Present Day

"You're really out of tune."

"Am I, though?"

"Yeah, probably like twenty cents sharp."

"There's no way you just know that off the top of your head."

"Just tune it down a bit, Silver! It's sharp! I swear it!"

Working in the shop during a slow hour, Lyra jammed her elbows onto her keyboard, a messy chord ringing through the shop. Adrianna glared at her over the rims of her glasses, her reading interrupted by the discordant jangle. Lyra huffed a sigh. "Look, please just tune down," she said to Silver, who standing nearby with his violin, looking at her with a mystified expression. Lyra rubbed her hands over her face and groaned before adding, "It's giving me a headache."

"Alright, then. Give me an A," Silver responded, and Lyra plunked the note. She watched, feeling tired and irritated, as he tuned the violin again. Truly, he wasn't that sharp. She also didn't know the exact amount he was off by, other than it was less than thirty cents sharp but more than ten, but he didn't need to know that.

Truth be told, she wasn't irritated at him. There was a situation, nagging her in the back of her mind, that was steadily sinking her mood. Five days ago, Lyra had stayed at Silver's apartment during a storm. It had also been five days without discussion of what had transpired that night. It wasn't as though she expected Silver to mention something—she was incapable of doing so herself, wondering if the tenuous peace between them for the moment would suffer. They had spent at least a few hours a day together since, but neither of them had come nearly as close to one another.

Lyra watched the muscles in Silver's forearms and fingers leap as he tuned, her own jaw propped in her hand as her mind wandered. Why had she done that, anyway, that night? The feeling of falling asleep, her head tucked to his chest, had been comforting. The more she was able to smell him, to touch him, to feel him, the less she feared that he was transient in her life. But there was something more to that, wasn't there? Her head and her heart were a tangled mess, and it wasn't something she was willing to talk about.

Maybe it was easier to pretend it hadn't happened, to tiptoe around the mine buried in the sand. There were fewer impending complications that way, she supposed. Silver finished tuning and gave her a look. "Satisfied, princess?" he asked.

Her eyebrows raised. "Yeah, but don't ever call me princess again, or I will not hesitate to soak everything you love in vinegar."

"Gross," was all he remarked. He experimentally played an arpeggio and looked to her. "Are we going to pick up where we left off?"

"Measure 30. We'll start there," she responded, trying to keep the flat note from her voice. His eyes flicked at her tone, and Lyra cursed as she launched into the syncopated rhythms of "Libertango."

That night, Silver stayed for dinner, and Lyra began to walk him home. The streetlights were just beginning to turn on as they walked. "So, remind me, what are you working the next couple of days?" Lyra asked.

"I work from 6 pm to 2 am tomorrow and the day after, then I'm working from 11 to 5 on Friday, and I have the weekend off," he explained. He'd come from work today, still wearing the white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

Lyra felt her mouth quirk. "You have the whole weekend off? I thought you only worked a regular amount of hours so far this week."

"There's some high water damage at work that Proton can't ignore anymore," he told her. "We're closing over the weekend so that some work can get done without customers around."

She grinned. "Nice." She glanced at him. "Will you take a day trip with me somewhere, one of those days?"

He paused and looked at her. His expression was difficult to decipher. "You sure about that? You seem kind of annoyed with me lately."

"I'm not annoyed with you," she responded. He definitely notices I'm acting off. Shit, she thought. Lyra smoothed her hair, combed into two low pigtails, and shrugged. "Don't worry about me. I'm sorry if I'm acting funny, okay?"

He scrutinized her, folding his arms across his chest. "It's alright," he told her. He kept walking. "So, what were you thinking about?"

"I don't know, what do you recommend?" she asked.

"Well…" he trailed off and chuckled. "How do you feel about fishing?"

She felt her lips quirk. She sidestepped a large group of French tourists, too busy blindly taking selfies and jabbering amongst themselves to notice they bowled over Lyra. "Fishing? Where?"

"Burano," he told her. "It's like a €10 water bus ride there. There's a pier there I go fish off of a few times every summer. It's quiet."

Lyra wracked her brain. Why did Burano seem like such a familiar name? After a moment, she hedged, "Is that…the island with all the colorful buildings? And…weaving?"

"Lace," he corrected, "but yeah. It can be a real tourist trap if you don't know what the hell you're doing, though."

She pushed her hands in her pocket and smiled. "I've never been fishing in my life," she told him, half-laughing.

Silver rolled his eyes, but it seemed good-natured. "What a city slicker."

"You live in a city!" she scolded him.

"Yeah, but I've lived in several cities. I'm a cities slicker," he told her, the grin that spread over his features bordering on shit-eating.

Lyra scoffed. "You're the worst."

Upon reaching the halfway point, they hesitated. The past few days, whenever they met, it was a quick "see you tomorrow!" before one of them took off, but Lyra knew her edge was still there. She saw it in Silver's face, that he wanted to address it, but instead he reached out and ruffled her hair from the top. "I'll stop by before work tomorrow. Try to stop frowning before then. Your face will get stuck that way and then you'll be ugly like me."

"I'm not frowning," she responded, swatting his hand away, but she knew that her face was more than a little rumpled. Lyra made herself shoot him finger guns, snapping at him. "And you're not ugly!" she called after him as he walked away.

He glanced over his shoulder and chuckled. "Your taste is shit," he reminded her and continued walking.

Lyra watched him walk away from her, his figure receding as he crossed the bridge over a canal. Crowds of tourists ebbed and flowed around her; the temperate night had invited this tide of people into the streets. She sighed and began to head toward home.

At the apartment, Adrianna was drooping over the couch, her husband rubbing her feet gently. She tried to catch Lyra's eye as she moved through the apartment. "Can't talk, laundry to do!" she said in a singsong voice. Lyra didn't actually need to do laundry, as she had plenty of clothes that were still clean, but something told her Adrianna wanted to talk about what was going on with Silver.

As she tossed t-shirts and shorts into the washing machine, she could almost hear Adrianna scolding her for being short with him in such a perceptible way. "You were mad at him for acting like that, so you probably shouldn't," Lyra imagined she would say, shaking a finger at her as though she was a dog that needed scolding.

Chuckling to herself at the thought, she leaned against the washing machine for a few seconds before her phone buzzed in her pocket. She looked down to see her mother's name flash on the caller ID. "Oh, shit," she muttered to herself, realizing it had been several days since they'd last spoken.

"Hi, Mom," she said, lapsing into English for the first time in what felt like days, as she wandered to her room. "Sorry for not calling again."

"Could you at least text me once in a while?" Norma retorted on the other end. Lyra could hear snippets of a slow Michael Brecker piece on the other end. "I'm beginning to think you're going to abandon me and live in Venice forever."

"No, I'm going to abandon you and go to college after I come back from Venice," Lyra retorted. She gazed out the window, at the soft orange light of the streetlamps cut through the heavy gray of dusk.

Norma scoffed. "Don't remind me, you horrid child. I already stocked up on tissues and bourbon, but I've unfortunately started drinking that bourbon already."

They chatted for a bit. Norma was busy preparing for an incoming traveling exhibit of ancient Egyptian art, and one of the cats had decided to start sleeping under Lyra's covers and sheets during the day. On top of that, Norma's husband was away for two weeks for work. "He calls every night and says he wishes I would see Toronto with him, but with this exhibit coming in, I won't be able to as much as leave this half of city for the next three weeks without my boss bristling," Norma said.

"That's lame," Lyra responded. "I'm feeling that, though. I've barely left Cannaregio in weeks, so I'm going out to Burano this weekend."

"The fishing island?" Norma responded, half-laughing.

"Yeah, Silver and I are headed out there Saturday or Sunday," she said, opening her windows a little wider to allow the cool, salty breeze to waft through.

Norma was silent for a moment, and Lyra had the distinct feeling that what she was avoiding with Adrianna was about to come up with her mother. "Is that so?" she commented, her tone blithe.

"Um, yes?" Lyra responded.

"See, Adrianna and I have been talking," Norma said, and Lyra mouthed "Ah, fuck" to no one in particular.

Lyra tried to salvage the conversation. "How nice! I'm glad to know you two talk frequently—"

"Is there something going on between you and Silver?" she said, cutting across Lyra's feeble attempt at sidetracking her.

Lyra sighed. If Adrianna weren't a heavily pregnant woman, she would be tempted to pick a fight with her. "I don't know. What did my dear sweet aunt tell you?"

"Sounds like you two were spending a lot of time together, then you didn't come home one night, and now you've been acting strangely since," Norma commented. "I surely hope that you used protection—"

"MOM." Lyra groaned. "There was high water and I couldn't get back to the apartment safely. So I stayed with Silver. And…nothing happened," she said. The conviction in her voice flooded out as she responded with that. "What I mean is, it's not like that. I just slept on his couch."

It was a half-truth. She had fallen asleep curled into him, inhaling his scent and listening to his heart. Lyra woke to bright, tawny sun in her eyes, alone. Although she had been alone, she'd been wrapped carefully in the throw blanket, her head supported by a dense, soft pillow instead of Silver's body. Come morning, with tea and toasted bread, it was as though it hadn't happened all. Neither had mentioned it; for a while she almost wondered if she had dreamed the intense exchange between them.

She sighed and rubbed at her face. "I slept…on him, more like it. We didn't do anything. We haven't talked about it, and it's frustrating me."

Norma made a small hmm on the other end. "I see."

"We've barely just started talking and being friends again, and I don't know why these things keep happening. I just feel like…I have to touch him, or else he'll disappear. If I'm not actively looking at him and feeling him, I sometimes worry I won't look at him or feel him again. And he has these really messy feelings about the fact that we reconnected, and…it's kind of rough," Lyra said, the words coming out in a cascade. She cursed herself for divulging in such detail that she was feeling some sort of disastrous tangle of emotion. "I'm not annoyed with him as much as I'm annoyed with this situation, because I can't figure out where it's going."

"Why do you need to know where it's going?" Norma responded. Her tone was bordering on flat. "We never know where things are going anyway. When I first met your father, I didn't think I'd marry him, or have a daughter with him, or divorce him."

"Are you saying Silver is my future ex-husband?" Lyra joked.

"I'd rather you not have an ex-husband, but who's to say?" Norma responded. The words "who's to say?" jolted Lyra unceremoniously to that intimate moment, her head on his chest, his hand at her head. Norma continued, "Are you afraid that it's becoming romantic?"

Somehow, the word "romantic" being used for her and Silver, as opposed to a flirtatious innuendo, staggered Lyra. When someone made jokes, it was hard to take the idea seriously. They weren't feeling anything like that, and obviously they were just reading into the situation. The direct usage of the word "romantic" forced Lyra to confront the possibility that they were perhaps drawn to one another. Is…is that what this is? Is it turning romantic between us? Lyra thought, her stomach clenching. "I…don't know," Lyra responded.

Norma sighed. "No need to make things uncomfortable. Let them happen organically if they're going to happen."

The conversation turned back to normal, to Lyra talking about progress with pieces she was practicing for university and the duets she and Silver were working on, but her stomach was twisting. She had to get this under control before she and Silver spent a day alone in Burano, or she was afraid their friendship would suffer for it.

Six Years Ago

"Why are we doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Just…sitting here, I guess," Silver said. It was a late spring day, and though the air and sunshine were warm, the river that Silver sat in front of was icy with snowmelt, something he'd discovered by dipping his toes in it.

Giovanni levelled a look at him. "It's fishing. Not sitting here."

Silver repressed the urge to sigh. They had left the city for a few days, getting away from the smog and the slog of traffic, to sit in front of some river for upwards of eight hours a day in near silence in an act he called "fishing." Not that they had seen a single fish—Giovanni had reeled in more than his share of pond scum, and Silver had caught the world's oldest, moldiest boot.

Unable to curb himself in time, he snidely said, "Well, is it really fishing if we've caught nothing but trash?"

He immediately feared retribution, but much to his surprise, Giovanni's mouth quirked. Leaving the city for a few days seemed to have lightened his mood, easing the lines around his mouth. "I don't know that I would argue with that."

"How many worms have we drowned now?" Silver responded.

"Oh, dozens," Giovanni added. He straightened his back and rolled his shoulders. "It's time to be quiet. The fish will hear us."

"Sure they will," Silver mumbled, earning a light cuff from his father, but it seemed good-natured.

Some hours passed in the warm sun. The trees around the river swayed in the breeze. Giovanni hooked a fish on his line, but it slipped away before he could reel it in. Silver didn't get as much as a bite. Once again, he glanced at his father. "You didn't really answer my question," he said, knowing he was overstepping. "Why did we come out here to fish?"

"Solitude," was Giovanni's response. He reeled in the line and checked the bait; he had half of an earthworm left on the line, grotesquely dangling there. He recast the line and landed it in the middle of the river, in a patch of brilliantly sunlit water. "Everything is so loud."

"I'm just practicing my instrument—"

"Gianni. I mean the city. The life we live. Your friend and her mother. It's all loud. It doesn't allow for us to think and reflect upon ourselves," Giovanni said. Silver's brow furrowed as his father further explained, "With fishing, you may not catch any fish. But you're able to reflect on your life and make decisions without a thousand other things to distract you."

Silver simply nodded. Giovanni glanced across at him. "Have you come to any conclusions?"

The sun is hot, I'm redheaded, and I'm about to have a bad sunburn and a dozen new freckles, Silver thought, but he shook his head. "No. Not yet. Have you?"

Something flashed in his eyes. "There are things I want to prove when we return home, I believe." Giovanni did not elaborate further, for there was a tug on his line. "Oh, that may actually be a fish. Hold the thought."

Silver watched his father grappling with the fish on the line. Despite his Giovanni's seemingly good mood, something about his words was unsettling. There are things I want to prove when we return home. Like what? What was a great mystery that needed solving? He had the feeling something was up, but he started reeling his own line in, watching his father cautiously.

As he reeled the line in, Giovanni added, "Like I said, Gianni. The simplicity of a man fishing will help him determine how to move ahead in his life."

After a pause that was too long, Silver swallowed and nodded. "Yes, father," Silver responded, uneasily.

Present Day

It was half-past six on a Friday. Lyra was exhausted; she'd scarcely slept. The thick heat had returned, this time unaccompanied by rain, and in those temperatures it had been difficult to sleep. With some sleepiness, she found herself playing the Prelude again, her fingers tracing through its familiar patterns. Silver was to come by sometime in the next half an hour or so. He wasn't going to stay for long; they both intended to get up and leave for Burano quite early, but he said he had something to "drop off."

"Wanna bet it's a pastry?" she muttered.

The student covering the counter, Serena, glanced her way. "What was that?" she asked. Her Italian was spoken with a French purr.

Realizing she'd said it aloud, Lyra waved her hand dismissively. "Sorry. Thinking aloud."

Serena's dark eyes flicked to her, bemused. "I see." She returned to reading a textbook; if Lyra remembered correctly, the older girl was attending college for fashion design. "The song you are playing is pretty," she added.

"Thank you," Lyra said, feeling the corners of her lips turn upward.

Not long after this exchange, Silver came into the shop. His presence, like it had since her conversation with her mutter, made her heart skip every third beat or so. He looked equally as tired, but he seemed to be in good spirits. "Lyra, I found my first thumbtack at work today," he said, sliding onto the bench next to her. "Went right through the sole of my shoe. I should…probably get a tetanus booster."

"I thought that was done when you stepped on rusty nails, not thumbtacks," Lyra responded, continuing to play the Prelude.

He glanced at her. "This is Proton we're talking about."

Lyra shrugged. "I've never met him, so I have to go by the stories you tell. Are you implying he poisoned his thumbtacks with tetanus? Sounds like a biohazard."

He noticeably blanched. "I never thought about that. But I bet you he would if he could. I'm gonna get that booster next week."

"As you should," Lyra said, her lips quirking into a smile.

He sat for a while and watched her play. As she suspected, he slid a strawberry pastry, wrapped in wax paper, across the console of her keyboard. "They were giving these away at work again."

"I'm sure they were," she responded. She hit a chord with an air of finality to it and angled herself toward Silver. "So, Burano tomorrow?"

"Yeah. There's a water bus that leaves every hour on the hour," he told her.

She smiled. "Sounds good." Being this close to him, she could count the freckles across his nose, see the dark, charcoal flecks in his otherwise light eyes. "How about we get on the water bus around nine tomorrow? I'm not exactly raring to go early."

He gave a nod. "It's supposed to be pretty hot."

"I don't mind. Worse comes to worst, I can just sunbathe, you know?" she responded.

"Says you. I crisp up pretty fucking fast in the sun. Redhead and all," he told her.

They discussed their plan for a while longer before Silver hopped off the bench. "I need to do laundry tonight and buy groceries, so I need to head out," he told her. "I'll come by here around 8:30. I know where we have to go for the water bus."

"Cool. I'll see you then," she said. After he left, she let out a long breath and pushed her hand through her hair. Oh God. I'm going to be away from Cannaregio all day with him tomorrow. And I haven't come to terms with the idea that…she refused to finish the thought. She drooped at her keyboard and sprawled over it, gazing at the pastry, wrapped in wax paper.

Silver liked chocolate. There were plenty of chocolate pastries in Italy; why didn't ever grab anything for himself like that? Panic set in. Is this some kind of flirtation? Lyra thought, her eyes growing huge. They'd just barely started interacting again; how could they be flirting and touching and talking like this already?

What was so different now from then, anyway? When they were kids and…she was just as confused about her feelings.

She sighed and rubbed at her face. Lyra powered off the keyboard and headed upstairs, her eyes huge. In the kitchen, she found Adrianna sitting at the table, scrolling through a website on her tablet. "Somehow, diapers in bulk are no better of a deal than buying a ton in store," she said to Lyra as she unwrapped the pastry. "My husband and I aren't doing poorly for ourselves by any stretch, but diapers for these babies are going to break the bank, I fear."

"Have you considered cloth? They're sustainable and it's probably cheaper than buying a ton of them." Lyra ask as she took a bite of it. It was perfectly flaky and sweet. Damned Silver, anyway, knowing almost exactly perfectly what she would want.

"We are going to try them around the house, but my friend who just had her third recommended not using them in public. They're…messy," she said, her nose wrinkling. She looked up at Lyra. "Another pastry from the boy, huh?"

"Yep," she said, her mouth full.

She sat the table as Adrianna set her tablet aside and gazed at her niece. "You seem flustered."

"I think tomorrow will be fun, but it'll be tough," she said. "I'm sort of afraid of maybe…having feelings. It seems really fast."

"You may have had feelings when you were younger that are coming back now. You also have been spending large amounts of time with him," she said. "We're going to turn the air conditioning on tonight. We all need to sleep. If you're going to spend the day with someone you're confused about, you probably don't want to be tired and grouchy, right?"

"Right," Lyra responded.

Adrianna gave her a smile. "It'll be fine. I suspect tomorrow will help you decide on some things."

Lyra sighed and took another bite of pastry. "I hope so."

"Just relax. Let things happen organically. The more you panic about things, the more uncomfortable you both will be," Adrianna responded. She reached over and smoothed Lyra's hair from her face. "Just enjoy yourself. Life moves too quickly to waste energy worrying about this."

Only half-listening, Lyra nodded. "If…you say so."

Present Day

There was still something off with Lyra, something that Silver couldn't put his finger on.

They had just gotten on the water bus, a long, flattened white boat, after a rather quiet walk to the dock. She had greeted him with her usual enthusiasm and grinned at his jokes, but she wasn't as chatty as usual. Now, bobbing on the water on a boat that was still relatively devoid of other passengers, Silver had to wonder what was on her mind.

She was dressed typically, in denim shorts and a red t-shirt. For the day ahead, Lyra carried a yellow backpack with her and wore a straw hat over her hair, tied into low pigtails. Round-rimmed sunglasses hung from the collar of her shirt. Yet, she leaned over the railing of the water bus, her expression uncustomary neutral. "You good?" he asked her.

She startled. He settled in next to her, gazing across the Grand Canal at one of the many basilicas, already swarmed with tourists. Lyra eased and chuckled. "Ha. Yup!" she responded, smiling at him. "Might still be super tired after yesterday. Couldn't sleep in that heat overnight and Adrianna didn't turn on the air conditioning again until last night."

"Yeah, it's been pretty hot. Climate change, huh?" he joked. She simply smiled at him.

What was on her mind, exactly?

The water bus took off minutes later, lurching out into the canal. Silver gripped the railing and watched them move slowly through the water, passing by gondolas and other smaller boats. Lyra whistled. "Look at all the boats," she said as they moved. "Like right in the middle of the city. That's wild."

"Canals are wild?" Silver clarified.

"For sure," she responded, with a grin. "There's just a bunch of water right in the middle of your city. Isn't that super weird to you?"

He raised his eyebrows. "I'm kind of used to it."

She laughed. "Lame. You're in the gimmickiest city on the planet, and you're 'kinda used to it,'" she said, flipping into English.

"Gimmickiest is a word?" He responded in kind.

"No idea," she answered.

They chatted about shallow, silly things, mostly in English, as they cruised across the water. Her hair waved about in the breeze, and he thought about how pleasant it had smelled when her head had been on his chest. Silver wondered if it smelled as good now.

Eventually, they were free of the city limits and out on open water, heading toward a distant island. He pointed it out to Lyra. "Burano," he told her, back in Italian. "That's it out that way. Proton has a friend out here named Arciere who owns a house and a pier on Burano."

"Arciere? Like…Archer? Like bow and arrow?" she responded.

"Yeah," he responded. After a moment, he added, "I think he may have worked with Giovanni at one point, too, but more as an equal than an underling. I never met him, and I have to go on Proton's word that he knew my father."

Lyra looked at him, curious. He continued, "So, yeah. Dude's just a rich guy who made his money in a shitty way who goes fishing out in the sea a lot. I keep some fishing rods at his place and walk down to his dock. We're not friends, but we have an understanding."

"It's weird that you know two people from your dad's line of work, though. Especially if he seems to have tried to keep it from you," she answered.

"Yeah, no kidding," he muttered. He watched the choppy waves, a dark green that didn't even seem to reflect the sky. "If you want to do some sightseeing today, we can do that, too. I just figured it'd be something different to do."

"Fishing?" she clarified. Silver nodded. "I'm excited to give it a shot. But what do you even catch this close to a city?"

"Bottom-feeders," he retorted flatly, unable to keep a dry, crooked smile from crossing his face. "We're throwing back anything we catch. Unless there's a cat around. You let the cat take your fish or you'll be cursed for seven years."

She laughed at that. Her shoulder bumped into his arm as she drew a little closer; some of the earlier tension seemed to have relaxed. "I wouldn't want to incur their wrath," she said, hunching her shoulders and wriggling her fingers in a manner that was meant to be spooky.

Once at Burano, Lyra's eyes were wide and bright. "It's like a postcard," she whispered as they moved to get off the boat. Each building was eye-wateringly bright, painted in bright rainbow of colors, with clear canals cutting through town. Her eyes flashed up to him, filled with delight. "This is such a cool place!" she said, following him as the moved off the boat in an obvious crowd of tourists.

He led her through the winding streets of the town, virtually every one of them following the route of the waterways. She bounced along after him, sometimes resting a hand on his arm. "So I don't get lost," she told him when Silver gave her a questioning look. He smiled, despite himself, and led her up toward the rockier part of the island.

As they walked uphill, she pointed out various houses and shops. "I wanna live there," she said, pointing out a bright reddish building with white shutters. "Looks cute."

"I think that's a hostel," he responded, "so you'd have to kick out everyone living there."

"Tough for them," she quipped.

Finally, they reached Archer's—now that Lyra drew the comparison, he couldn't not hear it in his head—place, up where the buildings were increasingly larger and wider. His house was three stories and bright blue, almost the same shade as the sky, with broad French doors painted white out front. "He knows I'm coming, but I'm just gonna go up and check in with him," he told her. "You don't have to come with."

Lyra followed him right up to the house, where he knocked on the door. He waited thirty to forty seconds; the sounds of footsteps echoing inside leading up to the door were the only thing that could be heard from inside. Arciere—Archer—opened the door and gazed out, his eyebrow raised. He was dressed as he often was, in a white shirt and slacks over a black shirt. His slacks were cuffed up, showing off black sandals. A pair of boating shoes dangled from his grasp. "Gianni," he greeted, his voice low and cool. "What is the meaning of this visit? I'm about to set out and don't like to be interrupted."

Silver felt his hackles raise. He never truly liked Arciere. While Proton had given him some sense of purpose when they reconnected, Giovanni's former associate was unreadable and often condescending. While he was accommodating and helpful when needed, he rarely expressed any respect or fondness for Silver. "I was going to come fishing today. We had talked about this."

"Certainly, but you didn't need to come up here to tell me that," Arciere's eyes flicked past him to Lyra. "Who is this?"

Before Lyra could respond, Silver said, "She's an old friend who's visiting the city for the summer. I just wanted to make sure you knew we were here and didn't have any surprises."

"Fair enough. You know where to get the equipment. I left bait in the shed as well." He shut the door, and Silver heard the noticeable turn of a lock.

He turned to Lyra, whose eyes were wide. She opened her mouth, as if to comment, but shut it again and shook her head. Silver walked around the side of the house to the backyard, terraced and funneling down to a set of stairs that led to the pier below. He detoured toward a small white shed, almost attached to the back of the house. He opened it and grabbed "It's really quiet down here. Tourists don't come any closer than half a kilometer," he told her.

"Something tells me 'Archer' doesn't appreciate company," Lyra responded.

"Oh, he and Proton get on like a house on fire, but Archer views me as a nuisance," Silver responded. He handed Lyra the tacklebox and the white plastic container of bait he found inside the door. "Hold onto those. I can't find the poles I like."

"What kind of bait is this?" she asked curiously as he dug through piles of lifejackets and boating shoes.

"Probably cut bait," he said. "Arciere catches a lot of fish out of sea and cuts up extra fish to use as bait."

Lyra was silent a moment before her voice, oddly tinny through the shed, said, "Well, yuck."

"Worms aren't great at sea unless you dig up your own sea worms. I learned that the hard way when I bought some off a local fisherman last summer. That's about eight euros I never got back," he told her.

"He charged you eight euros for worms?" she said, laughter shaking her voice. "Dude, how did you think that was a good deal?"

He rolled his eyes. He found the two poles he liked best, emerged with them, and set off toward the stairway leading down to the dock. "Don't judge me. You've never even fished."

Lyra followed him down the steep stairwell. The stairs were a rough enough texture that the misty, damp air hadn't slicked them. "These are really steep!" Lyra commented over the roar of the ocean. "What happens when Archer's too old to walk up and down these?"

"Uhh…sucks to suck?" Silver responded.

He felt her glare burn into the back of his head, but he chuckled, in spite of himself. At the bottom of the stairs, they came to a long wooden pier. The salty scent of the air cleared Silver's head almost immediately; the faint scent of mold that always permeated Venice wasn't present here—the wind and ocean and sky were in harmony. Arciere's sailboat was docked on one side; the other was empty, where another sailboat once sat. He turned to see Lyra pushing her sunglasses onto her face with her free hand, grinning at the sight. "It's beautiful here," she said, trotting to catch up to him as he walked out.

"Don't run on the pier—" he started to tell her, but it was too late. Her feet slipped on the wet surface and she fell. It was a straight drop onto her bottom. Silver sighed and turned. "Are you alright?" he asked her.

She rubbed at her neck in embarrassment. "Yeah. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that the pier would be…wet. And watery."

"Water's wet, you idiot," he told her, but not without affection. He held a hand out to her and helped her back onto her feet. "Glad to see you didn't toss the bait everywhere," he added, noting she hadn't let go of his hand yet.

She shrugged. "Wouldn't dream of tossing the fish chunks everywhere."

He walked along the pier with her toward the end, her hand firmly gripping his. Her gaze was directed downward, tipped toward the pier as they moved along it. "I promise you won't slip off the pier if you walk normally," he told her.

"Right, but if I'm going down, you better come with me. I can't walk through Burano alone all soaked," she told him.

He scowled. Of course that was her plan. At the end of the pier, he pulled his hand free of hers and set the poles on the pier. He took the tacklebox from her and flipped it open, searching for hooks. Some were huge, as long as his thumb, and covered in barbs. He ignored those and searched for smaller ones. "We'll probably catch like…gobies and smelt and bonitos here. Sometimes after high water you can find pipefish."

"Don't know what any of that means, but I'm assuming they're little fish friends." Lyra sat at the edge of the pier. "Gotta ask you so I can get in the right mindset, but what's the draw of fishing for you?"

Silver's mind flashed back to Giovanni, dragging him fishing in the states as a young teenager. With fishing, you may not catch any fish. But you're able to reflect on your life and make decisions without a thousand other things to distract you, his father had said. He brushed those words aside and sought the meaning he'd personally assigned to fishing. "It's just a really quiet, relaxing thing to do." After a moment, he added, "I wanted to share this spot with you, too. There are ways to go to any basilica, to any festival, but this spot is my favorite."

He looked up to see that her cheeks had flamed with color. She turned away, chuckling, rubbing her hand across her mouth to hide the little smile that touched her lips. "Well, I already like it, so…thank you for sharing this place with me," she said.

Silver found the hooks he was looking for and set about securing them to the lines. Once tied, he handed one to Lyra and grabbed another for himself. "Alright, hand me the fish chunks. I'm gonna show you how to bait your line."

A while later, with their lines cast into the water, they sat in companionable silence. The awkwardness from earlier was still somewhat present; Silver felt it rolling off of her from time to time. But then it would disappear, and she'd be acting like her usual self. She pulled out her phone and scooted closer to him. "Take a picture with me," she said.

"I'm fishing?" he reminded her.

She looked back at him. "Humor me." She leaned in closer to him, threw up a peace sign, and snapped the picture.

He rolled his eyes and leaned in for the next one, giving the camera a tepid half-smile. She took off her hat and shoved it on his head before snapping another.

Silver snagged her phone from her. "That's not my angle." He snagged her sunglasses as well, wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and took a picture before she could as much as protest. He then gave it back, pushed her sunglasses back on her face, but kept the hat on his head. "I see why you wear this. I feel so shaded and cool right now."

She blinked at him, still shocked by the whirlwind of activity. "Uh…yeah. Yup. Definitely suits you and your monochrome fashion sense."

"Thanks," he said.

"Walk, walk, fashion baby," she muttered under her breath, her lips twitching as she fought a smile.

They sat for an hour without as much as a nibble. But in that time, they chatted a lot. Lyra broke out cans of soda she'd been carrying in a small cooler bag in her backpack, which they cracked open. "There's cola and lemon," she told him. He had no preference and had taken the cola, leaving her with lemon.

They were talking about cartoons they had watched growing up, about superheroes and talking animals and unnecessary love triangles, when Silver noticed Lyra sipping his cola. He paused mid-sentence before clearing his throat. "Lyra. That's mine."

She glanced at the can, at Silver, and then sighed. "Oh shit. Yeah, you took that one, didn't you? I think I keep sipping out of it, because I've definitely had more than just this one."

"I did," he said, slowly. He laughed. "You used to do that to me all the time when were kids. I'd pick a different soda than you and you'd sneak drinks. Don't be cute with me now."

"I swear it was an accident," she said, throwing her hands up. "I just…forgot which one was mine."

He grabbed her lemon soda and took a swig before setting it back. "There, we're even."

"Cool, now I get your germs, too," she said, rubbing her hand across her mouth. The motion seemed shy in a way most uncharacteristic for her. After a moment, she quietly said, "I think when I was in school, if you drank someone else's drink, they'd joke it was like kissing someone else to drink their milk or juice or whatever."

Silver froze. When he regained some control of his movement, he said, "Is that so?"

She nodded and half-laughed. "Yeah. It was just some dumb thing. Ethan told me Kris and I had to get married because I accidentally drank out of her apple juice in third grade. I told him if he loved Kris so much, he should marry her. Turns out, he doesn't like women at all, you know?" she said, her mouth quirking. "Anyway, it's all silly shit. Just reminded me of that."

"Yeah." He gazed out at sea. His pole was still, the red buoy on it still bobbing along in the water. Lyra's, a meter or two closer to the pier, also moved with the slosh of the waves. He was acutely aware of how close she was, her hand gripping the edge of the pier mere inches away from his. An absurd desire overcame him, like it had the other night, and he inched closer to her until their arms and shoulders brushed. He leaned back, his arm supporting himself and resting behind Lyra at a comfortable angle. "Definitely just silly shit. No merit to it at all."

"Definitely not," she responded, adjusting so her shoulder and side were pressed closer to his. "Only eight-year-old children would believe that."

They sat quietly. Lyra took of her sunglasses, peering at him with her incomprehensibly dark, doelike eyes, and he wondered what she was thinking. She began to open her mouth, to ask him something, when an utterly infuriating and all-too-familiarvoice cut across the din.

"Oy, Gianni! Arciere said you'd be down here, but I never believed you'd bring a girl."

Hackles raised, Silver slowly turned, a white-hot rage rising in him, as Proton stepped off the stairs at the foot of the dock, waving at him. He separated himself from Lyra and set her hat back on her head before begrudgingly, tiredly, angrily, retorting, "Ciao, Proton."

A/N: Hey guys. I don't have much to say here, so I'll keep it succinct. I've made it ten chapters into this slowburn now! It's weird seeing how much it's changed from what it was originally going to be.

Introduced some new side characters, because Silver and Lyra get a ton of screen time and sometimes I'd rather they interact with other people from time to time and not just each other, even if this is a romance.

This is honestly my favorite fic I've written thus far. It definitely is not my most popular; I struggle to get reviews or wide interest in it. But I am proud of it and that's what counts, you know?

This week, I'm doing my last orchestra pit for a theater I've worked with for four years. I'm playing tenor sax for the show Grease. It's making me into a sentimental weenie, but I also am not going to miss the theater company.

That's all for now. Until next time, don't forget to water your plants.

~Mars