Page 39 of Ignition Rites

The answer comes fast enough to stop me.

Ash pushes away from the bike. “Not so I could stop you. So I could know before half the circuit did.”

That lands differently.

I set my helmet down more carefully than I was planning to.

“Ash—”

“Do you understand what you did out there?”

“I kissed her.”

“At the circuit.”

“I noticed.”

“During Reaping season.”

There it is.

“I know.”

“Do you?” His voice drops. “Because everybody who saw that knows what it looks like here. Alistair knows. Cassian knows, if he was watching. And if either one of them decides that was a claim instead of you making out with a girl you like, she’s the one who gets folded deeper into whatever they’re building.”

I look toward the upper boxes.

“I know what it looks like.”

“And you did it anyway.”

“Yeah.”

Ash stares at me.

I could defend myself by telling him Lo chose the kiss. She did. I could tell him I didn’t force anything onto her. I didn’t.

Neither fact erases what I knew about the audience.

“She wanted me to kiss her,” I say.

“I’m not saying she didn’t.”

That shuts down the argument I was halfway prepared to have.

Ash rubs both hands over his face.

“I’m saying you know this place doesn’t leave things alone. Neither does Alistair.”

“I know.”

“And you know what happens when she starts pulling at the wrong threads.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

There are too many answers: I wanted her and she wanted me; everybody had been whispering about her like she wasn’t standing there; for once I wanted them whispering about something she actually chose; and somewhere underneath all of that, I knew Ash would hear.