I huff a strained laugh, and he tilts his head, saying, “What?”
I work through a breathy chuckle. “Nothing, really.”
“Well, Little Miss Nothing, you still have,” he says, waving a hand in front of my face, “a cleanup job on your hands.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” I grab for the washcloth.
He doesn’t relinquish it.
Instead, he moves in, tilting my face with a finger under my chin. “I got it.”
Methodically, gently, he wipes away the gawdy makeup from my face. Taking his time, he moves over my cheeks, forehead and jaw.
“Close your eyes, CC,” he rasps, shifting a little closer.
His warmth wakes up my body. The touch of his palm holding my face at an angle to help remove the makeup tingles, radiating through my jaw, down my neck, and straight to my chest.
My breathing shallows out as he turns the rag to use the corner and swipes it over my eyelids. One, then the other.
“Almost done,” he says, voice like gravel.
No words form as my lips part. His grip reaffirms over my jaw as the cloth brushes over my bottom lip. And I swear the room just got a hundred degrees hotter.
Didn’t it?
When the fabric meets my top lip, I can barely draw a useful breath.
I chug through each plummeting cycle as his touch sears through my skin. But the cloth disappears, as does his warmth, a beat later. “All done.”
Eyes fluttering open, I feel like someone’s sent my body through the wringer.
The cloth is still in his now white-knuckled grip.
“Qui—”
He’s in my space again, the cloth falling from his hand as he palms my face. I search his gaze, his pupils now blown out, the blue almost swallowed by the darkness lingering in them our proximity has caused.
“I want to...” He tilts his head, closing his eyes briefly.
“Then do it,” I rasp.
“You sur?—”
“Celeste? Why’d you let me fall asleep?” My father pops up from the sofa, his face slackened by sleep, but his eyes holding a clarity I rarely see.
Quinton’s hold falls away as he makes space between us, snapping his attention to Dad. “Had quite the nap there, Hank.”
Dad rubs his hands over his face, confusion lining his gaze as he takes in Quinton and me standing by the sofa. And then, as if someone shuttered a filter over his gaze, his eyes all but glaze over. “Where am I?”
“Next door, we had dinner here. Remember, Da—Hank?” I say, shoving my hands into my back pockets.
“Oh, yes, so we did. Well, we better be getting home, Tish.”
“Sure.” I offer my hand, and he rises from the sofa.
“You okay? Your face looks funny,” Dad says.
How do I answer that? Is it because I’m not his Tisha or because I just had a pound of neon makeup wiped from my face? Or is it because I almost kissed the handsome, sweet single dad next door?
