Page 37 of Ignition Rites

“Was it inaccurate?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

Her mouth twitches.

“Ash is gonna hear about this conversation whether I tell him or not,” I say. “This crowd has the information-security standards of a group chat.”

“Comforting.”

“I aim to soothe.”

The speakers crackle overhead with the call for the next heat. Engines answer from the pits.

I look at the track, then back at her. There are maybe ninety seconds before somebody comes looking for me — probably Nico, possibly with violence.

“I have to go.”

“Good luck.”

“You gonna be okay?”

She takes the question seriously, which I’m starting to realize is one of the things I like most about her. She doesn’t hand me the answer that gets me out of the conversation fastest.

“Getting there.”

I should leave, but instead I stay because she said where people could see, and something about that lodged under my ribs. Two nights ago she chose me in private. I’ve spent six years failing to say certain things to Ash unless we can hide them inside a joke, a fight, a car, a garage — anything except words.

And I know exactly what a public gesture means here.

The Reaping turns everything into evidence: who stands beside whom, who touches whom, who gets escorted into which room, who walks away wearing whose attention. A kiss at the circuit isn’t just a kiss. Somebody will put it in the record, even if the record is only Alistair’s memory, and Ash will hear about it before the night is over.

Maybe that’s part of why I want to do it here, and the fact that I recognize that about myself should probably make me walk away.

I don’t.

I step closer, and Lo watches me come, her eyes dropping briefly to my mouth.

“Tell me no,” I say quietly.

She uncrosses her arms, catches the front of my jacket, and leans in.

I meet her halfway.

The kiss is nothing like the one outside the restaurant, with no surprise left in it and no question about whether she wants me touching her. Her mouth opens under mine, and for a few seconds I forget the crowd entirely.

Then I remember, and that’s the ugly part: some cowardly piece of me knows Ash will understand this faster than anything I could manage to say to his face. I kiss her because I want to, and I let people see because saying it myself scares me more.

Both things are true.

When we separate, Lo stays close enough that her fingers are still twisted in my jacket, her eyes searching mine.

“You planned that.”

“I wish I were that organized.”

“You absolutely knew what you were doing.”

“Toward the end, yeah.”