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Turning to lead him up the cobblestone path that leads to the front door, I motion to the shiny car he pulled up in. “Is that a classic?”
I’m not inept, but I don’t know anything about cars. I don’t know what’s considered foreign or antique, or how to even begin to identify a collectors’ edition or a year when the best automobiles were made. But in no way do I regret asking what felt like a ridiculous question, because when his deep hazel eyes flicker to me, I could swear amusement flashes through them.
It’s gone before I can be sure. “It’s a sixty-seven Impala. It was my dad’s in high school.”
“Impressive that it still runs.” Another absurd statement, but I’m rewarded with his lips twitching in what I believe is a smirk.
My stomach flips over on itself as I delight in the tiny inkling of a breakthrough. Elliot and I have been in school together since freshman year, been in six various classes together, and never have I seen him smile.
“With proper maintenance, I’m pretty confident it will last longer than that.”
He nods to Mom’s electric Fiat. A gift from my dad before he decided he liked his other family in Naples a lot more. I nod, my lips thinning. “You’re probably right. Yours would be a better choice in the zombie apocalypse, too, I’m sure.”
A sound eerily similar to huffed, dry laughter scatters in the air behind me. “No. It would be too loud.”
I’m so tempted to turn around, but I know the second I do, my downward spiral will ensue. Instead, I release a goofy, short burst of a noise that’s supposed to be a giggle. “True. And if they’re anything like WWZ, you’d be done for.”
I expect that to be the end of the conversation, for us to move silently inside and for me to spend the next twenty minutes trying to broach the silence and get something—anything—out of the stone wall. But then Elliot surprises me.
He steps in front of me and grips the black iron door knob of my front door to open it for me. “Absolutely. I need them to be like Shaun’s. Slow, a little dull.”
I'm pretty positive I say something, but I’ll never know for sure. The little synapses in my head are sparking so rapidly from the close proximity to him, I can’t function. He’s a foot away, but his warm, earthy scent wafts over me, and I’m finally able to see just how much I haven’t been able to appreciate.
Now I can make out that his top lip is a hint bigger than his bottom. His jaw has lost the roundness of youth and is starting to sharpen, while his other features are becoming more strong. And his eyes. Hiseyes. Words have all but escaped me when I look at the various shades of green and blue fighting a war in his irises.
Even in my own head, I can hear how obsessed I sound. How completely enthralled I am with a boy I don’t know much about. But right now, at this moment, when he’s this close, and we’re having a conversation about which zombies we want to endure at the end of days, I can’t help but not care.
“I agree. They wouldn’t last longer than a week in the snow we get.”
Oh. I said something about our weather. Heat blooming on my cheeks, I laugh. This one is much less deranged. “Very true. Ten inches, and they wouldn’t move. But also, if they froze, would they be able to—”
“Thaw out and continue living in the spring?” Elliot nods as though in deep thought over it and pulls my door open. “It makes sense.”
Unable to hide the stupid smile from stretching across my face, I hurry inside, butterflies whipping violently in my stomach.
“Beautiful house,” Elliot says from behind me. “I always wondered what the houses up here looked like inside.”
I release a soft sigh. “Thank you. It was one of my dad’s designs. This whole neighborhood was actually.”
The silence I’m met with causes me to peek at him over my shoulder. His hands are shoved in the front of his black jeans, his shoulders hitched up a fraction. If it weren’t for the completely indifferent mask of his features, I would guess he felt something.
After another beat, I gesture to the kitchen just past the foyer. “We can set up at the island, or at the table. There should be enough space.”
He gives me a curt nod. “Whatever you want.”
Whatever I want.
Images of his lips on mine hit me before I can stop them, and within a second, I already know my face is engulfed in a shade of crimson.
Clearing my throat, I whip my head back around and walk a bee-line to the island where I initially set everything up. It’s better to sit beside him than across, that way I’m not forced to look him in the face every time I glance up. At least, that’s what I tell myself when I start to explain what all we need to get done.
He listens to me rattle off the list, his eyes glossing over the materials on the counter, and when I’m done, he immediately gets started.
Thirty minutes pass, and while my face has likely lessened in its extreme blush thanks to my Adam’s Family comparable shade, the heat hasn’t. Every time I turn to grab a paper, it never fails that our hands brush against one another. When he prints something from the copier and passes behind me, his hips narrowly clip mine. And when I’m sketching out on the poster, I can feel the blaze of his stare on every part of me.
Could this all be wishful thinking in my head? Yeah, definitely, but when I purposely drop my pencil to test the theory, my thoughts are validated.
He bends at the same time I do, and when our fingers collide over the writing utensil, theoretical and physical sparks fly. A static shock snaps us both, but instead of jerking his hand back like I do, his heavy gaze settles on mine, and his lips part.
