I wish I weren’t so…scared…to embrace it.
“Poor thing,” he murmurs, stepping in to cage me against the side of my car. His hand lifts, skating through my hair, and my stomach churns. “Shall I kill the anticipation for you so you might have a chance at peace the rest of the night?”
A cold spike pierces my chest. “You mean…Now?”
“If you’d like.” He cups my chin, tilts my face. “A stolen kiss on a summer night. A brief touch that you can begin surviving for the rest of the evening. Then, when we return home, maybe you can survive another before we go to bed. And in the morning—”
“With morning breath?” I croak.
“Afterwe brush our teeth, surely, you can survive a third.”
“Three is an awfully large number, don’t you think?”
“Depends on what we’re talking about.” He dips, closer. “Kisses? No. Murder attempts?” He chuckles. “Perhaps.”
I flush.
“I love you, Azalea. I will always love you.” His breath skims my mouth, and I…
Panic.
Shoving him, I flinch.
His brows rise as he holds his gaze to me.
“Wait,” I choke. “No.” Breath rakes through my burning lungs. “Sorry. I…” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I can do this.”
He doesn’t move closer again. Because I ruined everything. Miles from me, he says, “You don’t have to do this, dove.”
“I do,” I blurt, tears pricking. “Please.”
His gloved hand slips against my face, and I brace while my eyes burn. It’s one moment. One small touch. Then I just survive. We’ve been doing this. For weeks now. Moment after survivable moment. Rule after broken rule.
Malcolm kisses my cheek and repeats, “Youdon’thave to do this tonight.”
Tears fall. “But I do,” I whisper.
“Why?”
“Because. I planned to. And if I don’t, then…what if it never happens?”
“So what if it never happens?”
“I don’t want that.” I clutch his wrist in my free hand, and turn, turn, turn the little star over in the other. “I want to be normal and have a normal relationship and…just…not be like this forever. And it feels like if I don’t do this now, I never will. And if I never do, then Iwillbe likethisforever.”
He hums, and darkness settles deeply in his cruel gray eyes. Leaning near my ear, he whispers, “Shall I tell you a secret?”
“I’m not an idiot,” I bite. “I already know having anormalrelationship with you when it started because I was trying to kill you is absolutely stupid. In case you didn’t know, almost everything about me is stupid.”
“That’s not true, and it also isn’t what I was going to say.” His lips skim my jaw. “I was going to say…I don’t like you because you’renormal. I like you because you’re you.”
“I want to be a better version of me, but…to get there, I need to follow the rules, and the rules say if we don’t do this now, then…” Maybe we never will.
“Thenwe’ll make a different rule.” His arms move around me, pull me in close. “Come now, dove. Look at us. Look at how far you’ve already come. There’s no race toward a finish line of what it means to grow or heal. There’s no ending. There are just steps that we’ll take, hand-in-hand. And wherever we end up in a month or a year—however many times we backslide or find ourselves frustrated by a seeming lack of progress—doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because we will recover. And we will recover because we’ll still be together. And we’ll havemovie nights without movies and touches without skin if that’s whatbeing togethermeans.” He squeezes me, to the point of breaking, and whispers a coarse swear. “I love you. I’d die for you. And I will be here for you while you learn what it means to live. So. Tonight isn’t the night. Who cares? We’ll still fall asleep in one another’s arms. We’ll still wake up together. I’ll still make you breakfast. And while we’re surrounded by all those things you couldn’t handle a month ago, we will create a new rule that leads you to where you want to be until the moment when you don’t need to follow rules at all.”
Tears pour down my cheeks as I fight the lump tightening in my throat. “It’s not that easy.”
“What part of this has been, Azalea?”
