Page 37 of Radiant

He nodded. “Very sure. Go. Make up for lost lockdown time.”

I tapped my mug. “Yeah, go. I’ll drink to you, and when we come out here next, I’m buying a round.”

She looked conflicted for a moment, then put her glove back on. “All right. I go.” She took her tankard. “But we come back. You need to see more of the city. Have fun!” She winked and patted my arm.

I watched her red cap as she caught up to her friends in the crowd. There were so many people out, even though I suspected that nightfall with all the lights would lure even more. Eva had said the city was still pretty empty these days, although it was getting back to normal. I shuddered to think what it would be like during a normal, crowded tourist season.

Auris put his arm around me. “Are you really taking a liking to it, or did you just say that?”

I looked away from a tour guide in a neon jacket who was explaining the market to an international-looking group.

“It’s pretty good. I’m not sure it’s ever going to be my first choice, but I can see myself growing to really like this.” I took another swig. My tankard was already half-empty. “I might even have another.”

He indicated the stall and the big metal pot full of more mulled beer, guarded by a smiling blonde. “Then we are in the right place.”

I cleared my throat. “Actually, you were right about me wanting to take photos, especially in the snow, but what would it take for me to persuade you to get us into the National Museum? I was thinking maybe you could carefully entrance the security people so they’d let us stay inside after hours? That way, we could go and see everything, and no one would get in my frame. Well, except you, but I want you there.”

Auris tapped his chin with his gloved index finger. “Ethan, that is quite an ask. I can sense I’ll have to be both your assistant and your model, and that’s two jobs for the price of one. It is servitude, my sweet, servitude of the highest order.”

He managed to look convincingly sad, which made me laugh.

“Nah, I’ll pay you. You could kiss me on the mouth? Twice; once for each job.”

Auris gave me an unimpressed look, and then, because he was a stylish vampire, he blew a raspberry.

I laughed so hard I would have spilled some of the beer if I hadn’t mostly finished it already. A group of tourists with selfie sticks gave us—well, me—funny looks, but I didn’t care. Life truly was good, and I was happy. The pandemic wasn’t exactly over, but things were opening up. I was living with someone I loved, and on a Zoom call the other day, Auris had properly impressed my dad and Don, who had proclaimed us a “perfect little gay family.” There were matching holiday sweaters in our future, for sure.

Through my silliness, Auris kept his cool. “Will I be getting another offer or will you be carrying your camera bag yourself?”

I leaned against his side. “Fine. You can kiss me anywhere you like.”

“That’s better, although not by much. You’re still getting the better deal out of this, but the cold makes me want to be generous. You’d be no good as a frozen photographer.”

“Is that your way of saying you’re cold?”

Auris kissed my cheek. “No. It’s my way of saying I’m looking forward to warming you up, and then, once you’re warm, I’ll get you naked so I can choose all the places I want to kiss. I’m looking forward to that. It might take all night.”

“Hmm.” I finished my drink. “In that case, we should get to work.” I looked around and picked a direction that appealed to me on account of how the light slanted off the facades of the buildings, the windows encrusted in ice. “That way. This light is going to turn sooner rather than later. Come on. It’s time to take a few pictures.”

Auris sighed. “So demanding. Always so demanding.”

He left me for a moment to return the tankard, and then we made our way toward the museum. He was soon a shadow on the sidelines unless I spun and caught him in a picture, shimmering black against Prague’s white winter coat.

I missed things in the photographs that day, and Auris was too distracted by me and my enjoyment of the season to notice them either.

For an excuse, I have only the beauty of a city older than Auris. We did a few very touristy shots in front of the Astronomical Clock, which—according to Auris—had been restored with the same techniques artists would have used five hundred years ago: making changes where none should be made, according to the modern ideals of preserving the original. He sounded mildly outraged as he pointed out the hair color change in one of the calendar images, and I caught his deep frown, then him giving my camera some side-eye.

“Don’t make it look beautiful, Ethan. They should’ve kept it as it was.”

I nodded solemnly. “It was cruel of them not to.”

I raised my camera, and while I knew Auris had the speed to escape me, I caught his expression of brooding displeasure with the restored clock in the background. The photograph would be good enough to frame, and as soon as I had it, I was already considering it for my new office.

But first and foremost, I was after the buildings and the sky, after ice forming cast fortunes on the ancient cobblestone, after the river, jewel-bedecked in frost and rime, its water sunlight-silvered. The Wenceslas Square was almost boring in its rectangular perfection, but it allowed me to capture the light. Long shadows fell to our right as we made our way to the National Museum, which sat on one end of the square, perched there and staring down at us.

When sunset lit up windows and streets, the sky and frozen ground turned to shadows, and there was a frisson in seeing this exchange of light for darkness happen that had me wasting a few shots. I was looking forward to getting to photograph the square from the museum once we got there.

By that point, Auris was trying to hurry me along. At the halfway mark up the Wenceslas Square, he held my gloves out to me. “You would be more comfortable wearing these, wouldn’t you, my sweet?”