“I don’t care.” His hand holds my face, brushing away tears with the backs of his fingers. “Your hand?—”
“Don’t care,” I say quickly, and his laugh makes my heart stutter.
He pulls me against his chest, resting his chin on the top of my head.“DJ told me what you did. She said you climbed out of the dumpster.”
“It was a small dumpster,” I say.
“You saved us,” he mumbles against my hair.
“You’re the one who saved us,” I say, pulling away so I can look him in the face. “I’m so sorry. I know what I asked you to do—what we did—I thought it was the only way out, and I knowhow hard that must have been for you, and you were protecting me the whole time, and I’m so?—”
“Eden.” He brushes my hair out of my face. “Stop.”
I can’t stop. “I made you?—”
“You didn’t make me do anything,” he says. “It was our way out. You were right. There’s no way of knowing what he would’ve done to you if you’d killed me. Probably would have been so mad he’d have killed you, too.”
He kisses my forehead, then my cheek, then catches the corner of my eye with his lips. Every touch feels like he’s trying to absorb my pain through his skin.
“You were so convincing…” He closes his eyes, and when he speaks again, I can barely hear him. “I was so scared I killed you.”
“I was so scared you were dead.”
His mouth curves into that big smile that I’ve only seen a handful of times, the one that makes him look young and unguarded and so beautiful. “I told you. I’m not easy to kill.”
“Obviously,” I say, wiping my tears with the heel of my hand.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he whispers. “In the hospital. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was you. I was scared I’d never get to see you again.”
Another ugly sob escapes me. I was so convinced that I’d used up all my luck surviving Stanley Daniels, then Caine, then Morrow, that there was no way the universe would let me keep him, too.
His fingers thread through my hair with this possessive gentleness that makes my stomach flip. Our noses brush.
“I wanted to do this for real,” he says. “I haven’t been able to think of anything else.”
He kisses me.
It’s messy and salty from our tears. His mouth is warm and gentle and searching against mine, nothing like the desperationfrom the Game Master’s playing area, and I kiss him back fervently, pouring every word I want to say into the press of our lips.
He pulls me closer, which shouldn’t be possible since we’re already plastered together, but somehow he manages it. We break apart for half a second to breathe, and then we’re crashing back together like we can’t stand to be separated for even that long. I can feel him grinning, feel his smooth teeth against my lips.
A throat clears.
We break apart and look up to see the rest of the team watching us from down the hallway. Zoey’s got her hands shoved deep in her pockets. Benji studies the ceiling. Griffin is leaning against the wall with the biggest smirk I’ve ever seen on his face.
“Get your asses back in those chairs,” DJ says, hurrying toward us. “You two are going to hurt yourselves.”
Nico looks like he wants to argue, but he lets DJ steady him as he pulls himself back up into his wheelchair with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. Griffin moves to lift me. Nico shoots him a glare.
Griffin holds his hands up. “Oh my God,fine, relax. I will never touch her again.” He grins. “If I find her out of her chair in the middle of the night, flat on her face in the kitchen in front of the open refrigerator, I promise, I will step over her.”
“Griffin,” Nico warns.
“Uh oh.” Griffin looks at me. “He used his team leader voice. I’m going to get in trouble.”
I snort a laugh.
“I’ll show you my team leader voice,” Nico says, smiling too.
