"I know," he whispers. "I know I lied."
"Why?"
"Because —" His voice cracks. He swallows, tries again. "Because if I told you I'd never done any of it, you would have stopped."
"I wouldn't have —"
"You would have." His eyes are fierce now, the mask cracking in the other direction. Not into blankness but into something raw and desperate. "You would have said we should wait. You would have been kind about it. You would have held me and said all the right things and we would have fallen asleep without — and I couldn't. I couldn't let that happen again."
"Again."
"The wall, Silas. On the sidewalk. You pulled away because I was too young, too inexperienced, the imbalance was too much. And I — you were right, maybe, about some of it. But you were also wrong. Because I knew what I wanted. I knew who I wanted. And the only thing stopping me from having it was the truth about how much I hadn't done."
His words settle around us. The morning light has shifted, warming the room by degrees.
"So I lied," he continues, quieter. "I said twice because twice sounded experienced enough to not trigger your — your thing. Your responsible thing. The thing where you decide I'm too fragile and pull back." His jaw tightens. "And it worked. You didn't stop. And it was — Silas, it was everything. It was more than I imagined. You were so careful and so good and I wanted every second of it and I don't regret it. I don't."
"But?"
"But I took your choice away." His voice drops to nothing. "You didn't get to decide what you were doing. You thought — you thought I'd done it before. You thought you were just another time. And you weren't. You were the first everything. The first mouth. The first — all of it. And you didn't know. Because I lied."
The room is quiet. His heart hammering against mine. My lion, silent for the first time in weeks. Not pacing, not purring, just listening. Paying attention.
"You're right," I say. "I didn't get to choose."
He closes his eyes. A tear slides sideways across his temple and into his hair, and the sight of it cracks me open.
"But Dev, the reason you lied. That's on me."
His eyes open. Confused.
"The wall," I say. "I stopped kissing you and said you turned twenty-one yesterday and you heard, what? That you were too young? Too vulnerable? Too much of a risk?"
"That the imbalance was too much. That what I hadn't done made me too — that it tipped things too far."
"Yeah." I exhale. "And I taught you that. In one sentence on a sidewalk, I taught you that being honest about your inexperience would cost you the thing you wanted. So you stopped being honest."
"That's not your fault —"
"It's not about fault. It's about consequence." I pull him closer, tuck his head under my chin. "I was trying to be responsible. Careful. I was thinking about power and age and what it means to want someone who has less than you. Andthose are real things. But the consequence was that you learned to edit yourself around me. You learned that the full truth was too dangerous."
He's crying silently. I can feel it, the wetness against my chest, the slight tremor in his shoulders. Not the kind of crying that wants comfort. The kind that happens when someone names the thing you've been carrying and suddenly it's too heavy to hold alone.
"I should have told you," he says.
"Yes."
"I was afraid."
"I know."
"Are you — do you wish it hadn't happened?"
I pull back enough to look at him. His face is wet, his eyes red, and he's so beautiful and so young and so brave that my chest physically hurts.
"No," I say. "I don't wish that. Last night was — Dev, last night was the best night of my life. You were — I don't have words. And I'm not saying that to make you feel better. I'm saying it because it's true."
"But I lied —"