“Nothing,” she managed. Then, with her voice turned falsely bright, she said, “And everything. I’m in over my head, I think. But that isn’t what I wished to discuss with you now.”
His eyes narrowed at her. They were so deeply green, like everything after the rain. Her glance strayed from them to follow along the angles of his face. Callous and distant, his emotions probably never freed, she thought he looked precisely the type who’d be up for what she wanted. How could he not be?
“Well, get under the awning at least,” he replied. She did as he told her, climbing the step until they were nearly touching beneath the overhang, both spared from the storm. “Do you not own an umbrella?”
“Don’t you?” She scoffed at him, but not too seriously. She couldn’t have him mad at her. Or, on second thought, maybe she could? His brow remained furrowed, and she decided she liked it when he looked at her that way—as if she were something he wanted to desperately understand, annoyed that he couldn’t.
“Where have you come from then?” she asked.
The mingling scents of dust and sage leaked from the exposed room beyond them. Bash stepped firmly into the doorway, the bag plunking down at his feet with a disturbing jangle. “Is that what you wished to discuss with me? I didn’t know you to be concerned over my whereabouts.”
“I wasn’t. I’mnot.”
His lips curved, another one-sided smirk, and Alora scowled. This was not how she pictured things would go. His arm lifted to lean against the doorframe, and she stopped herself before she asked after the scrape across his knuckles. He’d only leap upon that, too, thinking she was worried over him.
“It’s growing late. Out with it, Miss Pennigrim.”
Dammit. Never mind, she couldn’t do it. Maybe if they’d not started as they had, now to the point of arguing. Alora stepped back down, into the rain. “It was nothing.”
“Good grief,” he groaned. “Come on.” Before she could protest, his hand reached to encircle her wrist. He dragged her back up the step until she stood in the doorway with him, barely room at all to move. “What has you bothered?”
She snatched her arm away. “ThatI don’t care to talk about right now. Actually, I can’t even if I wanted to. I only thought…” She trailed off, her eyes on their boots. Bash’s were muddied, with bits of moss clinging to the sides.
“Thought?” he coaxed.
Alora felt her body flush when she glanced up at him. At how his dark hair lay dripping and tousled to one side, his eyes wide and impatient—kohl-smeared from his time in the storm. “I only wanted a sort of…distraction.” She squeezed her eyes shut briefly, disbelieving she’d actually said the words aloud.
“A distraction,” he said. When her cheeks flushed the same as the rest of her, he seemed to finally maneuver through her maze of a meaning. He angled his head, though, as if he wasn’t sure how to react over what he’d found. “And you thought to find that distractionhere?”
“Actually, no. I beg you to forget this happened.” Alora meant to back away, but jolted when her back met the doorframe, unable to move farther. She pasted on her best smile. “Have a good evening with…whatever you’ve foraged for.”
Bash’s arm stopped her where she would have bolted down the step and away. She stared at his fingertips digging into the wood before tracking his arm all the way up, again to his eyes.
“Why do you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“That smile. I know you aren’t happy. So why do it?”
Alora opened her mouth to defend herself, but no explanation came. Instead, she felt herself deflate. Her shoulder sagged into his arm, and still he didn’t remove it. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “An old reaction that became habit, I suppose.”
He nodded as if this, at least, he could understand. “So what are you, then, if not happy?”
Alora laughed humorlessly, her fingers rising to tick off her emotions. “Oh, hmm, where to begin… Angry, I suppose. No, furious, really. Frustrated beyond comprehension. Scared. And still a little hopeful, despite it all. I just feel like I need—”
“A distraction.”
“Yes.”
“To what extent?”
Alora felt her entire body must be cherry-red, imagining all she could ask for. “Nothing so great. Just something to pull me out of my own head a little bit.”
He nodded slowly. “A kiss, then.”
“Oh!”Did he have to come right out and say it?“I mean…”
“Just ask for what you want already, Miss Pennigrim.”
