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It was a cloudy Wednesday afternoon when Gray asked for a swap: instead of the current set up, he’d walk me home today. I refused and gave him three reasons as to why. First, I was in charge. Second, I wasn’t the one with the limited life span. Third, just no.
By the time we reached his front porch on foot, Gray couldn’t keep his mouth shut anymore. “I feel like a princess,” he confessed, his cheeks flushing red as he pursed his lips. “I don’t like it.”
“Well, I feel like your knight in shining armor, and I love it. I don’t know why,” I said, grinning just slightly at his discomfort over such a small thing. “We’ll do this until you’re officially saved or when the visions stop.”
“What if it never stops?” He tried to mask any fear in his expression, but it came through anyway.
I pouted, trying to lighten him up. “SOS. I’ll tell Cole.”
“No, don’t tell him.”
I shook my head at this demand. “Then, I’ll tell someone who’s an adult and knows how to handle this better than I do.”
“You’re not telling anyone.”
“Not even our school counselor?”
“Better not.”
“What if I need to talk to a psychiatrist because you’re depressing me?”
“No.” His voice was stern, sterner than I’d ever heard it. Internally fearing for his life must be maturing the man.
“But I’m so very depressed.” Not a lie.
“No,” he said again, not putting up with any of my jokes today, “you’re not.”
I opened and closed my mouth, like a freaking goldfish waiting for a human to drop some fish pellets into the aquarium.
What was I supposed to do with him?
I’d never met someone so annoyed by having their life saved.
“Do you want to move in with me, then?” I suggested, absurdly. “Because it seems like I’m the only one trying to keep you alive. And somehow, I, a teenager with the mind of a seventeen-year-old who still needs a humongous amount of parental guidance, am the only one who knows about your fate. And yet you’re the drama queen in danger, and I freaking need to watch you 24/7.”
“Correction: you’re the only one whocaresif I’m alive. The rest don’t. Either way, you don’t have to watch me.”
I tilted my head at his statement, wanting to parse out the meaning of what he’d just said. “Hold on a sec. You have a lot of friends. I mean if they were to know what I know, I bet they would want to save your ass too.”
“What if those so-called friends are the ones trying to hurt me?”
“Tragic,” I replied, giving very little validity to that option. “If that’s the case, you should’ve chosen to be alone rather than surround yourself with people you don’t even trust. Life is scarier when you have the wrong people in your circle. They’ll backstab you and hurt you. You can’t just let anyone in,” I finished matter-of-factly. I’d met those kinds of people. They claimed to want to be your friend, then talked shit behind your back.
He smiled, slowly nodding in agreement as he took off his jacket and gently draped it across my shoulders. “It’s cold, and I would seriously lose my mind if you got sick because of me.”
I raised an eyebrow at the change in tone. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I want to save you?” I asked.
A brief pause. “Why?”
“I don’t know …”What the hell? Why did I put myself in this predicament? This lack of sleep is really getting to my head.“But I think I’d lose my mind too if something bad ever happened to you.”
He turned to me, his gaze unnervingly serious.
My breath hitched as I waited for his response, wondering how it would feel if one of us decided to close the distance between us. I blamed it on the cold weather, the way my mind switched off as my gaze dropped to his lips. The way I wanted him to say more, just so I could hear his voice over and over again.
Then, it happened.
His lips were pressed gently, then desperately, against mine.
