Page 21 of Ruthless Edge

"Did you get your drink?"

I look at the glass in my hand. "Yes."

"Then it was a friendly conversation." He clinks his beer against the rim and takes a drink.

I try not to find this as funny as I find it. We finish our drinks, set them down, and start heading toward the stage.

The band takes the stage. The crowd surges forward all at once, the way concert crowds do when the lights drop and the energy tips, and suddenly I'm being pushed from three directions. There's nowhere to go. Someone's elbow catches my shoulder. Someone else steps on my foot. I'm about to accept that this is just the next ninety minutes when Knox's arm comes around my waist and pulls me back against him.

I go still.

He positions us so he's taking the crowd with his much larger body, one arm across my waist, his chest behind me, warm and solid. He's tracking the room the way he probably tracks movement on the ice. He's not making anything of the contact. He's just managing the situation.

I am very aware of every inch of contact.

His arm sits just below my ribs. I can feel him breathing. He runs warm, which I know because in a sixty-eight degree library he always had his jacket off by the second hour. I know this because I was nineteen and paying attention to Knox Carter and I've never been good at pretending I wasn't.

I tell myself he'd do this for anyone. I tell myself it's not personal.

My body doesn't care about the argument.

The band opens with the song that was everywhere sophomore year. The crowd sings the first line back at the stage. I know every word of this song. I stand very still and watch the stage and pretend I'm not hyperaware of every second.

Then I realize I can't see.

The people in front of us are all taller than me, which at five-foot-two is the permanent condition of my life. I've been trying to see around them since we found this spot but now the crowd is too tight, and I'm watching the backs of people's heads and catching maybe a third of the stage.

Knox notices.

He looks down at me. Looks at the crowd in front of us. Then, without warning, he picks me up.

"What are you—" I grab his arm. He's lifted me from behind so I'm sitting up against his chest with a clear view over everyone in front of us. The entire venue can see this. "Knox. Put me down."

"You couldn't see."

"I'll manage."

"You'll watch the back of someone's head for an hour."

"I'm too heavy for this." It comes out before I can stop it. I say things out loud. I always have. It's my worst and most consistent quality.

Knox goes quiet for a beat. When he speaks again it's different, serious in a way he usually isn't.

"You're not."

"Knox—"

"You're the perfect weight." He sounds like I've actually offended him. "I could hold you all night if you'd stop squirming."

I stop squirming.

The band goes into the next song and Knox keeps me against his chest with his chin roughly level with the top of my head, and I have a perfect view of the stage, and I need to stop thinking about what I'm thinking about. I focus on the music. I know this song. I know the bridge before it comes. I sing along under my breath without deciding to.

Knox, close to my ear, says, "You know all the words."

"I listen to them constantly."

"Me too," he says, and something in his voice makes me not look back at him.