“With this.” She holds up her lipstick. Before he can choose his answer, she hoists herself up onto the counter, legs dangling off the side, her back pressed to the mirror, and beckons him forward. “Come here.”
Maybe the answer was never his to choose. He isn’t aware of himself stepping forward, crossing over the cerulean tiles, but it’s like he’s moving in a trance. The nearer he is to her, the stronger her perfume grows, enveloping his senses.
She spreads her knees out, letting him walk closer still.
An invitation. A trap.
Definitely the latter. The second he’s positioned before her, his eyes level with hers, she grins like a cat and wraps her legs tight around his waist. An involuntary breath escapes his throat, and he’s fighting hard to keep his expression level, to not notice the heat and pressure and weight of her body when she shifts against him to rebalance herself on the counter.
“Hmm? Something wrong?” she asks, her mouth bare inches from his.
“Course not,” he says, and accepts the lipstick like a challenge. It’s practically a foreign object in his hands, but he unscrews it, lifts it up to her chin. She purses her lips, waiting, baiting him. Now it’s her turn to watch him, and he hears himself swallow as he traces the edge of her full lower lip, his heart beating far less steadily than his hands are moving. It wouldn’tbe so difficult to remain calm if he didn’t remember with such aching clarity the softness of her mouth from last night.
“You’re good at that,” she says, twisting around to examine his work once he steps back.
He’s pleased that she’s pleased. Feels the sickening, pathetic urge to do anything to please her more.
She smiles up at him. Then her eyes fall on the paper half tucked into one of the bathroom drawers, and her body goes still. “What’s this?”
“Oh, that. It’s just a design,” he says, taking it out to show her the sketch of a crescent moon. “I’m getting it tattooed....” With a start, he remembers the vision he’d seen in the lake. Him and Chanel together at a tattoo parlor, her sitting down beside him. His pulse quickens. He’d feared that his chances were ruined after what happened at the Cave yesterday, that he was further away from finding Long Ge than ever. If they don’t let him go back, he’ll never be able to win the final matches and secure his favor. But is it possible that this is how things were meant to fall into place? Chanel showing up last night? Coming back home with her, and waking up to this?
Chanel leans closer to study the sketch. “It’s pretty.”
“Do you want to come with?” he asks, and he feels therightnessof the question as he asks it, a sense of forward motion, the gears of time turning and clicking. The future will come true. He will make it come true, using the vision as his blueprint, his map, guiding him to his brother.
“Where?”
“The tattoo appointment,” he says, hoping he doesn’t soundtoo eager. “It’s next week... I don’t know if you’d be bored, though.”
“You really want me to be there?” she asks.
I need you to be there,he thinks, a little desperately.For whatever reason, you being there is a crucial part of the vision.“Yeah. If you’re interested, I mean. I’d like that.”
“Okay, sure,” she says. “Could be fun.”
“Cool,” he says, and realizes belatedly what it sounds like he’s asking her for. A date. A proper date with him. Which he guesses it is, in a way.
She’s quiet for a moment, maybe realizing the same thing too. Then, “Did you really mean what you said last night?”
“About what?”
“That it wouldn’t happen again. That you wouldn’t let anyone hurt me,” she says. “Does that include yourself?”
“Of course. Why would I ever hurt you?” he asks, confused.
“Yeah,” she murmurs, half to herself, it seems. “Why would you?”
For the first time, he feels a frisson of fear. On the outside, nothing has changed. She’s still smiling up at him, her makeup fresh, her dark hair tumbling over her bare shoulders. But there had been a shift just now. A glimpse of something moving underneath Chanel Cao’s perfect, polished surface, like a creature flitting beneath a moonlit lake. It should send him running, but he’s strangely compelled to inch closer, dip his hand into the cold waters, see what’s really there. Even if it bites him.
“Are you okay?” he asks. It’s the wrong thing to say, not the question he meant.
“I’m fine. I’m just thinking.” Her voice is light, so light that it seems to detach itself from her and float right over him, revealing nothing of the intricacies of her mind.
“You sure? I mean...” He pauses. He has this encroaching feeling that he’s upset her somehow, brushed against a nerve without realizing. It normally wouldn’t affect him so much; he’s used to people being upset with him, or disappointed, or angry. He normally wouldn’t pursue the topic with such desperation. “Are you tired?” Again, the wrong question. But he doesn’t know how to ask her outright:Did I say or do something wrong? Could you stop pretending for just a moment, and let me know you as you truly are?
She blinks those large, liquid-lined eyes up at him. “I’m not tired at all. I slept very well last night.”
“Okay,” he says, but he still can’t shake the sense that he’s missing something.
