He steered her into it. Guided her backward with his body, almost until her shoulders met the door. Kept hold of her hand, but loosened his hold as he looked down at her. She could go; he wanted her to know she could go if she wanted to.
But he didn’t think she wanted to.
She leaned back, settling herself against the place he’d put her. Looked up at him and said, “What are you doing?” again, but this time, it was a whisper.
“This street is mine,” he said, which made less sense out loud than it had in his head, but Layla kept looking at him, her head tipped up, her eyes flashing in understanding.
“I don’t know the name of it,” she said.
“You don’t need to. You only need to know that this is a street where someone once told you something important.”
“Okay.” A quiet, bewildered consent.
He let go of her hand, and for a second felt the confusion of it: one sensation lost, and his disobedient nerves jangling in response, unsure what price to demand of him. But he was determined: afeeling like he had once in the hospital, when he had to prove he could get out of bed on his own.
He wanted to say this with two hands on her. Right on the shoulders she’d shrugged.
So, he did it—a breath he took in as he lifted his hands, readying himself. Sometimes, like with the chair, both hands at the same time on something new was a problem, the unevenness of feeling too jarring, so the left one reacted like he was touching a hot pan, or an engine only just shut off.
But it didn’t happen this time. Layla’s magic spell cast over him, even when his hands settled first on a spot different than what he’d intended—her upper arms, bare and smooth and warm, impossibly inviting. He curled his fingers around her triceps, felt the line of them as he moved up, those gauzy, split-open sleeves trailing over his knuckles as he rested his palms on her shoulders.
He thought maybe—maybe, through that more reliable right palm of his—he could feel goose bumps rise on her skin in the wake of his movement, but he didn’t lower his eyes to look.
He wanted to see her face when he said this.
“You keep sayingamicable,” he started.
“It’strue,” she interrupted, defiant, and the truth was, he believed her. Believed that the man he’d barely met had made it sonicefor her, whatever had happened between them. Bowed when he said goodbye to her, probably. And he believed, too, that she’d received it gracefully, with those careful movements that hid everything he saw about her.
He slid his thumbs across the caps of her shoulders, leaned in a little farther. He would say this part so fuckingcloseto her, no matter that this was closer even than their dance, no matter that she must be able to see every single scar on his face.
He would say it close enough for her to hear it loud and clear.
“There shouldn’t be anything amicable about losing you,” he said.
There should be a war, he thought.An army of stone gargoyles, ordered to be alive. All to come get you. All to show you that you should never shrug like that again.
“He should hurt like hell every time he sees you,” he said instead, because this wasn’t about him in his imaginary tower. “He should be in a restaurant, watching two people kiss like that, and feel starved to death. Like he never touched a bite of his meal, because he doesn’t get to taste you anymore.Heshould feel that way. Not you.”
He kept his eyes on hers, but he knew her chest rose and fell even faster now. He couldfeelit, through those curves in her shoulders. He didn’t want to hurt her, saying this, but also, it had to hurt worse that no one else ever had.
It had to hurt worse that her husband hadn’t.
“You shouldn’t—”
“Griffin,” she said, cutting him off. Not only with the sound of his name on her lips, but with how she touched him, too:Griffin, she said, at the same time she set both of her hands on his sides, right above the bones of his hips, and he knew as it happened—as all his damned wires crossed—that for a while, or maybe forever, he would feel those particular bones rattle anytime he heard his name.
He couldn’t tell if it truly hurt. He was concentrating too hard on her hands.
“What?” he said, expecting her to push him away. To use those hands to say,Fine, I heard you; it was a little intense; I’ve had enough of this now.
But she didn’t do that.
She didn’tsaythat.
“It didn’t make me think of him,” she said, and he frowned down at her. He’d chased her out of a restaurant; he’d dragged her down a dark street she didn’t even know the name of. He’d insisted on this, onsayingall this, so close to her, and she hadn’t been thinking of the ex at all.
“Of how he kissed me or didn’t,” she added.
