Someone help me, please, because this guy makes me want to learn hymns but only recite them if I’m moaning and I think that might be sacrilege, but I’m okay with damnation if he’s the reason, I just want to know for sure which way is up.
Hex’s hold stiffens on my arm as we reach the gate. “All right. Don’t let go.”
“Never,” I say instantly, maybe too forcefully.
Iris and Kris are out there, Kris staying within a few feet of Iris as she takes small strides, but even with her unsteadiness, it looks natural, and I can see Hex’s brow set in study.
“You’ll learn better trying it,” I whisper. But I’m starting to understand him more. Why he’s so controlled, so contained. He’s living up to not only his position in Halloween, but his sister’s memory.
His jaw sharpens. “You won’t let me fall.” It’s not a question.
“I promise.” I adjust my hold on him, because if I’m only grabbing onto his arm, then, yeah, he’s going to go shooting out of my grip the moment we hit the ice. So I prop my arm around his hips,which pulls him into me, and I keep my other hand in a tight pinch on his upper arm.
This was a huge mistake.
What was the word Kris used?Colossal.
Because with Hex in my arms, and all these cameras going off, there is no way, noway,that anyone looking won’t see how I feel about him.
Nothing about the way I’m holding him must be off-putting to him, because he nods. “Let’s do this.”
And I don’t care at all what anyone else might think.
I’m going to skate with this guy, and in this moment, I’m going to pretend we’re a normal couple doing a normal Christmas activity because I know that simplicity is something I will never get. This is as close as we’ll ever be.
I work us to the gate and step out onto the ice first. Hex takes a breath and follows.
“Glide one foot forward,” I say, demonstrating as much as I can without letting him go.
His cheeks are reddening, half cold, half concentration. He moves his legs, increment by increment, and I cling him to me so tightly that soon we’re moving solely because of me, legs wound and arms like vises as I guide him around the rink. I’m going to be sore as hell tomorrow, but it’s worth it, in the way I can feel him leaning into me, the startled huff of a laugh as he realizes we’ve completed one full lap.
The song changes.
To Michael Bublé’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
I bring all this upon myself, I know I do, but Christmas must hate me, because I did not ask to have this perfect guy in my arms while what has to be the most romantic Christmas song of all time blares around us.
A squealing giggle blissfully drags my attention up, and I see Iris grinning wide as Kris spins her in a circle, like they’re dancing on the ice. He’s smiling too, and when she teeters, he catches her, but she’s laughing, and my heart nearly bursts.
“They’re cute,” Hex says.
I look down at him. “I wish she’d—”
Holy hell, he’sso closeto me.
His face tips up, and there’s a disassociating second where the whole breadth of our kiss in the library plays across the refracting light in his eyes to the point where the collision of his gaze on my skin feels tactile. He looks from my temple, to my cheek, to my lips, and each touch of that focus leaves a spark of fizzing awareness as Michael Bublé croons about wanting you here tonight, holding on to me so tight.
We coast to a stop.
“Coal,” he says like he’s begging for something. I think—hope—for one red-hot second that he’ll ask me to kiss him, and I would, right here, in front of everyone, and take whatever damage comes from that impact.
But then the yearning in his eyes changes, tenses. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Stop—” I echo the first word, and it rips me out of the spell.
We’ve been standing here, staring at each other, for long enough that it’s obvious what we’re thinking.
Before any sense of flagellating horror can get a chance to stab into me, Dad skids to a stop in front of us.
