Opal (The Raven Cycle, #4.5)

by Maggie Stiefvater

Opal, eavesdropping, had not quite followed the gist of the conversation — she was still better in the old dream language that waking Ronan never spoke — but she could tell that Adam liked it when Ronan talked like this. Sometimes they would stop talking and instead begin kissing, and Opal would eavesdrop on this as well. Her capacity for voyeurism was boundless and incorrigible. They were always coming together in surprising moments, going from easygoing to urgent in the space of a few breaths. She watched them kiss messily in the car in the driveway and she watched them tangle around each other in the laundry room and she watched Adam unbuckle Ronan’s belt and slide his hand against skin. With intellectual curiosity, she watched ribs and hips and arms and legs and spines. She had no lust, because Ronan hadn’t dreamt any for her, but she also had no shame, because Ronan hadn’t dreamt any of that for her, either.

Ronan had been standing outside of his parents’ old room, one hand holding a cassette tape and the other clenched into a fist, and he’d been there for quite a few minutes by the time Adam climbed the stairs. Adam had taken the cassette from Ronan’s hand, working Ronan’s fingers loose and putting his own fingers between them. For a moment Opal, hidden, had thought they were going to kiss. But instead, Ronan pressed his face against Adam’s neck and Adam quietly put his head on top of Ronan’s head and they did not move for a long time.