He might not remember. Those exact words. Look up. And you’ll know.
She did. She could never have imagined she could wish he would glare at her—the way he had in the beginning. But she did. Anything would have been better than the cold look she saw now.
Afterward, she would wonder how she managed to hold the fork in her hand, bring it to her mouth, chew, and swallow the food on her plate. She must have done these things because no one acted as though anything out of the ordinary had happened. No one else had felt that seismic shift of the tectonic plates and saw the earth open up, her feet balanced on the edge, toes hanging over. It wouldn’t take much, and she would fall. Time enough would do it. And time was inevitable and relentless. It could not. Would not. Be stopped.
She watched Mickey follow the family out onto the porch and Rocco turn down the hallway that led to the bedrooms. She knew it wouldn’t be long now.
She entered his old bedroom, the room she was sleeping in. Suddenly, a hand on her wrist swung her around, the door slammed shut, and she was face-to-face with Rocco.
He took a step toward her. She stumbled backward, and he grabbed her arms, pinning her against the wall.
“Now, I want you to do that to me.”
Nico shook her head. “I don’t— What do you mean? Do what?”
“Put my back up against the wall.”
“What?”
“Just do it!”
“Why?”
“I’ll do it then!”
He swung her and himself around, only stopping when it was his back that was flush with the wall. She stared down at his hands. It was the first time his touch hurt.
“Now bring your lips to rest lightly on mine and say my name.”
She struggled to pull away but his hold was too strong. He pulled her to him. Her lips on his.
“Now say my name,” he murmured.
Nico swallowed. Her throat was tight. “No,” she croaked.
He shook her. “Do it! Damn it! Say. My. Name.”
“Rocco,” she whispered.
His hands softened, opening like the velvet petals of a flower. They no longer gripped her, but they still held her, and she made no attempt to free herself from them.
“Now kiss me,” he whispered. “Kiss me like it’s the last time your lips will touch mine. Kiss me like you want to burn that kiss in my memory, so that even if I wanted to forget, I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried.”
The words were more than sound. She felt them on her flesh, on her lips. She felt them enter her, like it was him entering her.
Nico shook her head but suddenly stopped when she felt the tears welling up in her eyes. She did not want them to break free.
“Do it!”
“No, I won’t. Rocco, let go of me.”
He pulled her to him, parted her lips with his own.
His hot breath blazed through her like a brush fire, scorching every square inch of her flesh.
She told herself to pull away, push him away. But she held on, as though he were the only thing that would keep her from falling. She felt herself dissolving in his warm embrace. That liquification of anything that was solid in her. And she didn’t care. She would gladly be a puddle at his feet, even if in the end he did nothing more than step in that puddle and walk away. If only he would not look at her with that cold stare.
“Now,” he growled, his lips still on hers, “bite my lip.”
