Page 53 of Gave Proof Through the Night

Well. There it is. Three words, delivered matter-of-factly, and my brain short-circuits so thoroughly I lose access to every clever thing I’ve ever said in my entire life.

“I like you too,” I say, which is, objectively, the least impressive sentence I have ever produced under pressure. It’s also the most honest one.

The finale goes off, huge and thunderous, above us flares gold, then white, then breaks into my favorite kind, a slow deliberate bloom that ignites all at once into a thousand sparkling diamonds, like the sky reached into a jewelry case and shook it out.

His mouth is a whisper away, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his skin, and for one full second everything, the noise, the crowd, the whole spinning world, narrows down to the two inches between his mouth and mine.

My pulse is already outrunning the fireworks, thudding somewhere in my throat, and I can’t tell anymore if it’s the noise or him doing that to me. Probably both. Almost certainly him.

I angle my body toward him without deciding to. He turns toward me at the exact same second, like we planned it, like some part of both of us has been counting down to this moment.

His hand finds my jaw. Barely there at first, just his knuckles, grazing my cheekbone like he’s not sure he’s allowed, and then his palm settles fully against my skin, warm, steady, and every nerve ending I own reports for duty at once. The gravel digs into my palms. I don’t care. Somewhere below us, an entire city is watching the sky, and up here it’s just the two of us and this one small, electric distance closing itself inch by inch.

I can feel his breath before I feel anything else, warm against my mouth. His thumb moves along my jaw, slow, like he’s memorizing the shape of it, and my brain, usually so reliable, so full of exit strategies and contingency plans, goes completely, gloriously blank.

This is the best birthday I have ever had, I think, distantly, dizzily. This is the best birthday of my entire life and he hasn’t even kissed me yet.

Then… boom.

A firework shrieks up from the street directly below us, way too close.

Definitely illegal. Probably teenagers.

It detonates practically level with the rooftop in a deafening crack of red, blue, and gold, and so loud it rattles straight through my chest and startles us both back a full foot. A dog somewhere loses its entire mind. Two car alarms go off in overlapping intervals. Somewhere below, people are hooting and applauding, and drinking too much Jack Daniels.

Jeremiah’s hand is still on my jaw, but the spell is broken, shattered clean through, and when I catch my breath, catch his eyes, catch my senses… some small, cowardly part of me is almost relieved.

Good, I think, and I hate how much I mean it. It’s better this way. I have no business kissing a man like him. He has no business kissing a girl like me.

I laugh instead, shaky, and duck my face into his shoulder so he can’t see what that thought costs me.

“That one was definitely not signed off by Congress.” I say, breathless.

“But it’s still just for you,” he says, voice rough. “For your birthday.”

And neither of us mentions how close we just came, or how loud my heart is still going, long after the fireworks stopped.

12

ERICA

Chapter playlist:

The Gala Plan — Daniel Pemberton

Hacking the Met — Daniel Pemberton

Suri and Tanya are currently inside the Bellenden Museum of American History right now, actually doing their job while all I want to do is daydream about the perfect day I had yesterday. Okay, almost perfect. Perfect would have been topped off by an uninterrupted kiss, but that just wasn’t in the cards. It will never be in the cards, unfortunately, and I don’t know how to feel about the rock that forms in my throat whenever I think about it. Which is always.

“Guard’s doing a loop,” Zoe murmurs in my earpiece. “He’s looked at you twice now.”

I mumble back, trying not to move my mouth. “I’m reading a book on a public bench. This is the least suspicious thing I’ve done all year.”

“You’ve been reading the same paragraph for six minutes, Erica. Turn the page occasionally. Sell it.”

I turn the page. I have no idea what happened on it. Something about mist, and marshlands and possibly a criminal in a cemetery. If I were more gothic, I could lurk in cemeteries instead of a museum on a hot day in July. Anyway…

“Keep your eyes on scan,” I say behind the cover of the open book. “How are we on indoor cameras?”