“Wait.” I flare my hands. “You thought I knew who you were at the bar and that I was trying to, what, make you a feather in my cap?” Which probably got cemented when I never contacted him or reached out afterwards.
He shrugs, and I’m temporarily derailed by what should be a small, mundane movement. His shoulders are thin, bony, as sharp as his eyebrows and that cutting look in his gaze, everything abouthim is filed to a knifepoint and I suddenly want nothing more than for him to make me bleed.
I shake my head. Squish my eyes closed. Maybe if I talk to him with my eyes shut, it’ll make this easier? Creepier, but easier.
“How else was I meant to interpret your intentions?” he asks.
My eyes open reluctantly and I grunt. “What the fuck part of our conversation came across as mepicking you up? Is that how mating dances normally go in Halloween—one person is blackout drunk and word-vomits nonsensically over the other?”
Hex’s unamused stare flickers ever so slightly. I think he’d chuckle if he wasn’t so set on being offended by my continued existence.
I press on anyway. “And that doesn’t explain why you were at that bar or what you got out of that interaction, because—” All my racing thoughts crash to a halt and I almost bounce up and down at a realization. “Becauseyoucame aftermeout into that alley.Ididn’t pursueyou.”
For a beat, Hex’s façade cracks, and I see all the emotions he’s been suppressing this evening—uncertainty, wariness, a caravan of things that slams the brakes on any desire of mine to come out of this conversation with some kind of moral victory. This isn’t a game, and whatever we had wasn’t some frivolous bar hookup because neither of our positions allows for any of this to be simple.
His attention slips past me and catches on his parents, across the room in the crowd. They hit him with a very obvious look ofNeed us to intervene?
I don’t relax until he shakes his head at them.
Okay. He’s not trying to escape. That’s good, right?
“I did follow you into that alley.” He shrugs again, arms folding over his chest. “The tabloids made no secret of your preference for that bar, and I was in the area. I was… let’s saycuriousto see what kind of person you were.”
“What?” I shake my head again, hoping it’ll jostle sense into everything. “Why?”
Hex’s face falls in the smallest, thebarestflicker of something directed inward—shame, maybe? He runs his thumb across his bottom lip, wiping it away.
My focus whittles to that contact. His thumb on his lip. He has a ring on that finger, a silver skull, and before I can realize what a presumptuous thing it is to do, my gaze stays on his mouth.
It is utterly selfish, the relief I feel at knowing I didn’t imagine how full his lips are. But the dark light of the alley hid the color, a roseate flush I see clearly now, and I’m overwhelmed by the taste-memory of him, the feel of those soft lips moving under mine.
My mouth waters, stomach tightening.
What am I doing.
I pop my gaze back up, braced for his offended fury.
But Hex’s eyes snag on mine, widen slightly, and he doesn’t call me on very obviously ogling him. He doesn’t scoff or put space between us or do anything at all to imply that my attention was unwanted.
The faintest hue of pink blooms on his cheeks. Two perfect circles against his pale skin.
It could be from the heat in here, from the exertion of the night.
My swallow abrades my throat, sand and beaten stones.
“Why what?” he asks, a quick feather of breath across my face.
“Why were you curious about what kind of person I was?” I repeat the question.
A question he’d forgotten.
While blushing.
I grip my hands into fists so hard one of my thumbs cracks.
Hex looks away, gathers himself, and when he meets my eyes again, he holds, waiting. When I nod, prodding him along, he cocks his head.
He’d thought I would say something. Something Ididn’tsay, and the way he’s looking at me now is all shock. “Why wouldn’t I be interested in what the Christmas Prince is like?” is all he finally says, a bit mockingly.
