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“It looks delicious, Em.” I take the ravioli piece from him and hesitantly chew off one end, trying not to grimace.
When he just continues to watch me, his eyes expectant, I give him a thumbs-up.
He fucking beams.
All at once, his smile fades, wilting at the edges like a drooping dandelion, and he focuses on his red-stained hands. “I like it when you call me that.”
“Call you what?”
He glances up, and his eyes hold a plethora of emotions that are nearly impossible to read. He quickly looks away and focuses on a thread coming free from the blanket we're sitting on. He twines it around his finger almost absently, the green color a startling contrast to his golden skin.
“Em,” he says at last, peeking up at me through his lashes. “I like it when you call me Em.”
“Oh.” I wonder if my cheeks are as bright red as his.
Silence descends between the two of us, but it’s not uncomfortable. The Empty Man—Em—continues to createhis pasta corn sandwiches, and I continue to eat them. They actually grow on me after a while.
“Is that what Chase calls you? Em?” I ask, licking sauce off my fingers.
Em cocks his head to the side with a decidedly curious expression. “He does?” Those two words somehow come out sounding like a question. “You think about him a lot, don’t you? This human whose body I’m inhabiting?” Something wistful and forlorn paves its way across his face. “It was him you wanted to save, not me, wasn’t it?”
There’s no point denying it. “Yes.”
Em nods once, as if he expected as much, and then hands me another ravioli. “And now?” His eyes are guarded.
“And now what?”
“Would you want to save just him?”
“I…” I open my mouth, close it, and then open it again. I don’t quite know how to respond to that.
Mainly because the truth terrifies me.
I should hate the Empty Man, even now, but it isn’t hate I feel when I stare at him. It’s not love, not yet, but something warm and tingly and so freaking confusing that my head begins to pound.
But even if I chose to give in to the strange emotions rampaging through me, we’ll never work the way things are now. Em is in Chase’s body, and Chase…well… He may not hate me, but I’m certain he doesn’t have any romantic feelings for me. I can’teven imagine what it must be like for him, being trapped in his own body, watching someone else puppet it.
I can’t do that to Chase.
Em leans towards me, his eyes ensnaring my own, and my breath siphons straight from my lungs.
“I really want to kiss you right now, my little mate,” Em breathes.
“W-we can’t.” My voice is just as soft as his, just as breathy, barely audible over the roaring between my ears and the rapid thudding of my heart. “Not while you’re still in Chase’s body. Not…not when I’m not sure I forgive you.”
A look of pure devastation warps his handsome face, and for a moment, I don’t believe I’m looking at Em…but at Chase. I don’t know how I can tell the difference, especially when they’re not speaking, but I swear that for a fraction of a second, Chase wrestles control away from Em.
It’sChasewho’s staring at me as if I plunged my hand into his chest and removed his still-beating heart.
It’sChasewhose eyes glimmer with pain and betrayal.
It’sChasewho looks destroyed by my words.
But then the Empty Man returns, and though his smile is sad, it’s there all the same.
“Very well, my dear mate.” His eyes abruptly begin to shimmer with mischief. “How about you call your huge gargoyle mate in here? We may not be able to have a candlelit picnic, but how about a magma-lit one?”
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