Page 24

Neither of us says anything else.

He moves first, which surprises me, given how careful he’s always been. How many weeks of careful distance he’s kept, even as everything else between us shifted closer. But there’s nothing hesitant in it now, just a slow, deliberate closing of the space between us, unhurried, like he’s decided this is a thing worth doing properly rather than quickly. The chair between us might as well not exist. My textbook slides half off the desk, and I don’t move to catch it.

I notice everything. The way the library light catches the swirling edges of him, more defined than it should be for something made of shadow. The particular quiet of the room around us, holding its breath along with me. The careful, focused attention in his eyes, glowing steadier now, the same attention he gives everything, toast and trivia, picnics and me. Except now it’s aimed entirely at this, at us, at the distance closing between his mouth and mine. My own pulse feels suddenly very loud, the only sound left in a room gone otherwise completely still.

Somewhere underneath all of it, quiet and new, is a question I’ve only recently learned to carry. Why me? Whether this is choice or simply gravity, tide pulled by a moon it never chose. Magdalene planted it without meaning to, barely a week ago, and it hasn’t had time to root itself properly yet. I feel it rise anyway, and for the first time I manage to set it down deliberately, not answered, just set aside. Whatever the reason, this moment is real, and I want it too badly to spend it interrogating him.

His hand comes up, resting against my jaw, solid and cool and entirely certain, and then his mouth meets mine.

His lips are soft, softer than I expected and far more real than I thought a shadow could be. The first proper touch of them sends a jolt of heat straight down through my chest, warm and sudden. It’s followed by a low, spreading tingle that seems to start at my mouth and end somewhere around my fingertips and toes.

This kiss isn’t clumsy, the way I half expected, half hoped, given how new so much of this is for both of us. It’s slow. Deliberate. Devastatingly thorough, like he’s been waiting for eternity to do this properly and has no intention of rushing it now that he finally can. His other hand finds my waist, drawing me closer, chair and all, and I go, easily, entirely. My textbook is forgotten, my pen rolling off the desk somewhere I don’t bother chasing. The tingle deepens with every slow, unhurried movement of his mouth against mine, warmth pooling low and insistent. And now I can’t tell you a single other thing happening in this room besides the exact coolness of his hand and the exact softness of his mouth.

Time does something strange. Our kiss lasts both a minute and considerably longer. And when we finally break apart, breathless, foreheads still touching, the library around us seems to have gone somehow both smaller and infinitely larger at once. Like the whole world has narrowed down to this one desk, and simultaneously cracked open into something enormous. Somewhere above us a strip light hums faintly, ordinary and unbothered, entirely unaware of what it has just witnessed.

“Oh,” I manage, faintly.

“Yes,” he agrees, and there’s something in his voice, rough and low and entirely undone, that undoes something in me right back.

I think, sitting there with his hand still cool against my jaw, my whole chest full to bursting with something too large for the word happy. Whatever happens now, whatever the goats meant or didn’t mean, whatever Magdalene’s prophecy turns out to actually demand of me, I have this. This exact moment, this exact person, choosing me slowly and completely in an empty library that suddenly feels like the safest place in the world.

Whatever happens.

The thought catches slightly on its way past, snagging on something I don’t examine too closely, some small cold thread running under all that warmth. I push it away and lean back in instead, because right now, at least, I’d rather have this than answers.

He kisses me again, softer this time, still unhurried, like there’s nowhere else either of us needs to be. The cold thread goes quiet, tucked away somewhere I’m learning to keep the things I’m not ready to look at properly yet. There will be time for that later. Tonight is just this, a library gone dim and quiet around us, a stack of forgotten notes, and a shadow who finally, finally stopped waiting.

Chapter 11

Great Chips

“Three tickets,” Felix says, at the counter, “but spaced apart. Empty seat between each of them.”

The cinema worker, a teenager with a nametag that says Kyle, and the expression of someone who has already had a very long shift, looks at him for a moment. “You want three separate seats. Not together?”

“Correct,” Felix says, not even blinking.

Kyle’s brow furrows, the particular suspicion of someone paid minimum wage to spot exactly this kind of nonsense. “Why.”

“Personal space,” Felix says, with total confidence. “Medical reasons. Germs. It’s flu season.”

“It’s May,” Kyle points out.

“Flu doesn’t check a calendar, Kyle.”

Kyle glances down at his own name tag like he’s only just remembered it’s there, then back up, entirely unmoved. “It’s against company policy to reserve seating patterns like that,” he says, already looking past Felix towards the queue building up behind us.

Adam steps in before Felix can dig himself any further into a hole entirely of his own making, offering the sort of gentle, reasonable smile that’s gotten him out of considerably worse situations than this one.

“What my friend means,” Adam says, “is that we’d just prefer a bit of space. If that’s possible. No trouble if not.”

Kyle’s hand is already drifting back towards the till, the universal gesture of someone considering the conversation closed. “Sorry, leaving single seats is against policy.”

I decide this is exactly the moment to step in properly.

I lean in, catch his eye, and hold it. Offering him the full, unstoppable force of my best smile, warm and steady and completely sincere. “Difficult customers are tiring, aren’t they? We work in a coffee shop, we know exactly what it’s like.”

Kyle’s expression softens. The kindred gleam of people who have dealt with the public, lights in his eyes.