Page 40 of Redline Communion

There aren’t any here.

I checked.

“You’re tense,” she says.

“I’m not.”

She presses two fingers into the muscle above my shoulder blade, and pain shoots up my neck.

“Fuck.”

“Not tense?”

“Maybe a little. Long week.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

The answer comes out too fast. Lorelei lifts her head, and I wait for the next question because usually there would be one.

Instead, she looks at me for another second and says, “Okay.”

My fingers stop halfway down her arm.

For weeks, I’ve been giving Dominic pieces of her life: where she goes, who she sees, what makes her laugh when she thinks nobody important is listening. She asks me one question, hears no, and settles against me again.

I start tracing the same path over her arm.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re still being strange.”

“You got sauce on you.”

Her hand flies to her collarbone. “You let me sit through dinner like this?”

“I told you at the door.”

“You failed to communicate the severity.”

“I like it.”

“That might be the least romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Not even close.”

“No, you’re right. There was the time you told me my dress made me look flammable.”

“It did.”

“It was red.”

“It had feathers.”

“On the sleeves.”

“Fire spreads.”