Shit. He was getting hard again, his gaze involuntarily drifting down to the flirty hem of her soft, swinging nightgown, which only reached midthigh when she stood and rucked up even higher when she sat. When she shifted her legs like that—

Oh, that was deliberate. Her saucy wink only confirmed it.

The rest of his feedback could wait.

He tackled her on the sofa, maneuvering them both as she giggled—finally, a giggle he’d elicited, so Alex could just fuck right off—until she was flat on her back and his hips had fallen between her open, round thighs and his hand was sliding between those thighs, beneath her nightgown.

“Use that word again,” she whispered in his ear minutes later, as he pressed his open mouth against her neck and moved above her, inside her. “The first one. Say it.”

She was tight around him, trembling, so wet now he could hear every thrust. When he raised himself a bit higher above her and ground against her sex, she gasped and closed her eyes.

He told her the absolute truth, then, hot into her ear, his teeth on her earlobe. “I love your pussy. Love it. When you’re at work”—he managed to slip a hand between them, down low, because he wasn’t lasting much longer, and shit, the sound she made when he rubbed her clit—“When you’re at work, I fist my dick and think about filling your pussy with my fingers, my cock, my tongue . . .”

She arched beneath him and rocked, pushing against his fingers, fucking herself on his cock. Then she broke with a sob, shuddering, her sex convulsing around him as he bucked into her and gripped her hip and groaned.

Afterward, they lay panting on the couch, and she ran a hand down his damp spine. “That was an inspired performance, worthy of the academy’s recognition. The award for best initial foray into dirty talk goes to . . . Marcus Caster-Rupp! Hooray!”

With a huff of amusement, he angled his head so he could press a row of soft kisses down her sweaty neck. “If I was inspired, you deserve all the credit.”

Yes, he was definitely fine reading her sex scenes now.

In fact, he was going to encourage her to write more of them. The sooner, the better.

LATER THAT NIGHT, over a belated dinner, they talked more about her story.

“My only other concern, at least upon first reading, is whether Aeneas is a bit too . . .” Marcus waved his forkful of spaghetti squash, searching for the right phrase. “He may be a bit too emotionally aware for a man of his background and time period.”

She nodded thoughtfully, twirling strands of pasta around her own fork. “I can see that.”

There was no offended snap in her voice, no hurried defense of her writing choices and characterization of Aeneas. As she chewed, though, she was blinking down at the table, no longer smiling.

“I’m sorry.” Reaching across the table, he covered her free hand with his. “April, I’m sorry. I should have said that more gently. Besides, what do I know? Nothing.”

At his touch, she looked up. “You did say it gently, and you’re completely right. I just . . .” Her mouth trembled, but she pressed her lips tight. “What you said, it reminded me of things my former Lavineas server friend used to say. The guy I told you about.”

“The one who has dyslexia too,” he said slowly.

Her obvious grief twisted his heart. Her unwitting insight into his lie twisted his gut.

“Yeah.” Her shoulders, now slumped, hitched upward a millimeter. “He kind of acted like a dick at the end. But we were friends for a couple of years before that, so it’s hard to just . . . get past it. I miss him.”

“I’m sorry.” The words emerged ragged, and God willing, she would never know how much he meant them. “I’m so sorry, April.”

She stared down at her plate for another few moments before raising her head, eyes glossy, and offering him a faltering smile. “Thank you, but it’s okay. I’m okay. And none of what happened with him is your fault.”

As small as he’d once felt in front of the disappointed, disapproving gaze of his parents, as guilty and wrong, this was somehow worse. Even as a child, he’d been able to cling to a thin thread of conviction: I’m trying my best. There is nothing more I can do.

That fact—that he was offering everything he had, everything he was, to them, and it still wasn’t enough, would never be enough—had rended something inside him. It had shadowed him for so many years. Too many years.

Now he had to acknowledge a worse feeling: a guilt that wasn’t helpless, but fully earned.

I could do something more, but I won’t. Because I’m scared I might lose everything.

His palm was getting sweaty. After one last squeeze of her hand, he let it go and disguised his distress by busily straightening the napkin in his lap. “How did you start writing fanfic? What drew you to it?”

She considered the topic for a minute, the pinched sadness leaving her face as his distraction served its purpose. “Please don’t take what I say next the wrong way, but I mostly started writing fanfiction out of sheer spite. Your showrunners fucked up Lavinia from the beginning, and I was so pissed. I wanted to fix what they’d done and put back everything I loved about her and her relationship with Aeneas.”

Well, he couldn’t blame her for that.

“So I took what was best about the books—Lavinia, the contours of her relationship with Aeneas—and what was best about the show—that would be you, Marcus—and mashed it all up into gloriously fluffy, smutty fics, and it was pure pleasure. Especially once I found a community on the Lavineas server, and . . .” She trailed off. “A good friend and writing partner.”

Another wrench in his chest.

If he could, he’d meet her tale with his own, as a sort of apology. He’d tell her how a young woman in full, impressive Aeneas regalia had mentioned Gates fanfiction at a convention, and he’d been curious and bored enough that night in his hotel room to find some and start reading. Only to discover that some of the stories, the best ones, echoed and expressed insights about his character and the show that he hadn’t shared with anyone but Alex. Only to find he could use modern technology to make reading so, so much easier than he remembered.

That night, for the first time, he read something other than scripts of his own volition. Without pressure. Without stakes. For sheer enjoyment, about something he valued. About something where he was the expert, for once.

It was life-altering. Triumphant, in ways he couldn’t fully express, to discover that he could read and love it, entirely for himself and no one else.

But even in the best fics, there were aspects of his character other authors missed. It was his compulsion to share his own insights that eventually drove him to write his first one-shot as Book!AeneasWouldNever. No one knew who the fuck he was or cared whether he misspelled the occasional word or dictated instead of typed. He did it for himself alone.

He’d expected crickets or criticism, not kudos. Not support, despite his shoddy editing.

And then, somehow, he was part of a community. Somehow, he enjoyed writing, and it was yet another proud reclamation of himself, for himself.

Somehow, he’d found Ulsie. April.

Somehow, through fandom, he’d discovered who he was. His own interests. His own talents and possibilities, after decades of pretending to be someone he wasn’t, believing he was someone he wasn’t.

But he couldn’t share any of that with April. If they stayed together, such a crucial part of his history would remain forever sealed, and she’d never hear that particular story.

Across the table, she was finishing their late dinner as they sat in comfortable silence. When she looked up and saw him studying her, her lips curved. She stretched out her leg to tease his bare ankle with her big toe. It tickled a bit, as she very well knew, and he snorted and shook his head at her.

Unapologetic grin wide, she shrugged and turned back to her remaining garlic bread.

If you’re still worried I don’t know who you are, show me who you are, she’d told him, and he couldn’t. He couldn’t. Although, last night, he’d lain awake in her bed long after she’d fallen asleep, his arm possessive around her waist, and wondered.

Whatever lay between them, he was holding it in his hand and squeezing as hard as he could, keeping it close and safe and tight in his grasp, hoping all that effort and pressure would transform them. Into a diamond, as she’d once explained to him. Brilliant. Hard to damage.

Maybe what they had wasn’t rock, though. Maybe it was water.

Maybe the harder he squeezed, the less he actually held.

But he didn’t know how to open his fist. Not when it came to April. Not when it came to his career and his public persona. Not when he knew precisely, precisely, how it felt for that outstretched hand to remain empty. Always empty.

“Marcus?” April’s gaze was gentle. Concerned. “Are you—”

Then, as if he’d summoned her with his earlier thoughts—a horrifying possibility—his cell rang, and Debra Rupp appeared on the screen.

“It’s my mother. I can call her back later,” he told April.

Much later. Possibly never.

She waved her fork dismissively. “It’s your choice. I certainly won’t be offended if you want to talk to your parents.”

He didn’t, so he let the phone ring itself to silence while they both watched. A few seconds later, there was another chime. A voicemail. His mother had left a voicemail.

With a simple tap of his forefinger, he could delete it without listening. Instead, he lifted the cell to his ear and listened, consciously straightening his shoulders and letting the back of the chair brace him against whatever he might hear.

“Marcus, Madame Fourier saw your picture in one of those trashy magazines at the grocery store. She told us you’ve apparently been in San Francisco for weeks. Visiting your new girlfriend from Twitter, according to the article. She was obnoxiously pleased to know more than we did concerning your whereabouts and activities. We had assumed you were back in Los Angeles or on set somewhere.”