“Some of the time. He’s such a ham,” I tell her, shaking my head fondly.
She laughs. “Youalwaysgo for the corny ones.”
I didn’t realize how much I needed someone to be excited with me about my stupid little crush. Everyone always tells me I’ve had such shitty taste in my past romantic partners, I’ve wondered if my libido was inherently untrustworthy.
This time, I tell Adrianna everything, for real, as she drives me the couple blocks to the vacant lot. I don’t leave out all thelittle details I’ve been holding back—the way his smile makes me melt, how his hair flops over his forehead after he runs his fingers through it, the unabashed, unrepentant way he flirts with me. She giggles with unbridled enthusiasm at every new thing, spurring me on.
Our breath clouds in the air of the warehouse district, as I wait and check the dark, clear skies. The moon is way too bright tonight. A flock of pigeons takes off in a fluttery, anxious swarm that makes my own pulse pick up.
We’re chatting, leaning against her car when I spot Ellis just before he glides down, skimming past us on the marshy salt breeze and landing in a deep crouch farther in the parking lot. He then draws himself up to his full height, and my God, I’m never not going to be awed by his stature.
I’ve got goosebumps, but not entirely from the cold. Even though I saw it just last week, there’s something about seeing his entire wingspan move as one fluid piece.
Adrianna stands on her tiptoes to get a better look over my shoulder, while simultaneously hiding behind me. She pushes her circular glasses up, and they immediately begin sliding down the flat bridge of her nose, as they always do.
“Oh my gosh, is that himmmm,” she whispers, hanging onto the word like a crumb stuck under a keyboard cap.
Ellis jogs over, raising an eyebrow at the girl semi-hiding behind me. “Your friend?”
“Yeah, uh . . . ”
“And this is Bat-Thing?”
Ellis makes a face and casts a sidelong look at me, and I flush a little. Ok, so I did tell her about that part.
“Reporting for duty. Are you joining us?”
“No, no, just dropping her off,” she says cheerfully, then nudges me. “Don’t forget what I said about science.”
She dashes off to her car before I can get out a reply. Ellis gives me a questioning look that I wave off. I’m not repeating that conversation for him.
With Ellis, I think we’re officially past the point of taking a picture of a guy and sending it to her before I meet him for a date, and to be clear this isn’t a date, but it’s still good that she knows who I’m with and where.
It’s hard not to be enchanted by a fresh coat of snow. The way it covers the city makes it look magical. It only takes a few hours, though, before the dusting of white rots into slush.
And I, admittedly, on more than one occasion, have dived straight into a fresh layer of snow with high hopes of making gorgeous snow angels, only to find that after the first inch or so of fluff it’s just slush and mud underneath.
Ireallylike Ellis. I’m a little scared of how much I like him. Every moment I’m with him feels dangerous, like any instant I could forget myself and just give in to how much I want him. And this thing we’re doing, it’s not going to last. It can’t.
He stops and very clearly checks my ass out, leaning to the side to get a better view. I purse my lips to avoid smiling, but it is gratifying. Maybe I did spend a little extra time picking out some tight black leggings for this occasion.
“You look a little cold,” he says unexpectedly, his brows creasing as he takes in my sweatshirt. Ok, that’s less gratifying.
“I didn’t have a coat I was willing to wear into the sewers,” I tell him, and before I even finish he’s shrugging out of the denim jacket he’s wearing over his black flying suit.
Maybe if I had a single brain cell that wasn’t utterly distracted by the shape of his shoulders as he takes his jacket off, I would have said something polite and insisted I was fine.
“It’s not a sewer. It’s the city’s underground waterways. It connects all the storm drains,” he says, and that does make me feel marginally better about the tunnels we’re about to go spelunking in.
I can feel his residual body heat in the jacket as I pull my arms through the sleeves. The moment it’s on, his warmth and smell surround me.
I am never giving this back to him.
I don’t care if I have to commit some light thievery to keep it, either. I’m going to go to bed curled up with this jacket. There was just the slightest remnant of his scent left on my sheets from that night, and it faded almost immediately.
“Ok, rules for the tunnels. You don’t take a single step where I don’t show you. Don’t touch anything. For the love of God, don’t fall in,” he says, counting off each rule on a different finger. “I don’t think you’ll mutate, but it’s a pain to get that stuff off.”
“Geez, what do you think—I’m like five?”
