My favorite because it's always been hers.
Because it's pink and sweet and whenever I taste it, I think of her.
The gesture is a gut punch. She remembered. After four years of silence, she remembered something as small and trivial as that.
I take it, my hand dwarfing the cone. The ice cream's already starting to melt in the heat, pink dripping down onto my fingers.
"Remember when we used to split an ice cream?" She's not looking at me, just staring out at the water. "We'd get one cone and pass it back and forth because none of us could afford our own."
I remember. Remember trying not to stare at her mouth. Remember thinking that sharing something that touched her lips was the closest I'd ever get to kissing her, even if I was too afraid someone would see me to risk it most of the time. Not when the others were around.
Some things never change.
Yeah,I sign with my free hand.Remember.
"I miss that," she says softly. "Miss when things were simple."
The ice cream is melting fast, and I'm even more aware of the mask than usual. Can't exactly lick a cone through surgical fabric.
She must realize it too, because she glances at me, then quickly away. "Sorry. I didn't think about..."
It's fine,I sign. Don't give a shit about the ice cream, but I can't bring myself to pass up a chance to be near her for a while, even if it would be the smart thing to do. Thesafething.
"I know the drill," she says, turning her back to me. "I won't look."
The words transport me back to a hundred meals we've shared. A thousand moments where she gave me privacy to eat, to exist, to be something other than the freak show everyone else sees.
And she never broke that promise. Not once. Even when curiosity must have been eating her alive, she respected my boundaries in a way no one else ever has besides Kade.
My hands hesitate as I pull the mask down. The air hits the exposed ruin of my face and I have to fight the urge to yankit back up. To hide again. To protect her from seeing what's underneath.
But true to her word, she's focused completely on her own ice cream, licking at the strawberry with small, delicate strokes that make my cock twitch in my jeans.
Fuck.
I bring the cone to my mouth and take a bite. The strawberry explodes across my tongue, sweet and cold, and for a moment I feel thirteen again, sharing ice cream with the only girl who ever made me feel human.
I watch her while I eat. Can't help it. The way the sunlight catches her hair. The curve of her neck where that collar sits like it belongs. The concentration on her face as she tries to keep the ice cream from dripping.
Her tongue darts out to catch a drop running down the side of the cone, and I have to adjust myself because apparently I'm a sick fuck who gets hard watching her eat ice cream.
I wish I were tasting her instead. But she would never want that. Never wantme.
Not like that.
I finish the ice cream as fast as possible, leaving half of it and yanking the mask back into place before she can turn around. The sweetness lingers on my tongue, mixed with the bitter fucking taste of reality.
"Can I…?"
I nod, then realize she can't see. I war with myself for a few seconds before touching her arm to tell her it's fine. Just that onetouch sends a jolt of electricity through my fingers. The warmth and smoothness of her skin.
Softness I don't deserve, can never have, no matter what devil's bargain Kade and the others have arranged.
"Tank?" She's looking at me now, and there's something sad in her eyes. "I know you hate me now. I get it. After what I did, how I left..." She trails off, and I see her fingers start that familiar count against her thigh. "But for what it's worth… I never stopped thinking about you."
The words hit me like bullets. Worse than bullets.
Wait… she thinks Ihateher?
