Frustration tastes like ash in my mouth, and I want to spit it out on her desk. I’m prepared to revolt and eat both of her cake pops when Wilder sits on the edge of the desk in front of me. He unbuttons his jacket and slides his hands into his pockets, crossing one foot over the other. His slacks rise up to expose a knife strapped to his ankle, and I think it might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
“I heard your birthday is coming up.” His smile pours warmth into my cup until it runs over. “How old are you going to be?”
“Twenty-one,” I say, mesmerized by everything about him. From the perfect curve of his ears to the dips that appear out of nowhere when his lips turn up, and the freckles dotted across his cheekbones like a secret, only visible when he lets me this close.
He whistles and rocks back, exaggerating his surprise. Like he didn’t already know exactly how old I am. “You’re a baby.”
“You’re only nine years older than me.”
“Nine years wiser.”
“Nine extra years to prepare for my arrival,” I say, meeting his gray stare. This isn’t what friends do. Friends don’t flirt and blush and daydream about doing indecent things on Lydia’s desk. Friends don’t share looks full of words we’re not ready to say, and friends don’t look away before the tension bursts out of them like a nuclear truth bomb.
But I never had interest in only being Wilder’s friend.
Because I’m wicked, just like Daddy said.
“What do you want for your birthday, Camilla?”
“From you?”
He nods, and I don’t have to think about it. It’s the only thing on my list.
“I want you to kiss me.”
His eyes fall to my mouth, and he inhales a large breath. “I can buy you anything in the world, and that’s what you want?”
“That’s the only thing I need.”
What can go wrong?
Lydia has invited me on her runs before, but I always picked excuses out of thin air as to why I couldn’t partake.
“No, sorry. I need to wash my hair.”
“Can’t. I don’t have any clean socks.”
“Not today, Lydia. I pulled a muscle wearing those ridiculous heels you like so much.”
When she asks me again this evening to join her, I have just settled in front of the television with a shareable pack of M&M’s I have no one to share with, intending to rot my teeth and my mind until I’m ready to call it a night. Not only am I fresh out of excuses to not participate, but I’m determined to insert myself into every aspect of her life as much as possible. So, I lace up my running shoes and tie my hair back.
She watches me speculatively as we stretch on the sidewalk outside our apartment building, bending our left leg forward while our right leg remains straight, then switching. I feel good, confident, and I agree to hold Dog’s leash because he’ll give me an excuse to slow down if at any point I get tired.
Dog was a marathon runner in a previous life because he doesn’t tire in the least. His little legs only get faster the farther from home we run. If I dropped dead from exhaustion, he’d drag my dead body and keep going.
Lydia checks her pulse, counting the beats per minute on her wristwatch. I must’ve dropped my heart on the street a half-mile back. There’s nothing inside of my chest but tightness and pain—no heartbeat, no air, nothing.
“Are you okay?” Lydia slows her pace to jog beside me. “Want me to take the dog off your hands?”
She hasn’t even broken a sweat, but it pools between my breasts and dampens the back of my shirt. My side split in half when I dropped my heart, and I definitely didn’t stretch well enough. My calf muscles are hard as rocks, and my knees might give out.
“I’m…” I force out between clenched teeth. “Good. Thanks.”
My hair falls free from the tie, and I don’t dare stop to pick it up. Once the momentum in this stride is gone, I won’t get it back. My long tresses stick to the perspiration around my face and tucks under my arms, growing more tangled as it bounces with every stomp forward.
Time abandons me.
It feels like we’ve been running for hours, when in reality, mere minutes have passed.
