With literal light shining on our proximity, all of our easy playfulness from before dissolves. I’m wondering what’s going on, question marks shooting off left and right in my brain like fireworks, but why should an embrace have to mean anything? Hall might not view this closeness as an intimacy cue like a human would. Also, he hasn’t verbally indicated that his status as someone who’s never crushed on anyone has changed, and I don’t want to be presumptuous. He likes physical touch, period. He likes being close to all sorts of people, not just me. It’s better to not ask if there’s anything going on at all, to simply enjoy what I can.
“That’s thoughtful of you,” I manage as his gaze flicks upward to my forehead. He tucks an errant strand of black hair back into its pin. It’s the perfect excuse to break away, but his hands return to me immediately, dropping a fraction lower on my hips. His thumb brushes the narrow gap between my shirt and waistband, the skin-on-skin contact sending up a shiver. His thumb quickly corrects to a higher location, ever the gentleman.
Standing this close, I am trying to breathe normally, trying to ignore how my heart rate has kicked up, how his touch has left behind a deliciously burning trail, and it’s ridiculous. I don’t usually react this way even when I’m making out with a boyfriend half-naked in his bedroom. And Hall and I aren’t even being physical! All he’s doing isbarelytouching me, watching me like... perhaps my pupils are dilating, too, like he hardly registers the play of light on my own face because he’s becoming illuminated to other parts of me instead.
His eyes are liquid, attention dipping to my mouth. My heartaccelerates. But then he smiles brightly, and it dissipates the haze; my vision’s blurred his edges into the sunlight like a red-hot aura.
“What do you think?” he wants to know.
Oh, right. The whole bringing-me-to-the-sunrise-and-watching-it thing. A necessary experience, in his opinion. I haven’t been able to bring myself to look away from Hall.
“Very romantic.” My stomach drops. I wish I could rewind time like Hall can. “Kidding! Just kidding.”
The tiniest of furrows creases his brow.
I rip my gaze away. Teller City is aglow, its hues and the depths of its buildings transformed by the sun, each rooftop a canary diamond. Bursts of orange peek between mountains, low-drifting clouds haloed with it. Hall was absolutely right to lament that I’ve never watched this part of the day unfold. “I thought it would be indistinguishable from sunset, but it’s really not,” I marvel. “There’s a difference, isn’t there?”
The white roads are unmarred by tire tracks or exhaust, no cars in motion from what I can see. Hall leans so close that the curling ends of his hair brush my temple. Whispers low and conspiratorial, breath ghosting over my lips, “There is. New beginnings are special. We’re the only ones awake, watching the sky come alive.” He pulls back just enough to view my reaction, the heat of his gaze pinning me in place. “Very romantic...” His gaze skitters lower again, glancing off the hollow between my collarbones. “As you said.”
I think he’s teasing, but it’s hard to be sure. My mouth quivers slightly, as it does sometimes when I’m flustered and I like someone but I don’t know if they feel the same, so I desperately don’t want to be found out. “I—”
“If I’m going to be murdered, I want witnesses,” someone cuts in loudly, and I whirl in alarm, breaking Hall’s hold. Felix and Sean have wandered into the living room. “You have to pick Marilou up from the airport for me. I can’t be alone with her.”
I slide a hand up the nape of my neck, cheeks heating. What in the world were we doing? I remind myself, before I can start to feel too special, that he hugs everyone. He’s a zealous hugger.
However. I do not think his expression is quite sointentwhen it comes to everyone else—eyes growing dark, slower to blink. Jaw tightened. Breathing quickened, more uneven.
I check to see if he’s blushing like I am, but his back is turned as he absently straightens ornaments on the tree. Maybe I’m imagining that spark of interest. Maybe I’m projecting.
Our little moment that I’m going to spend the rest of the day overthinking is rapidly smashed by relatives clomping downstairs. Grandma has no qualms taking advantage of Hall’s generosity, so she requests pancakes. Hall then takes advantage of my preoccupation by roping me into helping him, and before I know it I’m in an apron, adding blueberries to batter.
We take turns ruining Felix’s morning by hugging him and giving our final goodbyes. Kaia gives him a tarot reading and draws the Seven of Swords, which none of us know anything about, but Kaia looks pretty grim. Even though Felix says he doesn’t believe in tarot, he makes her do another reading. She pulls a Two of Swords for him this time and says nothing, only shakes her head. Felix is too green to eat breakfast. When at last Sean’s car zips up the steep driveway with Marilou in the passenger seat, he hides behind the Christmas tree. “Callista started it. She brought all of this on. I think she’s trying to sabotage my relationship.”
“It takes two to let that happen,” Mom points out. It’s as close as she can come to chastising him.
But when Marilou pokes her head into the living room, calling out, “Knock, knock! Merry Christmas!” it would seem all of Felix’s worries were for nothing.
“You feeling all right?” Marilou asks him, stretching up on tiptoe to kiss her husband’s cheek. It should be noted that baby Adrian, bundled in her arms, wears a scrunched expression, as if disappointed in his father.
“Uhhhhh.” Felix’s stare follows her warily about the room.
*
He’s still twitchy two hours later, unwilling to trust Marilou’s light, easy chatter. He thinks she’ll bring up his contact with Callista the second he gets comfortable. But if shedoesn’treally know, he certainly isn’t going to tell her. Every time Marilou speaks, Dad glares at Felix.
“I’m not cheating,” he persists when she excuses herself to go nurse Adrian. “Callista keeps contacting me from new phone numbers. Stop looking at me like that.”
“How you could get any woman interested in you is a mystery to me,” Grandma replies frankly, enjoying her glass of cabernet. It is almost one in the afternoon.
“Mom,” my mother says chidingly. “Felix is a good boy. A real catch!”
Felix is petulant. “I’m not a boy, I’m aman.”
Kaia pats him on the back. Today she’s smudged her thick black eyeliner in streaks that extend all the way to her ears,wearing a fitted black suit complete with a white cravat around her throat. “There, there, champ. Your balls will drop one day.”
“I’ve sired seven children! That I know of!”
They bicker until Marilou returns, Felix pinching Kaia’s knee under the kitchen table to shut her up. She quickly lifts her knee, smashing his hand into the table. Tears spring to his eyes. He tells her she looks like a postapocalyptic butler.
