In this case, it’s just a look.
Sloan’s eyes rise, meeting mine, lighter and happier than they’ve looked the entire time, her nose wrinkles, and her teeth come down on her bottom lip.
I grin, the muscles in my cheeks aching because I don’t think I’ve smiled like this since long before I left her.
But it’s notjusta look. Her eyes on mine opens this door we both sealed shut, and we watch the years go by through the glass surrounding that rink we first skated on. Our lips touch for the first time under a singular, bright light and fallen snow. The first time she let me inside her body, but more importantly, the first time she let me inside her mind. One of the scariest places on planet Earth for her, but one of the most beautiful for me.
Nights with our friends and Talon giving us a rotating list of nicknames that got stupider and stupider, winning all these championships and trophies and setting all these records, but nothing really mattered as long as we got to keep each other.
Learning with her as she worked so hard against an unkind brain, her smile growing wider and wider as the years went on.
But then we get to the painful parts.
Her eyes shutter closed, and she gives a little shake of her head like she’s trying to get rid of a thought. But she takes a measured exhale, looks away, and closes the door.
“I don’t study every culture in the world, Talon,” Sloan offers dryly.
He waves a hand, like it’s all the same to him, and really, it probably is, before he taps his finger against his palm. “We’ve got a wine tasting tomorrow in Provence, followed by dinner and free time.”
“How gracious of you to extend us free time.” Tia smiles tightly.
Talon points at her. “You’re welcome, sis.” He clears his throat, flourishing the paper unnecessarily, and keeps talking. “Day four: Walking tour in Florence, followed by disco night.” He pauses, another dramatic point in Sloan’s direction. “These next two are for you, Sloany. Day five: Rome, the Colosseum. We’re going to learn about gladiators and then we’re hitting the casino. Day six: At sea, and I’m personally planning on taking in some of the water aerobics offerings. Day seven: We’re going to Pompeii.”
I chance another look at her. She lights up. Brighter than the moon.
“Pompeii will be followed by a five-course dinner, during which I expect you will all be shedding more than one tear that this is almost over. Day eight—heading back to the port in Barcelona.”
“And we can all go home?” Jay tosses his schedule onto the lounge chair beside him.
Talon frowns, a look of feigned hurt that might actually be real carving across his features. “It’s almost like you don’t want to be here.”
I clear my throat, giving Jay a flat look, before forcing a smile towards Talon. “Of course we want to be here.”
He points at me, but he’s grinning again. “Now I know you’re fucking lying.”
“Can I go to bed?” Sloan asks, standing up suddenly.
It’s nothing anyone else would notice—but I see her give another tiny shake of her head, and she looks at Talon with hard blinks.
Talon sketches a bow, smiling when he stands up straight again. “You’re dismissed, Sloany.”
I give her a tight smile, and I don’t bother saying good night. It’s not the kind she’d be interested in hearing from me anyway, but it might be the kind she needs—I can see her brain whirring from here.
We had a good-night ritual that worked for her. It worked for me, too. But not for the same reasons. I didn’t need anything in my mind to go quiet. I just needed her. And I can’t imagine she’d be interested in me counting the three things I loved about her most that day before kissing her three times across her freckles, three times on her mouth, and letting her take whatever she needed from me.
Tia reaches up, hand wrapping around Sloan’s wrist when she goes to walk past. “Good night, I love you.”
Sloan blinks down at her, offering her nothing but a strained smile, and not even a real word, just a general noise of agreement. “Mm.”
I wait until long after the door to the balcony shuts, until I can see her retreating figure round the hallway of the suite, before turning to Tia. “She didn’t say I love you back.”
Tia looks away from the door, where she might have been watching her best friend, too. She angles her head, slicked back curls starting to escape from her ponytail. “Observant, Novotnak.”
“Since when?”
“You know when,” Tia answers simply. She pats Jay on the shoulder before she stands, offering her brother nothing more than a wave.
She stops beside me, her words just a whisper in the dark. “How lonely that must be. For her—thinking only bad things happen when she loves someone because her brain was wired to be cruel, and for you, living without her. I opened the dictionary the other day. Flipped to the page with the wordmasochist, and wouldn’t you know? It was just your picture.”
