I sit at my station with trade receipts in my hands and the ghost of his gaze burning my skin. Am I losing him?
The receipts blur. I blink hard and breathe.
I’m not going to cry over this. I’ve cried exactly once since entering the Rot and it was over my father’s handwriting. That’s the bar. Sting pulling away from me doesn’t clear the bar.
But it’s close.
38
VI
I findArmen in the Skylight Room. He’s reading, which is what he’s been doing when he has an unscheduled moment. He’s got something thick and worn with a faded cover in his hands and looks up when I come in, but doesn’t close his book.
I sit down beside him on the couch, our legs touching. He’s warm and solid, and when I’m next to him it’s so comforting I want to stay there all day.
He finishes his page and folds the corner down like every librarian tells you not to. He sets the book on the arm of the couch and turns to me with that steady attention that makes you feel like the only person in the world.
“What’s going on with Sting?” I ask.
His face stays open and neutral, giving me nothing, which is a dead giveaway for something going on. “He’s working through something.”
“Armen.”
He looks at me, calm and unhurried. He’s weighing something, not whether to trust me whether telling me will make things better or worse.
“Give him room,” he says. “This isn’t about you.”
“I think it is about me.”
“I know.”
His hand comes up and settles on the back of my neck, his thumb tracing the line where my hair meets my skin and I lean into him. I can’t help it. The last three days of Sting’s distance have left me starving for contact, for the feeling of being wanted by someone who’s not erasing me.
“Is he pulling away from me?”
“No,” Armen says. “He’s not pulling away from you.”
“Then what’s he pulling away from?”
Armen’s thumb stops moving on my neck but his hand stays. “He read the papers, Vi.”
I open my eyes. “Okay. And what about it?”
“He read them. All of them.”
I stare at him. Sting read the papers. Okay. I figured he would.
“And how do you know this?”
“Because I know him.”
“Did he say anything? About what he found?”
Armen shakes his head. “He hasn’t said much of anything to anyone. That’s the point. Whatever he found in those papers, he’s working through.”
Then he kisses me with one hand on my neck, the other on my waist pulling me closer.
I climb into his lap, straddling him. One hand slides down to my hips while the other wanders under my shirt. He cups my breast, his thumb dragging across my nipple, and my hips roll against him involuntarily. He’s hard beneath me and the wanting is so sharp and sudden, it makes my head swim.
