And he doesn’t answer.
I slowly unzip my puffy pink jacket, shedding it like a skin before shoving it under the table. I have an ominous feeling I’ll soon require full range of motion.
“They never remember to pay,” says the redhead from across the room, managing a smile in our direction. He gestures to the empty diner, the tables laden with half-eaten meals. “All these years and it’s always the same. Can’t believe I keep feeding you ungrateful kids.”
“Put it on my tab, Kip,” says James. “I’ll settle the bill.”
“I’ll do you one better,” he says, rapping his hands against the counter. “I’ll put it on your brother’s tab.”
“Done.”
“Good luck out there,” says Kip, flashing a tired salute in our direction. He heads toward the kitchen, pushing through the swinging door as he calls over his shoulder: “But if my windows get shattered again, or my shelves get broken, or I find shrapnel in my walls, I’m making you fix it!”
“C’mon, Kip, you know we always”—the interior door swings shut behind the man—“fix it.”
Suddenly, James and I are alone.
A set of overhead lights flicker out, leaving us in partial darkness, and I come alive with an electric sensation I’ve begun to recognize. Moonlight slants through the large front windows, warm and cold radiance melding as it washes over us, rendering James in half-silhouette, one blue eye illuminated, gleaming. He tosses his jacket onto a chair, shadows emphasizing the sculpted muscles of his arms, the hardened line of his jaw. His hair looks soft and melted. A little messy. His hands flex at his sides, the brawn of his broad chest straining under his T-shirt.
He’s so gorgeous it’s disorienting.
Adrenaline courses through me as I study him, my body already bright with awareness. He takes a step closer and I feel the shift as palpably as I feel the air leaving my lungs. I’m stripped back to nothing all over again, painfully alive in my skin, inhaled by the sun.
James looks at me. Looks away. Looks back. I can feel myself sinking.
He’sangry.
He’s radiating unchecked power, his eyes charged with feeling. Instinctive fear responses activate all throughout my nervous system.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper.
He shakes his head slowly. He laughs, but the dark sound only seems to wind him tighter. “You know, I’ve been dying for a moment alone with you.Desperate for it. And now we’re here, just you and me, and this isn’t going anything like I thought it would.” He takes a breath; his voice is unsteady. “Nothing about you has gone the way I thought it would.”
My heart is hammering. “James. Please, tell me what’s happening—”
“We haven’t even talked about any of it,” he says, looking up. “Isn’t that crazy? None of it. Not what happened with Leon, or the things you said to me in the tunnel. We haven’t talked about your dad. We haven’t talked about Clara. We haven’t talked about the fact that you shot me. We haven’t talked about how you sacrificed your one chance to escape at the airfield—to get to your sister—just to keep me alive—”
I panic. “That’s not— I didn’t—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me,Rosabelle.”
A sound breaks free of my chest, something wild and breathless. My pulse is frantic.
James looks unearthly. Lit by fury and moonlight. “We haven’t talked about the fact that you literallydiedfor threedays,” he says, “or even the fact that you have this power at all. We haven’t talked about what’s going through your head, or how you feel about The Reestablishment, or what the hell you’re planning on doing next. We haven’t talked aboutanything. God, I have so many questions sometimes I think I’d rip my own heart out for a chance to have a single, honest conversation with you.”
A desperate ache is fracturing across my body.
I’m transfixed by him, half out of my mind. I’m watching his throat work with rapt fascination; I can’t look away as he drags a hand down his neck, muscles flexing, tendons straining. He looks as if he’s coming apart, fighting to remain rooted in his body, to keep the distance between us.
Fighting not to touch me.
“I want answers,” he says, lifting his head. “I want to know what happened to you when you woke up in the hospital after being dead for three days. I want to know why you passed out when I hugged you. Fuck, I just want to know what you’re thinking half the time.”
“James—”
“I want to know what you want, Rosabelle, because I want to know if you think about me,” he says roughly, “the way I think about you, because I’m beginning to lose my fucking mind every time you look at me. The amount of work I have to do just to act normal around you—” He makes a gutted sound, briefly turning away. “All you have to do is walk into a room and I wish we were alone. You breathe and I wish we were alone. Now we’re alone and all I want to do—All I want—”
He cuts himself off. Visibly struggles.
