Which means watching him put clotheson.
But he’s right about it being loud in this pub, even without the throngs of people it usually has on a Friday night. And if I’ve zoned out on him as hard as I think I have, I could use some winter air in my lungs.
We ditch our drinks and head outside. Start walking in the opposite direction to where we both live, ‘cept he doesn’t know that and I keep missing my window to tell him. Keep missing my window to talk at all as we settle into the cold night, frost glittering on the ground—he’s that alluring.
Sab catches me staring through the faintest sleety drizzle falling from the sky. “What?”
“You’re hot as hell,” I tell him what’s on my mind. “And you seem happier outside.”
“Comment est-ce que tu peux déjà le savoir?”
“Is that you saying I look good in the rain too?”
“You seem like you’d look good anywhere.”
I let that hit.
Enjoy the feeling it stokes in me as we amble along Moonberry Crescent, taking it easy up the steady incline that leads to Figgy Mount and the classier side of this batshite town. I want to ask him what he does for work. What he likes to do with his down time, if he ever has any. What he likes to eat.How he likes to fuck.
But I bite my tongue and enjoy the quiet, though it still doesn’t feel quite like the real him.
Psychic, are you?
No. Not even close. But the sense of a whole new world simmering below the surface of this lad is potent enough an idiot like me can see it. And so I keep walking until his footsteps finally slow. Until he stops walking altogether and grabs my arm, tugging me back.
“Sorry I’m shit at this.”
His hand is wrapped around my wrist, bare skin to bare skin, a dream come true, and it derails me a moment. That simple touch. The simmering heat. The tingle in my arm so profound it’s a fight to string a sentence together.
Somehow I manage. “You know, it doesn’t matter how many times you say that, it still isn’t true.”
Sab lets out a rueful chuckle. Bashful, almost, and runs his free hand through hair that might be curly if it wasn’t so short. “It’s a hookup that’s not a hookup, and a drink we didn’t drink. Face it, mate. My game is fucking terrible.”
“I didn’t come out for the Bulmers. And you don’t have to hook up with me. This is fun as it is.”
“Is it?”
I step closer to him, reeled in by the tiny raindrops on his mile-long lashes. “You’re not having a good time?”
“As much of a good time as eight mini heart attacks can be.” Sab stands his ground as the space between us narrows. “Are you about to give me another?”
“Nine is a lucky number.”
“Says who?” He grins as he flings my own words back at me.
And I nearly kiss him.
So very fecking nearly.
“Father Christmas,” I say instead. “Nine reindeer, baby. Count ‘em and see.”
I fill my lungs with his scent and move to step away.
Sab eases me back, yearning in his eyes that isn’t all about me, but himself too. As if he wants something the roadblocks in his heart won’t let him have.
Be gentle.
I’m going to be, I swear.
