I look down at my bare feet. They’re blotchy red, wet, dusted with rapidly melting snow. My toes curl.
“Define ‘walk’.
He exhales through his nose, then reaches for me again. “All right, cupcakes. Let’s do this the fast way.”
“I can walk, you know,” I protest, even as my hands fly up to his shoulders again when he scoops me up. “You don’t have to keep?—”
“Faith,” he says. “I just watched you almost fall over getting out of a car. Let me get you to the damn bathroom before you pass out in the hall and scare the kids in the morning.”
The kids.
Right. There are kids here now. Little people with sticky fingers and big eyes and expectations about Christmas morning. The idea of one of them finding me sprawled in a puddle of tulle like a murdered wedding cake makes me wince.
I wonder who the kids belong to.
“Okay,” I say, shrinking a little. “Point taken.”
He carries me down the hall. It’s dim but familiar. The same creaky floorboard near the hall closet, the same family photos lining the walls. There’s an added layer now: crayon masterpieces, a construction paper turkey, a crooked paper ornament with a glittery star that saysLila, Age 3.
He sets me down carefully just inside the bathroom and steadies me until I find my balance. I catch myself on the counter, and he eases the door mostly shut to give me privacy, leaving just a sliver of hallway light.
“There’s a first aid kit under the sink,” he says. “And towels in the cabinet above the toilet. I’ll find you something dry to wear.”
Something dry to wear. The very concept feels like a miracle.
“Dallas,” I say, fingers pressed to the cool tile wall. “I… thank you. I’m sorry, I just?—”
“We’ll talk after you’re not turning blue,” he says. “Can you get out of that dress on your own?”
I glance down at the dress. It’s a strapless bodice with a line of hidden buttons and a zipper; I had two women maneuvering me into it earlier with the focus of surgeons. The idea ofwrangling out of it alone in a small bathroom in front of my childhood best friend makes my brain short-circuit.
“I… eventually?” I say. “Maybe by New Year’s?”
“All right.” He cracks the door just enough to stick his hand back through. “Give me the zipper. I’ll undo it and then get out of your way.”
Heat floods my face so fast I think I might spontaneously combust, cold or no cold. Every nerve ending screams,absolutely not,but my body moves anyway, because I’m too exhausted and too frozen to argue with practical solutions.
I turn, gathering my hair over one shoulder with trembling fingers. The bodice creaks as I shift. With a deep breath I don’t quite manage to complete, I tug the top of the zipper tab into view.
His fingers are warm when they brush the bare skin of my spine. My lungs forget how to work. We’ve touched a thousand times before. Hands catching each other as we jumped off the dock, shoulders bumping in the back row of the school bus, his fingers wrapping around my wrist to pull me away from some stupid dare.
But this feels different. Intimate in a way that has nothing to do with the dress and everything to do with the years between now and then.
He works the zipper down in a smooth, slow line. The bodice loosens, the pressure around my ribs easing. I feel both exposed and relieved.
“All right,” he says quietly. His breath stirs the small hairs at the nape of my neck. “You’re good. Holler if you pass out.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I manage.
He closes the door with a soft click.
I just stand there, palms flat against the cool bathroom counter, breathing. The overhead light flickers on when I hit theswitch, bathing everything in harsh yellow. My reflection in the mirror nearly knocks me back a step.
“Wow,” I whisper.
I look insane.
My hair is half up, half down, curls frizzing where snow melted and refroze. My makeup, meticulously applied this afternoon, is smeared into muddy shadows under my eyes. There’s a streak of dirt across my cheek, a tiny cut on my lower lip where I must have bitten it in the skid.
