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  “Bet you were awesome at that too. Can I read one of your stories?”

  “They’re all at my mother’s house. She never throws anything away. I doubt they’re any good.”

  “I’d still read them.”

  “What, you think I should be a sorcerer’s assistant and write novels in my spare time?” He tipped his head up for maximum impact of skepticism. “Or the other way around? Which would be kind of a waste of innate magical ability.”

  “I think it’s your magic.” David touched his cheek, his lips, under shadowy night. A caress. Sweetness. “I think you were born with it, and I think you get to decide how to live your life. I sound like a self-help book. Fuck. But it’s true, though.”

  Colin shut his eyes, kissed David’s palm, opened his eyes. “I want to go home. I want to see my mother—she knows I’m okay, but I want to see her—and I want to go take a long nap somewhere in sunshine, and I want at least three chocolate cream-cheese pies. And I don’t want to leave you.”

  He waited. Heart pounding. World teetering on the brink.

  “I think,” David said, words coming gradual and unguarded, like he was working it all out as he answered, like he was imagining a future laid out and humming with possibility, “you should go home. For a few days. A week. However long you need. But then I’ll be here. I’m here. And I want you to come back. To—I know I shouldn’t ask you this, I don’t have the right, you just got out of—but I want you to stay. If you want. I want you to come back to stay. I want—I want to get to know you more. I want to see you smile. I want to sit with you in sunshine. I’ll, um, find the best pie place in Los Angeles and buy you three of everything. I want to try.”

  “David,” Colin said. “You remember when I said yes? Before?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my God,” David said.

  “Also…if it’s you…yes again. About earlier, my being your power source. You can do more. Help more people. With me. And that’s worth doing. While I figure everything else out. Even after. So, yes.”

  “Are you sure? I mean—”

  “Yes, witch.”

  “Colin?”

  “Yes?”

  “…it’s stopped raining.”

  “Yes,” Colin said, “yes, it has,” and rolled over into David’s arms, kissing David and being kissed, held securely by that strength, wrapped up in David’s sparkling magical protection and David’s sheets tangled around their legs; and he could see that future, too, bright and shining, built bit by bit together.

  THE END

  ABOUT K.L. NOONE

  K.L. Noone loves fantasy, romance, cats, far too sweet coffee, and happy endings! She is also the author of Port in a Storm and its upcoming sequel, available from Less Than Three Press, and numerous short romances with Ellora’s Cave and Circlet Press. Her fantasy fiction has appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies.

  With her Professor Hat on, she teaches college students about Shakespeare and superhero comics, and has published academic articles and essays on Neil Gaiman’s adaptations of Beowulf, Welsh mythology in modern fantasy, and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

  For more information, visit twitter.com/KristinNoone.

  ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC

  JMS Books LLC is a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance, erotic romance, and young adult fiction. Visit jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!

 

 

  K.L. Noone, Port in the Storm

 

 

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