for me instead. He pulls me back up on the couch, into his arms. I snuggle deeply into them, already lost in reliving what just happened. That last, stuttering moan is still echoing in my ears.

I put my head against Aiden’s chest. I listen to his beating heart. I look at the beautiful haze of glowing gold filling my apartment.

“How did you do this, babe?”

He hasn’t recovered enough to answer me, yet. He tightens his arms around me, his heightened breath gradually slowing down.

“Accident,” he finally mumbles. “Was tryna make the fireflies, but you were - I couldn’t focus, um. On anything else.”

I smile against his chest, taking deep breaths of vetiver.

“Can I say it one more time?” I ask, my voice muffled in his shirt. “Just one more time, and then I’ll stop. I promise.”

Aiden’s low laugh rumbles through the rain.

“Are you talking about the exhibition, or about me not exploding your apartment?”

“Mmm. Both.”

Aiden shakes his head like he’s annoyed, but I can feel him smiling.

“One more time. But that’s it. I mean it.”

I lift my head, meet his gaze with mine. “I’m so proud of you, Sugar Maple.”

He looks at me, something bright glowing deep within his blue eyes. Something even more radiant than the shimmering air around us.

He huffs out a soft laugh, drops his head, and runs a hand over his face.

“Okay, Keane. Enough. Shut up about it, already.”

I'm satisfied that he's got the message, so I do.

When I switch off the lights so we can go to bed, the shining glow from the living room remains. It sneaks down the hallway, touches the doorway to my bedroom.

I fall asleep with Aiden's warmth enveloping me, his arms around me, his breathtaking light following me into my dreams.