His eyes come back up to mine.
I’m not going to deal with this right now, so I take a step.
His voice stops me. “Are you okay?”
I look up at him.
The truth isno, I am not okay.The truth isI have just broken up with a boyfriend I should have broken up with two years ago, and the only reason I finally did it was because I made four seconds of eye contact with you on a sidewalk on Tuesday. Aren’t I so pathetic?
I swallow that down and nod.
“Yeah,” I say, with a small smile that I have practiced for exactly this kind of moment. “I just need help with this zipper.”
He looks down at it.
My heart is in my throat.
I peep out, “Do you mind? I’d rather not go downstairs with everyone seeing, and Mila took my phone.”
He looks at me.
I add, “It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before.”
As soon as it is out of my mouth, I think I’m about to drop dead. Heat rushes to my face.I did not just say that.
I blink. “Sorry. You know what? I’ll find Mila —”
“Melly.”
He reaches out to me. His hand is in the air between us, not touching me, just — there. “I don’t mind.”
I freeze, and then I shuffle back to him. Two steps. Three. My nylons are quiet against the carpet. My heart is in my throat.
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
I turn my back to him.
I hold my hair off the back of my neck.
I don’t breathe.
His hands come up.
The first touch is the worst — the moment his knuckles brush the bare skin between my shoulder blades as he gathers the twosides of the zipper together. Just the faint pressure of two fingers and a thumb. I feel it everywhere. I feel it in my stomach, in the soft place at the small of my back where his hands used to rest when he was kissing me, and in my throat.
He zips me up. The zipper has to be coaxed past the place where it caught, and he does it carefully. I feel it catching, so I turn my head and inhale.
“Is it stuck?”
He twists his body to the side, pulling at the costume. It’s already snug around the bust, so I inhale again to give the fabric more room. He yanks it down, and then he pulls it back up. It catches again, and this time I feel the fabric slack.
I turn around and his mouth is in the shape of an O as he holds the zipper between his fingers in the air. My eyes widen as I stare at the zipper that is no longer attached to my costume. Thatdid notjust happen.
We’re both stunned and have no idea what to do.
My mouth falls open, and a bewildered laugh leaves my throat.
Chapter 8
