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It was taking every ounce of willpower Heidi had to not match her energy. She couldn’t raise her voice. She couldn’t show her frustration on her face. She couldn’t let the tension rise in her chest and pull her shoulders to her ears. Risks were tempting things to take, but people choosing rationality over blinding delight was what kept the world from falling apart.
“Tell me you like me, Heidi, can’t you? Tell me you like me, so I don’t have to feel like I’ve been reading this thing wrong. I want to believe the butterflies I feel when I’m around you aren’t there because we’re making a mess but because I’m so afraid this’ll end.”
“This?”
There wasn’t supposed to be a “This.” Carine had been between a rock and a hard place. At most, Heidi had planned on being a strategically placed lubricant. She’d meant to apply just enough of herself to get Carine out of her rut, but there she was on Water Street in her thirty-dollar eyeliner and her best moisturizer arguing with the woman about the purpose of a thing.
“Okay, maybethisshould end,” Carine said. “Maybe we have to make it something else now that I understand what I was missing.”
“Generally, I have no trouble tooting my own horn, but I’m hesitant to confirm here that you think that was me.”
“Well, it’s…what youare.” Carine ground out an exasperated sound and paced by the rear bumper.
What I am.
Heidi left her to her thoughts, and not because she was trying to cruelly needle more words out of the woman or even balance the conversational seesaw so that all the discomfort was on Carine’s end.
Heidi was trying to decide how much sleep she really needed.
If Heidi took Carine home with her, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from looking at and touching her all night. The woman evidently needed to be touched. She probably couldn’t stand still unless Heidi put a hand on her.
Or in her.
Strange thing, chemistry.
Silently drawing a long deep breath through her nose, Heidi looked up and started counting stars. There were parts about being an adult Heidi was growing increasingly weary from. The first was knowing too much. Being able to predict how the world would try to drag a happy person down to hell because of jealousy and spite and ignorance was another. She was always having to balance short-term gains with long-term consequences, and people rarely understood that about her. They found it far easier to consider her strange or frightening than careful and cunning.
“Well, Jesus Christ,” Carine said with a scoff. “I’ve never had to beg before, and I guess that tells me everything I need to know.”
Heidi had the perfect opportunity to let Carine drift. They could have gone to their separate cars and driven home to their respective beds.
Instead, she looked down from the stars above and found new ones in the frustration in Carine’s eyes.
There was a woman in front of her demanding to have her company—her conversation and her touch. If Heidi had been fifteen years younger, or even ten, she would have beamed at how flattering and personalized that eagerness was. A woman was saying that she specifically wanted Heidi for those things, and that should have made Heidi happy.
That should have made her feel validated.
What she felt was an anxious emptiness that wanted to be filled, but the hole in her was plumbed too deep.
Regardless, either the jazz or the bit of wine she’d had was compelling her toward risks. She found herself grabbing Carine by the wrist and drawing her closer. She found herself whispering so the staring passersby couldn’t hear a single word that didn’t belong to them. “If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t be thinking about perching you on the corner of my desk at work so I could thumb you like my own personal fidget toy all day. I’d push every one of your buttons, both figurative and literal, because it would make me smile to see you laugh, whine, and moan. If I didn’t like you, I would have changed my sheets after you left so I wouldn’t have to deal with the reminders you’d been there. If I didn’t like you,Carine, you would be behind the wheel of your car right now driving back to Shora, and I’d already be at home in my pajamas with all the doors and windows locked. So don’t you dare stand in front of me and suggest that I don’t like you.”
“Then why are you refusing me? And don’t tell me you’re just pushing my buttons.”
“I haven’t refused you. I’ve slowed you down, and I’m going to continue to do that because I’m not entirely convinced you know what you’re doing. Until I do, I’m going to protect you in the only way I know how.”
“Protectme?” Carine tried to snatch her arm away, but Heidi’s will was greater and her knowledge deeper.
She knew how to handle Carine. And that may have been part of the problem.
Heidi stood even closer, nearly toppling Carine’s balance as she crowded her against the car.
She saw the fear flit across that pretty face, but, as always, Carine found her footing and courageously trusted that Heidi was in control.
“What we’re doing right now, just this standing here squabbling and breathing each other’s air, is enough for your circles to turn you out, Carine. Won’t you miss ’em? Your pretty little sorority sisters and all your mother’s friends?”
“If they were supposed to be enough, why am I messing with you?”
Heidi had been about to ask, “Indeed, why are you?” but she got the words vaporized out of her when Carine put her forehead against Heidi’s. The flutter of Carine’s eyelashes trembling against her face ripped an unexpected sensation of guilt into her.
