“Hi.” I lean back against him, letting my eyes close.
“You okay?” He strokes his thumb across my shoulder, sweeping it down over the jut of my collarbone.
I do feel okay. Soothed and quiet even, and the tiny logical part of my brain that rarely gets to win screams, trying to tell me how wrong this is. It’s not real, and it’s fake, and it’s going to hurt me more in the long run.
But my heart so desperately wants this one thing now that I’ve had him again, even though I think it might be colossally bad for both of us. “Earlier you said you’d give me everything I wanted in exchange for the next few days with me. I know we keep changing the rules but what if ... what if it’s like this? Us?”
As soon as I say it, I know it won’t be enough. I could die and be reincarnated a thousand times over and live every single life with him, and that still wouldn’t be enough.
But I ask anyway, because once upon a time, there was a version of Bohdan who would never say no to me.
His thumb stills against my shoulder. “That doesn’t seem ... well advised.”
I pull back, turning to face him. Lines of his jaw sharp, muscles in his shoulders and neck tense, and eyes looking like he might actually say no to me for the first time.
“It’ll be like exposure therapy,” I joke, even though it’s sort of the exact opposite of how that’s supposed to work.
It doesn’t land. Bohdan’s jaw ticks, and his nostrils flare.
“Please,” I whisper before he can change his mind and sacrifice these two days of us on the altar of what he thinks is best for me.
His eyes shutter, and when they open, I know I’ve won. He shakes his head, pressing his forehead against mine. “You say stop—”
“We stop.”
“And at the end of the week—”
“You give me the Polaroid. I’ll give you the ring. And you’ll tell me everything I want to know.”
Something flashes behind his eyes, a storm readying lightning to strike and burn whatever this is down, but I press my lips to his and don’t let it catch.
Our lips move, his against mine, slotting in like the missing piece of a puzzle you found tucked away somewhere in your childhood home—a bit like we did all those years ago, sitting up in his bed in that old college room of his when we collided in the best ways before the worst came years later.
There might be something poetic about it—us, back together on a ship floating somewhere in the ocean. I wonder about all the nautical disasters that came before us, and whether any two ships on a crash course for each other have ever actually gone down. I think that maybe, when someone finds the wreckage of this one, they’ll be able to see it painted there across the hull.
TheSloan Josephand theBohdan Novotnak—they couldn’t stop, even when they should have.
Sloan
Bohdan takes his time, even though Talon comes back to pound on the door and try to impress upon us the importance of disco night.
He waits until I pick out a new dress, a black tube one that seems like it’ll be significantly easier on my skin than the sequins.
He asks if he can help me, and he drops into a crouch when I bend to step into it.
He pulls it up my legs, fingers skimming reverently over my body, eyes watchful and on mine the whole time.
He tucks his thumbs just under the material when he adjusts the top.
The left side of his mouth lifts when I shiver.
He doesn’t bother with my underwear, but picks them up from the floor instead.
“Can I keep these?” He holds the black lace between his fingers.
I give a small shrug. “For the next few days, sure.”
He smirks, eyebrows rising before he tucks them into the back pocket of his shorts. “You might have to fight me for these, Zlatícko.”
