They stayed in the cool grass, laughter fading into quiet. Somewhere, a siren wailed and a dog howled in solidarity. Grace’s hand found Alix’s, fingers tangling. The skin of her palm was warm, the weight of it grounding. Alix’s thumb traced lazy circles over Grace’s knuckles, her heart still unsteady.
When they finally dragged themselves inside, Alix grabbed a damp paper towel, crouching to dab the scrape on Grace’s elbow.
“You’re bleeding,” Alix pointed out.
“You’re very dramatic,” Grace teased, smiling. “It’s barely a scratch.”
“I’m just thorough.”
“You mean bossy,” Grace corrected. “And hot.”
Alix laughed quietly, that warm, dizzy kind of laughter that lived in her throat. She couldn’t stop touching Grace. The curve of her shoulder, the slope of her jaw, the fall of her hair. She pressed a kiss to her cheek, then another to her temple, then one to her lips, unable to get enough. Grace’s skin was warm beneath her mouth, smelling like sun and salt and tequila. The kind of scent that branded memory into skin.
They were still laughing when they collapsed into bed in a tangle of limbs, languorous kisses, and sleepy smiles. Grace curled into her side, Alix’s fingers tracing slow, wandering paths over her back. Every time Grace sighed, Alix kissed her again, like she could memorize her by touch alone.
“I never thought I’d say this with you,” Grace mumbled, voice slurred with exhaustion, “but I think I might be a little too drunk and tired for sex.”
Alix kissed her forehead, then her hairline, then the corner of her mouth. “Me too. Gross. We’re getting so domestic.”
Grace huffed a laugh.
Outside, the city murmured as the night slipped in through the window — cars, sirens, the distant laughter of a neighbor. Grace’s breath slowed against her chest.
“You make everything feel easy,” Grace murmured, half-asleep.
“It is easy with you,” Alix whispered before she could stop herself.
Grace’s fingers tightened in her shirt. “Good.”
Alix lay awake a little longer, tracing slow circles on Grace’s bare arm, her lips brushing the top of her head. Grace’s heartbeat thudded steady against her ribs, calm and certain, the kind of rhythm Alix could almost believe in.
She could still taste her on her lips. The air was warm, heavy with the faint smell of skin and snow and something new.
For a minute, the world felt still. Too still. The kind of quiet that made her chest tighten, like happiness was a trick she might fall for.
Grace shifted closer in her sleep, a hushed sound caught in her throat, and Alix’s hand stilled. She knew this part — the part where she got scared. The part where good things slipped through her fingers because she was too busy waiting to ruin them.
She closed her eyes and tried to breathe past it, memorizing the weight of Grace against her, just in case.
Chapter Thirty-One
GRACE
Knowingit was too early to get up even before opening her eyes, Grace struggled to stay in a dream. But then a small wave of nausea crested at the top of her stomach, and she remembered the taste of tequila. The smell of dewy grass. The feeling of Alix’s arms around her and the music of her laugh.
Her heart rose, beating too fast to ignore. Grace blinked awake and immediately remembered why her elbow was sore. She bit back a smile in the dark, just in case Alix was awake and her eyes already adjusted. The last thing she wanted to do was remind her of a creepy doll from her aunt’s house.
Alix, however, was still breathing deeply. On her stomach with an arm outstretched, Alix was very asleep. Grace tried so hard to join her. To drift back into whatever her subconscious had created for her.
On her side, Grace’s leg was hooked around Alix’s thigh. She nestled closer to her, palm on her bare back, feeling the rise and fall of her breaths against her skin. Like she might catch her breath in her hand and keep it.
Matching the rhythm of Alix’s inhales, Grace’s nervous system flooded with a calm she’d never experienced in her life. Nothing about being with Alix was like anything she’d ever felt. From the moment they’d met, she’d coaxed out some dormant part of her. Or maybe Alix had built it from scratch, weaving the best parts of Grace into a happier, more content person. A person Grace realized she liked.
Grace had never even been particularly affectionate, and definitely not while she slept. But everything was so different with Alix. So natural.
She closed her eyes and tried to fall back asleep. In that liminal place between dream and reality, Grace imagined herself as a seahorse. So tiny in an ocean so vast and varied and dangerous. Where the swells on the surface crushed, and the predators in the middle killed, and the depths were cold and still and desperately dark.
Hooked around Alix, the currents couldn’t push her wherever they wished. She’d chosen her spot and rooted herself there, and the steady safety was unmatched. Alix was a coral reef of color and life and protection.
