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“You can ask me anything.” He was moving down, kissing my trembling pointer finger.
“What does your world sound like?”
“Hmm. How about I show you?”
The question was no sooner out of his mouth than Rafael was on his feet and pulling me up with him. He drew me close, pressing me squeaking to his chest.
“Close your eyes.”
“Why?”
His smile made me feel like I was cheating. “Trust me.”
Breathing deep, my eyes fluttered shut.
“Every sound. Every song.” His words whispered around us. “Has a feel, a color, a scent.”
My eyes popped open. “A color?”
“Close ’em,” he said amusedly, “and listen...
“Happy birthday to you...”
My brows popped as that angel’s voice crooned the Happy Birthday song. My confusion grew as he went, wondering when he’d let me open my eyes. A memory floated up, almost tugging a smile.
“There,” Rafael said. “What did you just think about?”
“It was nothing. I was just— Well, most people don’t sing that version, but one year, Winter sang it to me. She had the worst voice, and she loved it. She’d practically scream at the top of her high-pitched, off-key lungs. I finally gave her the biggest piece of cake to make her stop.”
Rafael traced my smile, catching the laugh off my lips. “So what’s that song feel like?”
“Happy,” I murmured.
“Feels like happiness. Tastes like buttercream frosting and sprinkles. Sounds like the soundtrack to a great day and perfect memory. We experience sound with all five senses, but most don’t notice. At least they don’t unless it’s important.
“Hearing your father’s voice when he comes home is joy, hugs, and gratitude if he just returned from war. It’s fear, trauma, and a desperate place to hide if he’s an evil, vicious bastard who just returned from the bar.”
I found myself nodding. Explained in that way, how could it not be true?
“When they dug me out of the rubble—unconscious and bleeding out of my ears—that’s when sound stopped being one sense, and became them all. Every minute of every day. All the time. I feel loud, clanging construction like a nail going through my brain. It bangs in my skull, clenches my teeth, overloads me till I want to take a real drill and finish what the explosion started.”
“Oh, Rafael.”
“But it’s okay.” And he was grinning, so maybe it was. “Because of Mom.”
“Your mom?”
“She gave me all the beautiful noise I need, Cloud Girl.” Rafael brushed the shells of my ears, tipping my head back as he put in his headphones. “Close your eyes.”
They closed before he finished the sentence.
“What does this feel like?”
Surrender poured out of the speakers. A haunting, sweet melody of first love like the real fairy tales. Of mermaids that transform into seafoam, carnivorous doves, and poisoned apples. It was feverish kisses, bitter fights, and passionate makeups.
Love in its raw, messy form demanding that you give it everything. That you surrender.
“What does it feel like?” I whispered—to Rafael, I wasn’t sure.
I’ve never felt love like this. Never seen it in the polite, mature love between my mother and stepfather. Couldn’t place it with my friends from school, swearing they loved the guy they were sexting with that week, and the next deleting his number and sexting someone else.
Memories. Bittersweet longing. Giggling under the pillows. Crying watching A Walk to Remember. Hope.
This is what his world sounds like.
An arm circled my waist. Resting my head on his shoulder, I kept my eyes closed as we danced, lost in this new place with him. I sighed as the last notes faded.
“...beautiful noise keeps me company, bringing back the sound of Mom’s voice. And it holds me under the grip of yours. You were meant to be heard in all five senses, Luna Sinclair.”
I flushed to my toes, face pressed against his rock-hard pecs. Was I supposed to hear that, or did he think the music was still playing?
“What’s going on in here?”
I sprang away from him. Lucien strolled into the kitchen, smirk twice as unsettling with his fangs peeking through. “Don’t mind me. Just getting my dinner.”
Lucien reached into the fridge and got out a sports bottle filled with crimson liquid. He bowed his way out of the room, lips rimmed red.
“On that note, it’s time for me to go to bed.” I turned and stopped, twisting back to squeeze Rafael’s arm. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I’ll tell you anything, Luna.”
“Will you tell me Wilder’s middle name?”
“Except for that.”
Smiling crookedly, I gave him one last “watch yourself” poke and went up to bed.
I slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning over odd dreams. I ran through an endless library, books stacked stories high and falling down around me. Unseen missiles bit into my skin—opening cuts, painting my fleeing footsteps red with blood. I skidded around a book tower and tripped, falling headfirst into the water. Winter waited for me at the bottom.
