Winston sighs, pushing a hand through his hair. It sticks up in places. “You know, when I said I was still waiting for something exciting to happen, I was hoping for more interpersonal drama, less end-of-the-world drama. I’m really sick of end-of-the-world drama.”
“Warner is on his way,” Nazeera says, lifting up her pager.
“Great,” says James, grabbing a denim jacket from a hallway closet. “Ask him if he wants waffles.”
“You hung up your jacket?” says Winston. “When did you hang up your jacket? I didn’t even know Nazeera owned hangers.”
“Rude,” she says.
James crosses the room toward me, his expression unreadable. “Finish putting on your coat. You look like a pink marshmallow.”
“But—What?” I look at myself, then carefully push my arms into the oversized coat. The interior is lined with something silky that feels so luxurious I nearly close my eyes. It feels like wearing a pillow.
“Oh,” I say, blinking.
James is studying me, holding out my slip-on shoes from the hospital, but when I look up to meet his eyes I stiffen, struck, like I’ve taken a blow to the head.
“Rosabelle,” he says. “Shoes. Zipper. Please.”
My chest constricts.
“What?” he says. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I breathe.
But the gears in my mind won’t turn.
I feel almost dazed.
I’ve seen James a thousand times, and I’ve always acknowledged his beauty. The fact of his attractiveness is self-evident; as indisputable as the wet of water. But now, somehow, it’s as if I’m seeing him through new eyes.
Myowneyes.
No armor. No shields to dull the blow. I’m fully present in my body and his impact is devastating. He’s not just gorgeous; he’s impossibly stunning. Hishair. His eyes. The corded muscles of his arms. The powerful lines of his neck. How have I never noticed his shoulders? His hands?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he says, his voice lower now. He’s still holding my shoes, but they seem forgotten between us. He takes a step closer.
Desperate, I grab the shoes from him.
Then I step back.
“Oh, shit,” says the blue-eyed guy. “I need to tell Alia I won’t be home for dinner—I was supposed to pick up milk—”
“We’ve got milk at our place,” says Winston. “Tell her to grab the carton from our fridge—”
“Hey, so, why do you need the vial before you can leave? What does it do?” Nazeera is slipping into a long leather jacket as she speaks, and when she turns to face me she gasps, breaking into a smile. “Oh my God, you do look like a pink marshmallow.”
I’m still inching backward when she says this—struggling with the zipper as I try to put as much space between myself and James as possible—and I startle when she comes over to help me.
She fits the teeth together, then tugs up the slider like I’m a child. “It’s so puffy it’s sometimes hard to see where it starts,” she says. “Cute, though, right?”
She’s smiling at me like she means it. I feel like I’m wearing a big cloud; I can’t really move my arms. I realize only then that she’s wearing her shawl as a headscarf—in a style decidedly reminiscent of outlawed religions—and this throws me off guard.
I can’t quite make sense of Nazeera.
It’s possible religion is no longer illegal on the mainland, but I can’t decide whether she’s wearing a scarf like this on purpose or if it’s merely a coincidence; clearly it’s not something she does all the time, and I can’t imagine what reason she’d have to resurrect such a tradition.
Her father was the supreme commander of Asia.
