Fuck, Julia. What is happening to us?my mind screams.What does everything feel so fucking fucked?
I almost ask her just that, but two frat guys barge in behind her, yelling about someone named Crackers and a broken toilet seat. One of the idiots accidentally bumps into her shoulder, and she stumbles.
I’m on her in half a second, my arm around her waist and my hand on her elbow as I catch her before she falls.
She gasps, and her hands find my chest.
We don’t move. We don’t breathe. The fear of getting sucked back into the bleakness of our friendship’s black hole is too strong.
Her big blue eyes stare up at me. I brush the strand of hair from her cheek, and it’s as if I’ve touched a live wire. She doesn’t flinch or pull away, and my mind races with a million and one thoughts—sadness, relief, love, anger, want, desire, need. Everything I’ve been trying to bury all week.
Her lips are barely parted, and I’ve never been this close to her and wanted something more than I do right now.
I tilt my head a little, and my hand slides behind her neck. My thumb grazes her jaw, and she doesn’t pull away. Ever so slightly, she leans in, just barely, just enough.
My mouth is inches from hers. I could kiss her.
Ishouldkiss her.
My heart punches at my ribs.
“Julia…” Her name cracks out of me, low and wrecked. It’s the first word I’ve spoken to her since I walked out of her apartment a week ago—the first word either one of us has spoken to each other in seven days.
I naïvely hope it conveys much more than its length. A paragraph, a page, a chapter—something, anything from my novel of bottomless grief.
I know it’s only a name.
But it’shername. And I miss her more than life itself.
Julia
Ace’s eyes are wild and gentle and begging, and my heart’s pounding so loud I’m scared he can hear it.
I don’t move. I can’t move.
His gaze searches mine, silently asking me if he can kiss me again.
Can I? Should I?his eyes plead.
I hate myself for wanting him to so much, butGod, I want it so badly it hurts.
I am desperate for our healing—raw for his hugs. I miss who we were. Miss my life before he left it. But I also want to scream.Because how dare he. How dare he do this now. How dare he try to do this again.
His lips part like he’s about to say something else. My name again, maybe. Or maybe he’s going to kiss me again. Maybe he’s going to press his lips to mine.
I should pull away. I should put distance between us, but all I find myself doing is leaning in closer and savoring the way it feels to have his hand on the back of my neck.
I swear, for ten full heartbeats, he’s all I can feel. He’s solid and warm, and he feels like home in this black-lit cave of fluorescent handprints and pounding bass.
My palms flatten against his chest, and his heart is hammering beneath my fingers. Or maybe it’s mine, rattling through both of us? I don’t know.
He reaches up again—careful, almost reverent—and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers graze my cheek, and everything in me goes hot and electric. I can’t breathe. I can’t even remember why we haven’t been on speaking terms for the past week.
Say something, Julia.
I swallow.
And then, the door slams open.
