Page 62 of Revel
He coughs and drops his hands to his side, burying them in the pockets of his jeans. “Yeah, right.”
We walk up the street, silence filling the awkwardness that follows.
“It’s not you,” he mumbles under a passing street light. Burnt orange dances across his cheekbones.
“What is it?”
He stops and faces me, his jaw tight. “I don’t think I even know, just that if I’m alone with you, I won’t stop myself.”
Sighing in relief, I can’t help my smile. “Is this the part where you tell me I’m different?” I’m teasing, but then again, maybe I’m not. Maybe this is my way of asking if I mean anything at all to him.
He surprises me when he begins walking again, our shoulders brushing. Reaching in his pocket, he pulls out a cigarette, lights it, then draws in a breath. “This is the part you realize you’re a secret sin,” he whispers, smoke rising over his head as he steps into the shadows of the dark street.
Be still, heart. He’s so much trouble.
GIVE ME YOUR HAND
REVEL
Temptation is a silent plea whispered by the devil.
That’s what Oma used to tell me.
I used to give in every single time.
Used to. . .untilher. You don’t know what temptation is like until you’re trying to resist a woman like Red. That temptation, it’s fucking lethal.
A deadly sin.
I envy every man who has ever touched her, and want to murder them just the same. I want her so fucking badly. She gives me hope to the chaos. A silence to the uneasy. And the only thing stopping me?
Her. No one who touches her goes unpunished.
“I’ve been to France more times than I care to admit,” Red tells me, picking all the yellow Skittles out of the package in her hand. “But I’ve never once seen the Eiffel Tower up close. Isn’t that like,so sad?”
“You should go sometime.” She hands me the package. I eat all the red ones just to piss her off.
She stares at me and then bursts out laughing. “You ate me!”
Yeah, I fucking wish.
I think about her words. She’s never seen the Eiffel Tower. Girl like her, worshiped by so many, yet prisoner to her fame. I can relate to her more than she understands. I’ve been all over the world and remember very little about the places I’ve been. My memories since I was seventeen, were seen through tour buses and hotel windows. The stadiums and arenas, I sometimes, not usually, remember the smallest details about them. Like I fell off the stage at the Key Arena once, or that at a concert in Brazil, I smacked my head on a drum riser and it bled for most of the show only to find out I needed two staples and managed to get some kind of blood infection. Or when we were somewhere in Australia, and I got in a fight with some dude on stage all without missing the chorus.
Being on stage, it pumps so much adrenaline through you that you feel like a god. It gives you a false sense of security you will never find in the shadows. With Red, I don’t feel like a god. I feel like myself for the first time, and the scary part? I don’t know who I am.
Red props her feet up, smiling up at me. “Tell me something no one knows about you.” We’re sitting side by side on a rooftop building I convinced her to climb with me, high above the city lights of Los Angeles. I’m not drinking. I’m not smoking. I’m listening to her talk, and thankfully, with no ecstasy in her blood, she’s less random.
“Ah, the great mystery of the world.” I laugh, shaking my head.
Her eyes narrow and she points her finger in my face. “I’m serious.” She turns her head and the soft glow of the street lights catch her eyes. They’re the color of deep sea-green shimmering under sunlight. “I want to know something I can’t read about, and nobody else knows.”
“When you’re in a glass box, it’s hard to have secrets.”
“Fair enough. Then tell me something barely anyone knows.”
“I. . . can beatbox,” I tell her.
She sits up, facing me, curiosity sparking life to her already bright eyes. “For real?”
