Page 89 of Just One Little Bargain

“Mm.”

His thumb drags across my palm, tracing it like he’s learning the shape of my hand by touch. “This is a terrible idea.”

“Catastrophic,” I agree, and press my palm flush against his.

Chapter 24

Milo

Her palm rests warm against mine beneath a wool blanket that smells of woodsmoke and the cedar chest she keeps it folded inside. Every scrap of attention I own has abandoned its post to report on the contact.

Five days ago, I had her lips an inch from mine, and then a bell rang, and she stepped back and filed the whole thing under Things We Do Not Discuss. Evie hasn’t touched me since. I made my peace. I even stopped loitering near the sink for accidental-elbow purposes.

Which makes this a genuine ambush. Nobody warned me something this simple could stand my nervous system up and march it off somewhere useless. It’s absurd how much I want more. I want her tipped over the arm of this chair and into my lap, close enough that careful stops being an option for either of us. One touch and I’m gone. It should embarrass me. It doesn’t. What gets me is how right this feels.

The chairs sit within arm’s reach, but far enough apart that I’m treating the gap as a moral safeguard. I want to set my mouth against the warm line of her throat and stay there until she forgets every reason she has for keeping me at arm’s length this week.

Color rises along Evie’s throat. For days, I’ve been resigned to being the only one losing it over this arrangement. Turns out I was wrong, and I’m enjoying that more than I should.

“You know what this fire needs?” Ivy stretches, head falling back against Caleb’s shoulder. “S’mores.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Nadia agrees.

“I’ll get the supplies,” Evie says, sliding her hand free of mine to stand.

The absence lands harder than I expect, and my palm stays curled around the shape she left in it.

She comes back holding a grocery bag rattling with graham crackers, an enormous pack of marshmallows, and three kinds of chocolate, because apparently there’s no consensus on brand loyalty among her guests. She stops beside my chair to hand me the skewers, and the firelight catches on the peach dress cinched at her waist, the curve of her hip a foot from my shoulder, one strap sliding down her arm the way it’s been threatening to all night.

“Wait.” She pauses, the bag half-open, and looks at me properly. “You’ve never had one of these?”

“No. There’s no combustion-adjacent dessert tradition in Hell, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Her mouth does the thing where a smile tries to happen and dignity tries to intervene. She loses, and the fact that I’m the reason makes me stupidly pleased.

My hand finds the small of her back. I draw her down, and then she’s in my lap, sideways, her weight settling warm across my thighs.

“I . . .” That’s the entire sentence. I’ve got nothing after it. Heat scorches up my neck to the tips of both ears. “I don’t . . . that was . . . I shouldn’t have done that. I’ve got no explanation for why I did that. You can absolutely get up.”

She hasn’t moved. Her palm has come to rest flat against my chest, over the frantic, undignified evidence of a heart working far too hard. She’s looking at me with her lips parted and color spilling high along her cheeks.

“It’s okay.” She clears her throat. “It’s fine, Milo.”

Across the flames, Ivy watches us with her chin propped on Caleb’s shoulder, wearing a knowing smile she isn’t bothering to hide.

“Okay.” Evie reaches for the tray, which presses her closer. “Marshmallow goes on first. Don’t jam it straight into the flame.”

“Why?”

“Because fire chars the outside before the inside gets warm, and then you’ve got a black shell around a cold center, which is a crime.” She threads one onto the skewer and folds my fingers over the base, guiding the angle with her fingers over mine. “Rotate slowly.”

I do as she says, but I watch her instead of the marshmallow: the loose strand of hair at her jaw that refuses to stay tucked back, the freckled slope of the shoulder that strap keeps abandoning, the furrow between her brows when she concentrates.

“Milo, it’s burning.”

I yank the skewer back. The marshmallow has gone from golden to blistered, sagging off the stick.

“That is unsalvageable,” she says.