Page 80
I hear his voice, from months ago. When we were at Zuzu’s, that first time.
Kit used to get them too. Panic attacks.
“I don’t—” My voice is coming on tiny puffs of air, weak and pathetic and thin. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I can’t—”
“Slow down.” He says it so gently. So slowly. “Slow down. You don’t have to explain.” He takes my hand and presses it flat against his chest, over the thin cotton of his shirt, the thump of his heart. “Feel that?”
I nod.
“Breathe with me a second, okay? We have time, I promise. Just breathe. In, slow…”
I nod again. And I try.
In, slow…
“There you go. Now out.”
I don’t know how many breaths it takes. Ten, maybe. Twenty. But eventually I realize I’ve stopped counting. The alley comes back, the dumpsters and the wet and the buzz of the light, and Fox is still right there, steady as a wall.
“I…”
My fingers have curled into his shirt. I don’t remember doing that. Slowly, I let go, cool air brushing over my palm as I do. I wait for him to move away, too, but he doesn’t.
“Sorry.” He lets go.
“Fox.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m okay.”
“Okay.” His voice has dropped. “Good.”
He lifts his hand and brushes my hair back from my forehead.
I don’t plan it. I just go up on my toes, one shoe on, one ankle throbbing, and press my mouth to his.
He goes still for half a second. Then a small, rough sound comes out of him, and his hands slide into my hair, and he kisses me back like he’s been desperate all night. And maybe he has been. I haul him down by his collar, more, closer, and he backs me into the brick, one hand cradling the back of my head so it doesn’t scrape.
“Tink,” he gasps, against my lips. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure,” he repeats, panting. “Just—last time—”
“Fox.” I pull back just enough to look at him. “Yes.” Less talking, more…that.
His eyes go dark. He kisses me again, deeper now, slower, a hand sliding down to my waist, to the cutouts and my bare skin. I let him, lean into his touch, into the gentle weight of him holding me flush to the wall, the way he’s holding me, easy and steady, as much as kissing me. I think of his beaming face at the tables, his eyes in the soft bar light, his chest under my hand—
And then he nips my bottom lip with his teeth and I stop thinking about anything at all.
Until, from the far end of the alley, comes the bang of another metal door.
“—check the lot!” a man’s voice shouts. “Both of them, the guy’s tall—”
We freeze.
A flashlight beam swings across the dumpsters.
