He sat me down on the bed, and tossed me a shirt from off the floor. “Change.”
“You’re so bossy.” I pulled the shirt over my head anyway, tugging the too small dress out from underneath. “I’m good.”
Winder turned around, and I didn’t miss the way his eyes traveled the length of my legs and back again, the small tic in his jaw reappearing. He shook his head slightly. “Bed. Now. You need to sleep this off.”
I frowned. “I’m really not tired.” I didn’t want to sleep yet. There were too many colors to explore, and everything felt so good, and I wanted to see Winder’s jaw muscle jump again.
“Bed.” Winder’s tone left no room for argument.
I flopped back on the bed, staring up at the patchwork ceiling, a kaleidoscope. “Winder?”
“Yeah?” He flipped off the light.
“Will coming down hurt?”
A quiet sigh drifted up from the floor, where I assumed he was getting his bed ready. “Yeah. It will. Getting high doesn’t make all those feelings not exist anymore. It just hides them for a little while.”
“Okay.” I didn’t want to feel all that again. I didn’t want to be sad Blaire, who didn’t know how she forgot things, and didn’t mind killing people. I liked it here, where it was safe and I was numb. “Winder?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you sleep in the bed with me? I don’t want to be alone when everything comes back.”
A beat of silence followed. Then two. “Blaire.”
“Please.” Desperation leached into my voice, and I hated myself for it. The idea of laying in this bed completely alone with my desperate, lonely thoughts was devastating.
Winder didn’t respond, but the shuffling sound told me he was coming up. He might not have liked it, but he had a hard time saying no to me. “Move over.”
I wiggled to the side, and Winder climbed in next to me, on top of the blanket. He lay with his arms at his side, a statue of a soldier. “I don’t bite,” I whispered.
Winder made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and I didn’t understand what I said to cause him such discomfort.
For such a small bed, there was an ocean of space between us, and it wasn’t much better than being alone. I shuffled closer tohim, until I could feel the heat radiating from his body, and the backs of our hands almost touched.
“I’m not sure this is the best place for me to be,” Winder murmured.
His words hurt, but not as much as they would have if I had been sober, and he didn’t try to move his hand away. Awareness of every inch of his body flooded through me. We weren’t touching, but we might as well have been.
“You kissed me at the party.” The inside of my cheek was raw with how much I’d chewed on it tonight.
“That was…a mistake. I was hoping to distract Leon, not that it worked, but I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry.”
A lie. Winder was lying through his teeth to me. He could tell me all he wanted that the kiss was a distraction, and he didn’t enjoy it, but the truth was written all over his lips.
“Are you saying you didn’t like kissing me? Was I a terrible kisser?” I wiggled my hand so my pinky touched his, giving me a near electric sensation. We were two magnets, desperate to be touched, with an invisible force separating us.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he huffed. “You know you aren’t terrible.”
I hummed. “So youdidlike kissing me then. Why won’t you just admit it?”
“Because, Blaire. Does this really seem like the best idea to you? Think about it. Think long and hard before you answer.”
I stayed quiet, focusing on the colors still twinkling in front of me. I liked the molly. It let me speak my mind. “I don’t understand your problem. Do you like being miserable?”
Winder groaned. “I like not messing with karma, and making out with my brother’s girlfriend sounds like it would upset the balance.”
“But you liked kissing me,” I protested. I couldn’t see the problem. I liked kissing Winder. He liked kissing me. It was a simple equation.
