I lick my dry lips and swallow. I don’t tell him toback up. Instead, I lean into my heels, and my hair catches against the stubble on his chin. He inhales slowly before letting out a warm breath. Silently, his hands move to the counter, bracketing my hips.
I haven’t seen him since that day in the garden, but I’ve thought about him often. Too often. And now he’s here, so close I can feel the heat coming off him. I want to lean all the way back and feel his arms wrap around me. His presence does something to my insides I’ve rarely felt before. What would he do if I turned around and kissed him? Would he kiss me back? What would it feel like to have our bodies pressed close?
I lean away until the counter digs into my stomach and reach for another mug. Cosmos steps back a reasonable distance, clears his throat, and waits. He’s quiet, and I don’t look at him.
When I hand him the finished hot chocolate, our hands brush, and heat spirals through my chest. My thighs clench. Our eyes meet. The room was already quiet, but this silence is different, deeper. It’s clear we’ve stopped time again.
“I have an idea for another experiment.” He blows on the hot chocolate, and my eyes divert to his lips. Time moves again. I twist my mug in my hands and watch the chocolate ripple in tiny swirls.
“We’ve tried manipulating inanimate objects, but what about people? What about us?”
“Our movements don’t last,” I point out.
He takes a small sip of the drink, and I hold my breath, watching his Adam’s apple bob as heswallows. I’m not sure why it matters to me whether he likes it or not, but it does.
“It’s good.” He takes another sip. “Rich. But good.” His eyes meet mine again. “I was thinking of something a bit more elaborate than a few steps across the cafeteria.”
“What do you have in mind?” I ask, twisting the mug in my hands. The hot ceramic is calming, but it doesn’t slow the rapid pace of my heart. I lift the mug, hide my face by taking a big gulp of chocolate, and sputter as it burns my tongue. It’s too hot to swallow, so I spin around and spit it in the sink behind me. Shit. I just spit in front of the hottest guy I’ve ever seen in real life. Smooth. Real smooth.
“Are you okay?” His hand touches my back, making my insides quiver. Our eyes lock, and I feel as if he’s seeing right through me to my swirling inappropriate thoughts. Like his eyes are penetrating my soul. Ocular penetration… Something like a giggle escapes my lips at the hundreds of very inappropriate images racing through my mind. His eyes drop to my mouth, and for roughly five seconds time continues to stand still before the dull background noises let us know everything’s moving forward again.
“Woah.” He takes hold of both my arms and turns me so I’m fully facing him with my back to the counter. “Did everything stay frozen even when we looked away?”
I stare into his eyes and tilt one shoulder. “I think so?” He’s still holding my arms, so I test the theory by angling my body away from him and looking at theclock on the wall. The second hand doesn’t move, not even a fraction of a millimeter. I count. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi… four… six…eight. The second hand ticks forward. This is really happening. We’re stopping time without eye contact, but it still doesn’t last long.
His fingers squeeze my forearms. The counter presses into my back. There’s only a few inches between us. It would be easy to close the distance. Too easy. I close my eyes and take a deep steadying breath. That’s not why he’s here. He doesn’t want that from me.
He lets go of my arms and steps back until he bumps into the table. “That was amazing.” He laughs, but it sounds nervous. “Are you up for another experiment?”
I’m not sure that’s a good idea, but I nod. “Yeah.”
He pulls a pair of scissors out of the front pocket of his lab coat and holds them out, handle first, in my direction. I raise my eyebrows at him.
“Cut my hair,” he says.
“What?” He can’t be serious.
“It’ll be a good way to know if what happens to us when time stops lasts or if our physical bodies revert to the moment it started.”
If our bodies revert, we could live multiple lives within a time freeze. We could grow old together over and over again. We could have as much time as we wanted—not that he wants time with me. But, we could. As long as we look at each other. Which would be weird, so, yeah… no multiple lives.
I shake my head to clear it and take the scissors, this time being careful not to touch him. We look at each other, and time stands still. I reach up, but hesitate before touching him. “Are you sure?”
He smiles. “I need a haircut anyway.”
I take a lock of hair between my fingers. It’s just as soft as I imagined it would be, slipping through my fingers like silk. I twist it and pull just enough to straighten it out. Cosmos makes a low noise in the back of his throat, and the black of his eyes expands. Did he like that? I give another little tug, this one harder. He bites his lip.
This is a terrible idea. Conscientiously, I know I’m in a vulnerable place. He’s Mom’s doctor and already said anything between us would be unethical, but I can barely bring myself to care. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. I don’t think anyone has. What we can do is something special. And I think this connection between us might be, too.
Without thinking too much more about it, I set the scissors on the counter, step closer, and thread my fingers into his hair, dragging my nails along his scalp and gently tugging the roots. His eyes are hooded, hungry, and still fixed on mine. There’s a low rumble in his chest. I scrape my teeth along my bottom lip and tug on his hair again, tangling my fingers and pulling hard. He moans, and the sound reverberates in places it shouldn’t. His eyes roll closed.
A door shuts somewhere down the hall. Shoes click against the linoleum. My hands drop, and I jumpback, but he catches my wrist, and our gazes lock again.
“I still need a haircut.” His grin reveals his dimples, and I fight the urge to lift on my toes and kiss his curved lips.
This time, I grab a lock of hair, bring the scissors right to it, keeping my eyes on his.Snip.The hair falls to the floor. I break eye contact and look down at my feet. His hair is half on my shoe, half on the floor. My breath catches. We changed something. Permanently.
Then, I realize he’s still holding my wrist. I ease away and, the moment I do, the hair vanishes, there’s a slight tugging in my stomach and everything is back as it was before we stopped time. There’s not a single hair missing from his head. It didn’t work. Nothing we do in the time stop lasts.
