‘Being like what?’
Asta held out her hand to show him. It was shaking.
‘If it makes you feel any better. . .’ Felix held out his own hand, and it was shaking too. They both burst into nervous laughter.
Felix ran his hands through his hair, one after the other. ‘I’m really sorry for saying that. I didn’t mean to make it weird. It’s just that I think about you literally all the time. But that’s weird, right? I made it weird. Just forget I—’
‘I do, too,’ she blurted. ‘I think about you all the time, too.’
They stood still, anchored in place by some invisible force.
‘What do you think about?’ Felix ventured. There was an impish spark in his eye.
Asta hid her face in her hands, but he stepped to her and pulled them down.
‘When you think about me.’ He kept hold of her left hand, lacing his fingers between hers. ‘Is it just, like, how much better I am at math than you? Or. . .’
Asta punched his shoulder with her free hand. ‘You’re such a jerk.’
He looked at his shoulder, unimpressed, then back at Asta. ‘No? Then is it something else?’
‘Yeah, it’s something else.’
‘I bet you think about my incredible fencework. You’re just lying there in bed thinking, “Damn, that guy jumped the crap out of those fences today.” I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘Yeah, that’s it. I lie in my bed, and I think about yourjumps.’ Felixwasin her thoughts every night as she lay there in the dark, but it wasn’t Felix on a dragon that she thought about. It was Felix next to her, touching her, kissing her.
‘Liar.’
Asta lifted one shoulder in a coquettish half admission.
‘Then what? What do you think about?’ He had drawn so close that the hairs all down Asta’s arms stood on end.
‘This.’ Asta leaned forward and put her lips on his. They were soft and sweet. Every particle of her came alive with light and warmth.
He kissed her back, slowly and deliberately. It was like the ground fell away beneath their feet, like they had leapt right off the edge of the cliff together and they were soaring through open air.
But a movement beside them caused them both to turn.
Carmine’s face was inches from theirs, his silver eyes locked on them in stunned fascination. Essie came over and joined him. They traded a churring trill back and forth.
‘This is not a spectator sport, guys,’ Felix said. ‘If you don’t mind.’ He moved in for another kiss, and it felt like gravity drawing her down, down, down.
She wanted so desperately to let herself fall into that open space with him, but the moment Felix had stopped kissing her, all her doubts and fears had roared back to life and filled the void, shouting at her so that she couldn’t think straight. Asta pulled back.
Felix stopped. ‘What is it?’
‘What about Pillar?’
‘What about it?’
‘I’m not going to get in, Felix.’
‘You are.’ He smiled at her, and his smile threatened to burst Asta’s heart open.
‘I don’t know. . . maybe. . . maybe we shouldn’t.’
Felix’s smile faded.
