Page 68 of Magic for Nothing

I turned. He was only a few feet away, and he looked as human as I did. That alone was enough to be unusual. He didn’t like maintaining human form when he didn’t have to: it was tiring, and it was necessary enough of the time that he shed it quickly when he got the chance. But here, now, he was just a barefoot boy standing in a bone yard, looking at me with worried eyes.

It was funny. I’d thought he was average-looking when I’d come to the carnival. Ordinary, even. But now, I looked at him and saw one of the handsomest men I’d ever known.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Who was that woman?”

The thought of coming up with another lie was suddenly exhausting. I was so tired of lying to everyone. “I can’t tell you,” I said. “I wish I could, I really do, and I hope you’ll let me have this. Please don’t push.”

Sam blinked slowly. “Are you in some sort of trouble?”

My laughter was bitter. From the look on his face, it surprised him as much as it had surprised me. “I guess you could say that. I’ve been in trouble for a long time.” My fingertips were heating up. I shook my hands, hard, trying to chase the heat away.

Sam reached out and grabbed my wrists. I froze.

“I won’t push,” he said gently. “I don’t want to push. I just want to be sure you’re okay. You’d tell me, right? If there was anything I could do, you’d tell me about it?”

“If there was anything you could do, you’d be the first person I told,” I said solemnly. His fingers were familiar by this point, and having him hold onto me like that was more comforting than I would have expected. He was the one who caught me when we flew, who made sure I wouldn’t fall. Why shouldn’t he be the one to catch me now?

“Good,” said Sam. “Um. Annie?”

“Yeah?”

“I—you—I was a real jerk to you when you showed up, and I’m sorry.”

“I was making you stay human when you didn’t want to,” I said, making no effort to take my wrists back. Security was something I very much needed at the moment. “I’m not mad anymore. It made perfect sense.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t make sense then, because I couldn’t tell you—I didn’t want to tell you, you were this weird human girl shoving yourself into places where you didn’t belong, I just wanted you to leave—and so I was a jerk for nothing. I’m sorry.”

It seemed oddly important to him that I accept his apology, so I nodded and said, “It’s okay, Sam, it really is. If I was mad at you then, I’m not mad now. I forgive you. I forgave you the first time you saved my life, if I’m being completely honest. We’re good.”

“We’re good?”

“We’re good.”

“Good,” said Sam, and smiled lopsidedly for a moment before the expression faded back into solemnity. “Because, you know, it’s been a while since I had a partner, and you’re smart and funny and you read comic books, even if you have terrible taste—”

“Hey,” I protested. “The X-Men are a viable franchise that will rise again.”

“—and you’re pretty good on the trapeze, for a human, and you know things about yōkai, and would it be okay if I kissed you, maybe?”

I stopped. “Wait, what?”

Sam blanched. “Okay, that was a lot less smooth than I thought it was going to be. I’m sorry. I’m going to go.”

“No, seriously, what?” He was still holding my wrists. I stepped closer, pulling my arms toward my body, not to break away, but to force him to mirror the movement. “You want to kiss me?”

“Um, yes? If that’s not the right answer, I’m willing to try another one.”

“You know there’s things about me that you don’t know, right? Things you might not like so much when you find them out.”

Sam shrugged. “There’s things about everyone that I don’t know. I like you. That’s enough for right now, y’know?”

I did know, funnily enough. My life was a series of moments labeled “right now,” and while this version of now might be coming to an end soon, that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy it while it lasted. Sam was a beautiful man. The trapeze had given him the sort of upper body that most people could only dream about, while genetics had given him even, symmetrical features, dark eyes, and the sort of lips I could absolutely see kissing.

So I leaned in, and I kissed him.

Sam only hesitated for a moment before he was kissing me back, letting go of my wrists in order to put his arms around me. We were standing in the middle of the bone yard, and the air smelled like a mix of popcorn, diesel fumes, and bonfire, and that was exactly right; that was what every first kiss should smell like. He wasn’t so tall that I was going to get a crook in my neck, and he wasn’t so short that I felt like an Amazon; instead, I got to tilt my chin back just so, and lean up just so, and kiss him like the girls in the movies always kissed their boys. I got to kiss him like I meant it.