“Already decided.” He shrugs. “We can argue about it later. Eat your food.”
My whole life I’ve wanted things I’ll never be allowed to have. In the dark, by myself, with my textbooks and my online coursesand my quiet, useless dreams. Johnny’s promise just made the list.
I eat my food. The pasta is so good I almost forget to be sad about it.
We finish, and I reach for the plates but he waves me off, carrying them to the sink. He snaps on the rubber gloves I keep under the sink to protect his knuckles—bright pink, because that’s all the dollar store had—and somehow still looks like he belongs on a billboard. Life is unfair.
I watch his back while he works. The shift of muscle under his shirt. My fingers remember the topography of that back. The ridge of scar tissue near his left shoulder blade, the dip of his spine, the way his muscles tensed under my hands when I pulled him closer. I press my palms flat against my thighs and keep them there.
He dries the last plate, puts it in the cabinet, and turns around.
“Movie?”
We end up on the couch with something neither of us chose on purpose. Ten minutes in, Johnny points at the screen.
“There’s no way that explosion is survivable. He just walked out of a fireball in a leather jacket. That’s not how fire works.”
“You couldn’t pick yourself out of a lineup but you’re an expert on combustion?”
“Some things are just common sense, Princess.”
I roll my eyes at the new nickname and tuck my feet under me, leaning into his side. His arm settles around my shoulders, and his thumb traces an absent line along my collarbone. Earlier, hismouth followed that same path. The memory blooms hot under my skin, and I have to focus very hard on the terrible movie to keep my breathing even.
He laughs at something on screen, and I feel it through his chest before I hear it. Deep and easy, rumbling through me where my cheek rests against his shoulder. I shut my eyes and let myself have this moment.
I press closer and he pulls me tighter and I memorize all of it. The warmth. The weight of his arm. The smell of tomato sauce and soap on his skin. The way he holds me like we have all the time in the world.
He doesn’t know we don’t.
16
JOHNNY
The salt airhits me the second I step out of Natalia’s little sedan, sharp and briny with November’s bite.
A boxing gym. Not exactly the first place I pictured when she said she wanted to get out of the house.
But I’m not complaining.
Morning walks and movie nights with her are the best part of my weird-ass life, but there’s something restless coiled up inside me that beach strolls can’t touch. My body needs to move. Needs to hit something. A boxing class sounds like exactly the right kind of stupid.
The gym sits at the edge of a row of buildings that’ve seen better decades, wedged between a bait shop and a place advertising $5 tarot readings.
Natalia climbs out of the driver’s side wearing black leggings that hug every curve of her body and a fitted zip-up over her tank top, the collar pulled high against the wind.
The leggings are a problem. Around the house, I’ve gotten used to her in oversized sweatshirts and bare feet. This is different. This is every line of her on display, and my jaw clenches hard enough to ache.
We’re here to punch things.Focus.
I round the hood and fall into step beside her, my hand finding the small of her back without thinking about it.
She glances up at me, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Ready?”
I wink down at her. “Born ready. Probably.”
The gym smells like old sweat, rubber mats, and stale air conditioning. It’s crowded for a weekday morning. We’re not three steps past the front desk before every guy on the floor finds a reason to look at Natalia. Two near the free weights stop mid-rep. A trainer by the water fountain tracks her from the waist down.
A low, primal hum starts up at the base of my skull.
