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I scrunched my face, eyes closed and skin wet from the rain and my frightened dog, while Muffin licked his appreciation across my cheek. “This is my dog. How’d you get out, old man?” Lizzie’s hands trailed along my back as we stood, and I stuffed Muffin under my coat. His smooshed face wiggled to stick out from the zipper while we walked. “He probably scratched his way out. He hates storms.”
Lizzie tickled Muffin’s head, and I froze, waiting for him to snap like he had done to Callie and even Silas. “Hi, buddy.” My eyes flickered between Lizzie’s hand and Muffin, feeling his grumble of affection and praise against my chest. He hates people. Except the chief and me.
Lightning flashed above us, illuminating the sky with darkened shadows cast by the buildings and trees along our route. Muffin lowered into my coat, resting like a fetus above the waistband of my pants. My hands were free, until Lizzie’s right fingers once more wove their possession around mine. Our pace quickened again, our hands almost slipping apart from the rain. I tried to use both hands to hold her as we ran beneath the thundering cloud, limited with the bulge in my coat.
Puddles splashed around us, and we were hysterical with laughter, even as another bolt of lightning exploded the sky above us. She screamed, I held her closer, and we kept running.
I tugged on her hand, rewarded with her body slamming into my side with no desire to move. “What are you doing?” Lizzie questioned with a laugh, wrapping her arms around mine. “We’re going to get electrocuted.”
“I live right here.” I nodded to my building. “Do you want to come and let the storm pass?” It had to be almost three in the morning, and she lived just blocks away, but I really didn’t want her alone out there. By the gentle smile on her face that widened with her eager nod, I knew she didn’t want to be alone either.
***
It took my breath away, walking into the living room and catching Lizzie swaddled in my hoodie while she sorted through my vinyl collection, Muffster snoring inches from Lizzie’s bare feet. Dark blue polish. I knew it. Her toes were adorable. Her ankles were perfect. The fact she was in my living room waiting out the storm, wearing my sweatshirt, was unbelievable. While I caught my breath, letting my balls return from near-explosion and my heartbeat slow, I held our steaming cups of tea. The overwhelming scent of jasmine, the boisterous thunder, and sheets of rain slamming against the window were pushing my senses into overload.
A pulse of light rippled through the room, distracting me enough to walk toward Lizzie. She took her cup with a smile, holding it with the hand not wrapped around her front. I sat on the arm of my couch, quietly watching her. Just over a week ago, we’d lived blocks apart and never knew the other existed. Just over a week ago, her friend almost died. I lost a love. I could get called up at any damn second—what the hell was I doing? Time is too precious.
“I like you, Lizzie,” I blurted, gaping at Elizabeth Jacqueline Lewis and her dark blue polish in my living room.
She grinned, eyes sparkling in the flashes of lightning. “You should take me on a real date then. I’m not sure rescuing me from Brett and waking me up in the middle of the night really count as dates.”
“His name’s Ben, and we both know you were waiting up for me.”
Her fingertip stopped moving, suspended above my record collection somewhere between Led Zeppelin albums, and I caught the corner of her mouth twitch. “I may have been.”
I licked my lips, watching Lizzie sift through my records with her other hand secured around her mug of tea. “I’m glad you stayed. Right now.”
Lizzie hummed, smiling at me while she turned from the records. I wanted to look at that smiling face, watching the steam billow from around her dainty fingers while she drank tea in my home, for more than just to let the storm pass. Dammit. I let out a heavy sigh and stood from the couch, walking past Lizzie to the kitchen. I needed just one minute to beat myself up and apologize for leading us on.
“What’s the story behind the totem pole?” Lizzie questioned after following me, her fingertips tracing my tattoo while I clutched the countertop, staring out the kitchen window. I stared up at the droplets trailing down the window pane, trying to find the words to tell Lizzie I was an idiot.
Turning around, I leaned against the edge of the counter and crossed my arms. Her gaze followed my forearms, analyzing my tattoos like Avery did the morning I’d held her while Ben and Nina saved Sean.
“I need to tell you something,” I uttered, watching her pupils narrow while her eyes avoided mine. “The totem pole is from after undergrad. A few of us spent a summer in Alaska.” I twisted my wrists, turning my forearms while we both now stared at them. “It’s to honor the trip, to honor my friend’s family.”
“What were you doing in Alaska? The winters here are bad enough.” Her laugh sounded like it battled a scoff. Lizzie stepped back, standing against the fridge with her hands pressing into the pouch of her sweatshirt. My sweatshirt.
I turned away, sorting through the cabinet next to my sink, and pulled out a bottle of merlot, tipping it toward Lizzie. “This conversation requires wine. It isn’t bubbly.”
“I can handle it,” she replied, taking the wine. I didn’t let go, and we stood in the kitchen, staring at each other in some odd competition to demonstrate determination, and it only made me want her more…which hurt like hell. “Not bubbly wine, not bubbly conversation. I’m here. Where’s your opener?”
I watched Lizzie’s gaze move throughout the kitchen in search of a corkscrew while our hands remained fastened around a wine bottle. I finally let go, grabbing the corkscrew from the counter behind me, and nodded for her to follow me back into the living room.
Her footsteps were quiet in my shadow as we sat on my couch, each taking up an end. Lizzie reached for the corkscrew, scooting closer to me until her thigh met mine and she turned her body to face me. Neither of us flinched when the thunder crackled outside. I didn’t know what time it was anymore, and it didn’t matter because I wanted Lizzie to look at me forever the way she was right then.
It wouldn’t last, though, not when I stumbled over myself and told her the truth. Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it can work. I chewed my bottom lip, debating where I could have stopped flirting with her and prevented our mutual heartbreak and also how I could keep her. Lizzie excited me; she made me smile effortlessly.
“Noah,” she pressed. I wondered if she sensed my nerves. The wine bottle sat in her lap as she twisted it open, and I found myself wishing I could put my head there and nap, letting Lizzie comb through my hair, tickle my skin, and pretend the storm was simply a storm, the weather, and not reality threatening to tear whatever this rush we shared was.
“My parents divorced when I was thirteen because my dad cheated on my mom, which meant I moved to another state in middle school.” She paused to swallow a swig from the wine bottle, her lips stained in a maroon that dribbled down the corner of her mouth. “I watched one of my best friends die three times in the last seven months, Noah. Life’s too short to pretend. It’s too short to wait. Tell me.”
I pushed back my sleeves, twisting my forearms while I watched the mermaid and totem pole dance, reminding me of a past that always seemed present. With my fingertips tracing the ink, I replied.
“Alaska’s beautiful, and the tattoo was to remember it all. That was the trip before two of us from my group of high school friends enlisted. It was a big deal, you know? Taking this guys’ trip, one with nature, the final frontier…literally…edge of our world, edge of our independence.”
Lizzie’s eyes were downcast, studying Muffin or the floor. Hell if I knew, but she sure wasn’t looking at me. “En-enlist?” Her stammer pierced me.
I felt her shiver, crippled with reality interrupting the flirting, the banter, the sexy as hell way Lizzie looked at me, texted me, the gorgeous way she was now smiling at me. Her blue eyes were narrowed, but it was more curious than accusatory. She baffled me. I was intrigued…and guilty. I didn’t think so deeply with Callie. She was meant to fill a hole after Jade died, and I now realized that’s why I might have overlooked so much with her…even though I’d hoped, longed for, love. Lizzie’s fingers hesitantly tightened around mine for a moment, dancing into the emptiness in my heart that craved this.
