“Better now.” He shifts closer, too close, probably without meaning to. Maybe it’s habit or gravity and the cabin shrinks around us as our knees brush. “I don’t like Quinlan’s eyes on you. I don’t likeanyone’s eyes on you.”
“Then stop making me run through London.” It’s easier to tease than dwell on the truth of his words.
“Consider it cardio,” he deadpans, playing along.
I huff and try to swallow the smile but fail. The train shudders and the platform drifts further, then completely falls away. Euston becomes a tunnel, and the tunnel becomes sprawling city, then the city becomes black glass crowned with tiny, stubborn lights.
We finally breathe.
“Do you remember the bus to Palermo?” He nudges me after a minute, voice dipping softer. “The one that broke down five times and smelled like roasted garlic?”
“It smelled like your socks,” I correct, and the image of him, nineteen, sun-drunk and smug in a ripped t-shirt, hits me so hard I have to hang on.
He grimaces. “I washed them in the sea.”
“You tried to drown them, and the sea spit them back at you. With a warning.”
His shoulder eases into mine again. “You couldn’t stop laughing.”
“You were offended.”
“I was under a spell, and for a while there, I couldn’t tell up from down.” The words walk butterflies across my ribs.
Silence again, but it’s the warm kind like steam on glass. The train rocks us into it, a meandering cradle with wifi. Our shoulders bump, the casual touch settling.
He watches my face like he’s trying to memorize the way my mouth moves when I’m not bracing for impact. “What was your favorite beach?”
“Not fair.”
“Come on play.”
“Fine.” I look out the blinds, but I’m seeing a different sea. “That little cove past the marina. The one with the crumbling staircase, and the sand that stuck for days.”
“As I recall, you got sunburned the first time we went,” he blurts, smiling. “And then you called me cruel for letting you.”
“I know, I know. You told me to reapply like six times. I told you to stop bossing me around and then stole your shirt.”
“It did look better on you.”
I swallow the noise that wants out. The air in the cabin is suddenly four degrees warmer. My hands have forgotten where to be. I press my palms to my thighs and count backwards from a hundred in terrible Italian because self-harm comes in many flavors.
He feels it. Of course he does. He turns his wrist, palm up, an offering that isn’t a demand. It’s just a place to put my hand if I want. It’s safety covered in skin.
I don’t take it because I want to kiss him so badly it’s ridiculous. And if I touch him… My mouth remembers the exact pressure it takes to make him groan. My thighs remember the exact angle that turns his name into a confession. Every cell that isn’t survival screamsjust for a minute.
Instead, I whisper, my voice husky, “Tell me something true.”
He thinks, and the train hums. “Sometimes in Manhattan, I’ll buy lemons I don’t need. Just to see if the smell still takesme back.” He rubs his thumb against his forefinger like he’s crushing zest there. “It does.”
My stupid heart does a stupid flip-flop. “Your turn. Ask.”
“Something true,” he echoes, and his eyes are very green in the cabin’s little light. “Do you wish you never met me?”
“No.” There’s no room for doubt in my tone. “I wish you never left though.”
He flinches, but he doesn’t look away. “Me too.”
We sit with that until it’s almost safe to breathe. The cabin knocks my shoulder into his as we take a curve, and his proximity comes with a pressure change.
