I smiled. “That depends on you.”
He didn’t look away. “Then I suppose you’d better keep showing me.”
My smile deepened.
Oh, I intend to.
Kieran
In the short time since we’d left Romeo, Schöneberg had changed.
Or maybe I have.
I wasn’t the same man who’d landed a few days ago, that was for sure. There were a lot of contributing factors to that transformation, but the main one was walking beside me.
Berlin moved around us, a blur of voices, traffic, and the low hum of the city, but my focus had narrowed to something much smaller.
To him.
I glanced at Stefan, then away again before he could catch me. I admired his composure, his confidence, that quiet certainty he seemed to carry with him everywhere, as if nothing about the world—or himself—was in question. It had been the first thing I’d noticed, the thing that had drawn me in.
But now I knew the truth. It wasn’t the whole of him, not even close.
I’d seen flashes of something else, in the way he listened—reallylistened. I was so used to dealing with students who pretended to listen, but I knew deep down they were waiting to steer the conversation back to themselves. And it wasn’t just students, either.
I loved the way Stefan chose his words, never rushed, never careless. The way he seemed to understand more than he said, and say only what mattered.
And then there was the way he looked at me, as though I wasn’t something to be assessed, categorised… solved. Which was unsettling, because it made me more aware of myself, of the things I said—and didn’t say.
This was supposed to be simple.
A few days in a new city, a distraction.
A way to put some distance between myself and everything waiting for me back home.
But somewhere along the way, it had stopped feeling like that.
I risked another glance at him, and this time, he caught it.
“What?” he asked with a smile.
I hesitated, because I didn’t have an easy answer. “Nothing.”
And fine, that was a lie, because the truth was, I wasn’t just interested in where he might take me next, or what he might show me.
I wanted tounderstandhim, to learn how he’d become this certain, this at ease with himself. I wanted to see what was underneath it.
All of it.
I sat outsideRomeo und Romeo, Stefan beside me, unable to stop looking. I wasn’t staring: it was more a case of taking it all in.
The streets were louder now, busier, and alive in a way that felt impossible to ignore. Men gathered in small clusters, laughing, talking, drifting between bars and cafés as if the whole district had shifted into a different rhythm. And everywhere I looked?
I saw leather.
There were harnesses, boots, caps, jackets. Trousers that left very little to the imagination. Rubber, too. Dog masks. Hoods that concealed entire faces. Men being led on leashes or chains, moving easily through the crowd as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
“Are you hungry?”