He cleared his throat and put an arm on the couch behind my shoulders. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck were jolted by him, and I shivered again. I was far from cold, but Pace put his arm on me and tugged me into his side.
“Sorry, it’s so cold. Steal some of my body heat. I don’t mind,” he offered.
I couldn’t speak. I nodded and let myself melt into him.
Was this amount of touching normal for him? I felt like every system in my body was malfunctioning. I was aware of everything. Except for whatever was happening on the TV. The heat of him, the smell. The thumping of my heart that shook me so hard, he had to feel it too.
I wish there was a way to know for sure—aside from asking, because, yeah, right.
Did normal people do this? Did they talk and ask about each other’s feelings and whether there should be touching? Did they bring up the time they had their tongue in the other person’s mouth?
The fever that took over me when I was at the fire, and I had been so worried about him, that had been someone else. I couldn’t find her now. She’d gone back into hiding, only sharing herself at the most inconvenient times. I missed her now. I wanted to be brave and reckless. I wanted to throw my body on top of Pace’s to see how we fit.
If I could harness the power of genuinely not caring what people thought, I would be unstoppable. Maybe we all would. Maybe that was the trick to getting through this life. Your happiness and success were directly proportional to how many people’s opinions you let dictate your actions. If I could narrow it down to a solid five, I think I would be okay with that. Instead of this massive collective of “them,” all judging and hating on me.
“Sophie?” Pace was turned toward me, head tilted to the side in curiosity. At some point, he’d paused the movie.
I could smell his soap; he was so near that I felt the cushion move as he shifted. I was tucked so near that turning to meet his gaze had our faces absurdly close.
Sometimes, I had these out-of-body experiences where I floated in the air above myself, seeing how surreal a situation was and tried to explain it to a former version of me.
Yes, you and Pace Leigh, Mr. August himself, are snuggling on the couch after a fiery make-out session last week.
“Hi. Yes. Present,” I said.
“Are you?”
“No, sorry. Not really,” I admitted. “I was thinking.”
“I gathered that when I didn’t see you blink for three minutes as you stared at the wall.”
“Sorry.” I blinked dry eyes and smiled.
“If you aren’t into this, let’s put on something else.”
“I’m very into this,” I said, not wanting a single thing to change.
“Were you thinking about the list?” he asked.
“Yeah. Let’s go with that.” I scrambled for a lie that was better than my internal crisis at his touch.
“I was thinking how I crossed things off the list,” I said.
“Really? When? Without me?” He sounded jealous? Hurt?
“Sort of. But because of you, so it’s like you were there.”
His brows pinched together.
“Where is it?” I asked.
He went to where his wallet and keys sat in a little basket near the door. I regretted sending him away, as his absence left me shivering and on edge.
But he was back to his same spot a second later, tucking me even closer to him. When he handed me the note, I looked at it in wonder. It was well-worn at this point, almost hard to read. He had used a different color pen to put a check next to the tasks completed.
“Pen?” I asked.
He produced one seemingly from thin air, and I spoke out loud as I went. “‘Compliment a stranger.’”
