She took my hand as we walked to the steps, saying nothing for a while. She wasn’t drunk. Her beers had turned to water and her pulls on the joint had been few.
“Thank you.” She stopped at the base of the steps.
“What the fuck for?” My words were slow and soft, the swear word there to emphasise the needlessness of her thanks.
“For – I don’t know. Making tonight easier. Today – I hate people seeing me cry. I’m an ugly crier.”
“You’re really not.”
“Now I know you’re lying.”
“Your lips go a little redder and your eyes get glassy, but I don’t think you could ever be ugly anything.” I had no idea where my game was coming from. I thought I’d lost it in the crash.
Her laugh was loud, free. Young.
“You’re so full of shit.”
“I know. I really am. Look, I get where you’re coming from…”
“I know. Cat said you couldn’t walk for a while. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t get hurt.” She looked at me with apprehension and I fucking hated it.
“Don’t minimise what you went through.”
“I know. But you were hurt. And you were there.”
“And I’m so fucked up by it I don’t know which way is up half the time. But tonight, even today, something got righted. Don’t make me a hero, Anya, I’m anything but.”
She stared at me as if she was seeing me for the first time. Then she stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against mine, holding on to my shoulders.
For a second, I was numb. I had no idea what to do. Then heat rushed through me like it was me on fire and not the wood we’d lit and I grasped her waist and kissed her.
Blood started to fill veins that had been dead for so long and I started to feel the texture of her clothing against my hands, her warmth against me, the pressure of her mouth on mine. It was as if lightning had struck and Frankenstein’s monster had been reborn.
One of us moved away first, but I didn’t know who. We looked at each other and I saw fear, shock across her face. I knew I mirrored it.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“Good. Because I wasn’t really.”
I felt as if I’d just kissed a girl for the first time and I didn’t know what to say. Or do next. So I smiled and probably looked like an idiot.
We both laughed.
“Can I kiss you again?” The words spilled out.
“Anytime.”
This time it was slower. This time I led, cupped her face with one hand and explored her mouth, tasting rum punch and her. Her hands crept up my T-shirt and rested on my stomach.
When the kiss ended, my cock was harder than it had been since before the crash and if it had been before, I’d have taken her back to her room and fucked her until the only words she knew were my name and ‘more’.
But tonight wasn’t the night for that. Not yet.
“It’s nearly dawn.” She looked up at the sky where the light was starting to peer through. “I feel like a teenager sneaking home.”
“Good. That used to be a good feeling.” I pressed my forehead against hers. “I need to let you go home.”
