Solid, but not a wall, because it’s soft, too.
Like…
Like a sweater on a muscular chest.
I jerk back with a shout.
The heels scuffle under me—then a pair of hands come through the dark and grab me by the shoulders.
My scream is swallowed by the dark. It strangles my throat as I tumble back from the solid figure, but the noise doesn’t reach my ears.
I’m wholly encased by darkness, someone’s hands on my shoulders, and I can’t so much as scream for help.
The hands tighten, then loosen.
A squeeze.
A message.
My breath shudders in my throat.
In my chest, my heart is pounding. But slowly, I stop fighting the grip—and that’s when I notice it.
The blackout dust swallows sight and sound.
But not smell.
And I smell it.
Blue, rippling waters.
I know that scent.
It lures me in a step closer.
I take a sniff of the air, as though to double check, to make sure it’s really the same one I picked out.
It is.
The fragrance—the cologne—is the very same I chose at ROJA.
I didn’t just pick a bottle off the shelf.
This cologne is one of a kind. It was made in the shop, a lovely blend crafted by the perfumers.
No other like it.
And I gifted it to Eric.
It’s Eric.
He holds me by the shoulders.
I just can’t see him.
The breath that loosens from my lips is soft.
I don’t know how quickly he had to move in the blackout, since I was just talking to him up in the corridor. But he must have run off to find the cologne, dab it onto the collar and wrists of his sweater, then come find me.
