After a few hours, I limped back toward the cabin. The wind coming off the lake was brutal, but it felt right. I let it batter me, let it strip away everything but the ache.
Even from a hundred yards out, I could see the warm glow from the windows, Amelia’s silhouette moving through the kitchen.
She was bent over the stove, shoulders hunched, hair tucked behind one ear. I stood in the shadow outside, watching her scrape the bottom of a pan with a wooden spoon, lips pursed in concentration.
I pressed my fist to my mouth and waited for the heat in my chest to either die down or incinerate the rest of me.
I hated how much I needed her. I hated how I couldn’t even walk into a room without checking where she was, that every surface of my mind had her fingerprints pressed into it. I hated that she made me want to be better, when all I’d ever learned was how to be worse.
Inside, Dante was sprawled on the couch, eyes closed, hands folded over his stomach like he was sleeping off a hangover. He barely moved when I came in, just lifted one eyelid and grunted.
Amelia straightened, sensing me behind her. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her eyes tracking me as I went to the fridge for a beer.
I stood there with the bottle in my hand, not opening it, just using the cold to numb the tremor in my grip. I felt her come up behind me. Close but not touching. I could hear her breathing, high and tight.
I wanted to turn, to crush her against the fridge and kiss her until she forgot every bad thing I’d ever done, but I held still, waiting for her to make the next move.
“You’re bleeding,” she said softly. She reached and touched my cheekbone, her thumb gentle and tentative, like she was afraid I'd snap at the contact. I let her. The pad of her finger was warm, leaving a smear of something clean where it traced the line of blood just under my eye.
"Shit. Sorry," she said, and pulled her hand back, but I caught her wrist before she could step away.
"Don't," I said, holding her there, her pulse thrumming under my grip. I stared at her, willing her not to break eye contact, willing her to see that this was me trying. Not just to be better, but to let myself want her, to let myself be seen.
She swallowed, the line of her throat working as she held my gaze. Then, in a voice so soft it was barely even there, she said, "Let me clean it."
Amelia led me to the cramped bathroom, her fingers still caught in mine. She flicked the light on, the dim bulb haloing her in sickly yellow. The door shut behind us.
I sat on the edge of the tub while she rummaged in the medicine cabinet for a first-aid kit, her every movement deliberate, like she was afraid of making the wrong move and setting off a landmine.
She knelt in front of me, legs folded, the hem of her sweatshirt riding up to expose a crescent of pale skin at her waist. She dabbed the cut with a wad of cotton. I watched her face, the set of her jaw, the concentration in her brow.
"You don't have to," I started, but she cut me off.
"I want to," she said. Her hands were so delicate, like the gentleness of flower petals.
She pressed the gauze to my cheekbone, then leaned back to inspect her handiwork. Her face was inches from mine, eyes gone wide and star-bright, and I could feel her breath ghosting over my lips.
I tried to look away, to find some anchor in the peeling wallpaper or the rusted faucet, but her eyes wouldn’t let me go.
She reached up, fingers trembling just a little, and brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. “You don’t make it easy, you know,” she whispered, so close I could have counted the freckles on her nose.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, and before I could think better of it, I reached for her. My hand found the curve of her jaw, thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone.
For a second, she just stared at me, unreadable, like she was waiting for the punchline of a joke only I could tell.
I kissed her.
It wasn’t planned. Wasn’t even really a choice, more like an inevitability, a fuse burning down all day to this one, brief explosion.
Her lips were cold at first, then warming, opening beneath mine. She made a soft sound in her throat, halfway between surprise and relief, and then she was kissing me back, hands flying up to knot in my shirt, pulling me closer.
It was messy and a little desperate. She clung to me with a fierceness that almost scared me, almost, because I wanted it just as much, maybe more.
I was clumsy with need, mouth awkward and hungry, but she met me move for move, her fingers slipping into my hair, scratching hard at my scalp the way she must’ve always wanted to do.
My hands went to her waist. I wanted to say her name, but I was busy memorizing the way her lips fit against mine.
I sank down to the tile, pulling her with me, until she was on my lap while I sat against the tub.
