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Waylon sniffs, and I look up through my wet lashes just as he falls back on his ass, arms crossed over his knees. “I dunno. Didn’t tell me. He might just be really fucking drunk. He’s been throwing them back since I picked him up this afternoon.” He shakes his head, jaw ticking. Something tells me he doesn’t believe his words any more than I do.
Fuck, Mason, what the hell are you doing?
I look down, and brush the tangled wet brown hair from his eyes.
At my touch, they crack open.
I shift on my knees, and palm his cold, wet stubbled cheeks, lifting his head. Using my thumbs, I pry his eyes open, revealing an endless canvas of pale, icy blue. Pinpoint pupils. “What did you take?” I whisper, knowing I probably won’t get an answer.
His lips tremble, fumbling like he’s trying to speak. His teeth have started to chatter, and I feel the prickly gooseflesh rising across his arms as if it was my own.
With a shocking amount of strength, he lifts a hand. It trembles like it weighs a thousand pounds, before slamming against my collarbone.
And then there are fingers skating over my neck, fumbling and grasping for the collar on my jacket. He uses his grip on it to heave himself up onto his forearm, so he’s half sitting, half laying down.
He works his hand higher, bypassing my throat, and finally taking a more solid root when he clasps my jaw, holding it so tight, my teeth dig into the inside of my cheek, and my lips push out.
A searing pain ignites my eyes, and my chest collapses with the breath that punches out of me, coasting over his slackened, upturned face. We’re that fucking close. He smells of vomit and beer and vodka and sweat, and yet I barely even notice.
Not with his hand branding my skin.
Not with his pale blue eyes staring straight through me.
Not when he’s telling me in the raspiest of voices, “You’re here,” like it’s a fucking revelation.
I’m here. I’m here.
That useless organ in my chest twitches, momentarily shocked back to life in a way speeding and spinning my car into oblivion could never achieve.
It throbs when his lips creep up in a sleepy, boyish smile.
And it’s suddenly all masonmasonmason rushing through my veins.
He blinks heavily, the slash of his brows dipping to kiss his thick, water-clotted caramel lashes.
He’s beautiful, even when he’s at his ugliest—a husk of the person I once knew. Barely even recognizable these days, and yet my soul still aches for him, always. More now than it ever has.
And I’ve never hated myself more.
“You’re here,” he says again, his voice hitching with wonder. And this time, with it, a sort of stillness settles over the room. I feel the penetrating stares of the others as they grow quiet, all of their attention tunneling toward us, but even if I could pry myself away, I don’t think I would.
Waylon and Ivy might as well not even be here anymore. The party downstairs? Gone. The music thumping through the floor? Poof.
Nothing else exists. Nothing but the icy fingers searing into my skin, and the heart in my chest shaking off dust as it creakily pumps back to life, trying futilely to infuse some warmth into my veins. My bones. My skin.
Nothing but the pale, bleary blue eyes peering up at me like he’s finally found a way out of the dark, cold Hell that’s held us hostage all these months.
Nothing but the boy telling me, “You’re here, you’re here,” like he’s been waiting for me all along.
I’m here. I’m here.
His smile widens, creasing his watery blue eyes, and he’s murmuring—lips moving, stumbling over words I can’t make sense of.
Except for one choppy sentence. It stands out glaringly against whatever else he murmurs.
“Don’t go… please… angel.”
And just when I thought we might finally, finally stand a chance of fucking thawing, it’s all ice and darkness once more, and I remember.
