His fingers are still wrapped firmly around my wrists, and he drops his chin to my knuckles, deep in thought. He searches my eyes tentatively, as if debating whether he should tell me, but all I can think about is how his mouth is accidentally pressed against my hand and how nice it would be if it were on purpose.
And then, with a heavy sigh, he leans back, closes his eyes, and says, “It was really cool how youGrand Theft Auto–ed my car.”
I jerk back from him with all the thrill of winning ten thousand lotteries.
“YES!” I shriek. “IKNEWit! I fucking knew it!”
The rush of triumph is intoxicating, maybe more so than the liquor, and it compels me to take his face in my hands and plant a silly little kiss on his bunched-up forehead before leaping to my feet for a victory lap.
He slumps in defeat against the bed, his arms resting limply on his folded knees, but glances up to watch me with a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.
I plop back down next to Grant and lift a hand to high-five him. He reciprocates, but we both miss and end up kind of half slapping each other’s forearms. The laughter is dizzying, the kind that throws me off-balance and makes the room not quite spin but pleasantly swivel a bit.
When I catch my breath and everything settles back to stillness, I realize my head is on Grant’s shoulder. I know it shouldn’t be, but I can’t seem to move. It’s so peaceful here, feeling him breathe in and breathe out. Then his head comes to rest gently on mine, and if it were an uphill battle to pull myself away before, now it’s Everest.
Five seconds, I decide. I’ll give myself five seconds to enjoy this.One … two … three … four … five.
… Six.
Seven.Why not.
When I finally lift my head and look at him, his face is so close to mine.
And then it’s even closer.
I realize I’m looking at his mouth, watching his lips part ever so slightly on an inhale. I tear my gaze away, up to his eyes, and maybe that’s worse. There’s something there that I can’t define but somehow know all too well.
We are dancing way too close to the edge of something here.
There they are, finally—those alarm bells I’m used to, cutting through the drunken mist like a foghorn. I scramble to my feet and grab two more tiny bottles from the dresser, tossing him one. “To Pat Benatar!” I exclaim, then restart the music.
By the time sleep beckons, everything is more or less a blurry haze. But as my thoughts slip away from me, taking winglike birds into the twilight, there are two that linger: Grant’s lips on my hands, and mine on his forehead. Two sort-of kisses that don’t quite add up to a whole one. And then all that’s left is a certainty:
We won’t get away withnot quites andsort ofs much longer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It’s a little before six when the room around me drifts back into focus. Rain has painted the window into a gray-blue watercolor landscape, and I watch it in a fuzzy half consciousness while nestled into the most heavenly tuft of bedding ever invented. My body knows only softness and the warm, solid weight at my back.
I turn over, my limbs and eyelids heavy, then go very still as I take in my surroundings.
Any semblance of the Great Wall of Pillows has been forgotten—redistributed as Drunk Pillow Fight ammunition last night, as I (barely) recall. And if this bed were still split into halves, Grant is decidedly on mine. He’s still asleep, his breath deep and quiet, his arm curled over my midsection. I’m vaguely aware that I shouldn’t allow this, but I’m too groggy and comfortable to move away.
I let myself smile in the privacy of the moment. This is by far the smoothest I have ever seen his face. Only the faint hint of a line between his eyebrows stands as proof that scrunched is his facial default. I reach up to trace it lightly with my finger.I like his face, I think somewhere in my unguarded mind.I like it so much.
My fingertip makes contact with his skin and he stirs, hishand briefly tightening against my back by reflex. I yank my hand away as if it’s been shocked, alertness surging in on far too much of a delay. He blinks the sleep from his eyes until his gaze falls like a warm blanket on me. I can’t move or breathe.
“Hey.” His voice is hoarse in that barely awake way.
“Hi.”
That little groove folds back into a proper furrow as he looks at me.
“Were you touching my face?”
“No,” I lie abruptly. Something like panic is building in me, recharging all the alarm centers in my brain. His arm is still draped over me. His body heat is warming me all over. And his face, once again, is too close to mine.
Memories of last night are flooding in now—dancing around the room together, collapsing on the floor, our knees touching as we sat side by side.Me. I’d go out with you.
