“I want to hear it from you.”
So I talk.I tell him about the busted transmission I rebuilt after school, the oil spill I slipped on, the new guy who thinks he’s charming, but I would never date him because he likes country music.
Jag listens, really listens, even though he already saw and heard it all through his cameras.
“What about school?”he asks.
“Hate it.”
“You need it.”
“You needed it, too.”
“Still do.But I’d probably scare the teachers.”
That pulls a smile out of me.I roll onto my side, facing him.
His hair sticks up in every direction.He looks exhausted.
“And your foster place?”he murmurs.
“Awful.”
“It’s a house full of women.”
“Exactly.”
“What’d they do?”
“Nothing.And everything.You know how it is.”
“I know.”
A hush settles over us.He lies back, opens an arm without asking, and I slide into the warm circle.My head finds the same spot on his chest it always has, just below his collarbone, near the rhythm of my favorite sound.
And just like that, we’re in our cardboard fort again.Our bed made out of trash.Our alley corner behind the bakery.Every place we hid in together, every night he kept watch while I slept.
“You scared me,” I whisper.
“You scare me every second of every day.”He presses his chin to the top of my head.
“How?”
“By existing outside of these.”He flexes the band of his arms around me.
“You’re not funny.”
“Didn’t say I was.”
I jab a finger in his ribs, nowhere near the wound, but he hisses like a kicked cat.
“Sorry.”I bite my lip.
“No, you’re not.”
I’m not.But he’s smiling now, the small, rare one that dimples the corner of his mouth.
The quiet stretches, warm and heavy, humming with the heartbeat under my cheek.
