But I’m here, face tipped up to his,hoping.
That darkness in Loch’s eyes withdraws as he rolls them shut in a grimace.
“Kris,” he moans, and the music tries to dampen it.
I get whiplash with how fast I go from wanting his tongue in my mouth to being livid with him. “Don’t. Just—don’t.”
I try to pull away, to leave with my pride intact—ha,pride? I barely know her—but Loch keeps his clawed-finger grip on my arms.
His look is pleading. But firmer. Resolved. “I did na mean what I said,” he repeats. His lips curl on themselves and he pulls in close, but it isn’t charged. “I’ve fallen in with a whole parade of directionless dipshits, and I know what being around the wrong people can do to our positions. And I canna—”
“So I’m adirectionless dipshitnow?” I jerk back, face on fire. “Fuck you for—”
“No! Christ, Kris, I’m sayingI’mthat foryou.”
It’s so much the opposite of what I thought he was saying that I can only stare.
“That was what I meant earlier. I did na mean to say thatyouwere a mess. I was angry at myself—I have too much going on with my Holiday. And then you said—” He groans, and the air alters to make room for it. “You said you do na know what you want. That’s fine, it’s fine, Kris. But I canna be the one to help you figure it out. I canna give you what you need.”
“Did Iaskyou to help me figure anything out?” I demand.
“Was it na a mistake to you?” Loch asks. He isn’t accusing. He sounds dejected. “Tell me it was na a mistake for me to kiss you. That I dinna get blindsided by my own stress and spring that on you when youtoldme you did na know what you wanted.”
The skin across my chest is too tight.
He looks so ashamed, so pissed offat himself.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” I tell him.
Loch’s self-admonishment doesn’t change. “What was it, then?”
“It was—”
It yanked me out of a half-life I’d been living.
If I don’t kiss you again I feel like every nerve in my body will wither away.
That single kiss was more transformative, more vast, more excruciatingly important than anything that’s ever happened to me and you’re the most noble, caring person I’ve ever met, and it breaks my heart that you don’t see that what you’re doing is so spectacular.
In some alternate universe, I say all of that.
But in this one, I hear those thoughts as if from a distance, and I hear what Loch said, and it rotates into focus.
One kiss.
We hadone kiss.
All this shit building up in my throat sounds a helluva lot like a love profession, which iscategorically insane.He has so many problems going on with his Holiday, with his uncle, and I admitted my uncertainty to him last night. And, oh yeah, I’minvestigating him.
He may have said he didn’t mean to call me on being a mess, but he wasn’t wrong. I mean, the fact that I’m wobbling back and forth like this is proof enough. The fact that I basically threw myself at him again, even with him saying it’d been a mistake, validates all of this.
To my silence, Loch gives a resigned nod and lets me go. “I’m sorry, Kris. I should na have kissed you.”
“Wait.” Even saying that comes out choked, garbled. I’m drowning in unsaid words.
“I have to make rounds.”
Wait—
