Page 18

EIGHTEEN

Ren woke, rousing from his blanket nest and yanking off his headphones, like he could sense my presence. He blinked, stifling a yawn before grinning. “Mal.”

I dropped down beside him. “So, what are we watching?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he said, getting up and heading for his closet. He kept talking as he pulled some jeans over his boxers and a flannel shirt over his tee, then donned his eternal hoodie. “There’s this historic theatre that looks really cool. They play classics and artsy shit. I’ve been wanting to go forever. I drive by it all the time. You know, like, dropping people off for date nights. They usually only play one or two movies a night, so we’ll see what it is.” He turned to me, biting his lip. “How does that sound?”

Back in the day, catching a movie meant my date and I weren’t really going to watch anything. But he couldn’t exactly take me to dinner instead.

“What are we waiting for?”

He got the door for me, even if I didn’t need it.

I tried not to think too hard about what the hell we were even doing. We took the subway uptown, so we wouldn’t have to worry about parking, but probably more because he could use the break from driving. There were too many other passengers around for us to talk, but that suited me fine.

Once we got off the train, we walked for a while, down a rain-slick street lined with young trees and glowing shops. Leaves hovered thick over our heads, like a party pavilion, while the moon swung like a lantern between the branches. From a distant coffee shop spilled the hum and trill of live jazz. I bet the air smelled sweet with wet green and rich coffee.

“How’s the weather?” I asked.

“Hmm?” he said, seemingly distracted, though I couldn’t tell by what.

“Never mind.”

His lips parted in protest, but before he could speak, we were split up by a passing couple. I barely moved through a chalkboard café sign in time to avoid picking up any emotional broadcast. By the time we’d let them move out of earshot, the moment had passed, and he didn’t bring it up again.

Across the street, as we approached, the theatre greeted us with old-fashioned rows of lightbulbs all around the matinee. Neither of us had heard of the French film displayed most prominently, but we agreed it might not have drawn too much of a crowd tonight.

He couldn’t pronounce the title at the ticket window. It made the pretty brunette behind the glass smile.

“All alone?” she asked.

“No,” he said, blinking in puzzlement, before shaking his head and saying, “Yes, maybe, I don’t know.”

She laughed. “I hope she shows up.”

It didn’t sound like she did. I should’ve tried giving him a nudge or something, but I didn’t think of it until after he took the tickets. The tips of their fingers brushed.

Such a tiny touch. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it in life. Now, my skin itched with heat. Not in a good way.

He gave a nearly surly “Thanks!”

As soon as we had some space to ourselves, he said, “She thinks I’m getting stood up tonight.”

“So she hopes.”

He gave a shrug of disbelief. “Why?”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing too hard. He shrugged harder at me for an explanation, but I didn’t want to tell him. I tried not to think about why my tight chest eased in relief.

Once again, he held the door open for me. Inside, there were too many people, lined up for snacks and browsing the posters and holding hands as they made their exit. I fell behind, trying to avoid touching any of them.

Ren waited as best he could without looking like it. He didn’t get the chance to hold the door for me again, swept up by the herd entering the theatre all at once. As I tried to keep up, the door shut through me.

The silver light from the screen fell on far too many filled seats. He met me in front of the stairs, eyes flicking between me and the illuminated faces. I brushed past him, leading the way up the stairs to sit in the last row. He sank down beside me. I held up my hands in defeat, and he nodded silently, lips tight, as commercials played out in light across his face.

We were surrounded. There were singles and groups and couples. Too many couples. Teenage, middle age, even some elderly couples, sitting with nothing to divide them, arms over shoulders, heads on chests. In front of us, a hand appeared and disappeared. Under long hair, over skin. Now you see it, now you don’t. Where did it go? Down a blouse, between legs?

Ren kept his hands in his lap, forced into fists. I clasped mine, leaning forward to trap them between my knees. Once the movie started rolling, we relaxed a little, but not all the way. There were a lot of romantic scenes.

Afterwards, we waited for the crowd to disperse before sneaking out through the emergency exit. We fell in step under the neon light outside. A breeze carried the lilt of a piano, probably the smell of popcorn as well. It whirled the dead leaves around our feet and tugged like a flirt at his hair and clothes. I shivered, though my clothes hung limp around me, my skin unpinched by cool air. Aside from my feet. Those were still chilled from dangling over the edge of the rooftop. I bent and touched them, like I could gather the cold and rub it over the rest of me.

“What are you doing?” asked Ren, with a laugh in his voice.

I stood, smoothing my hands over my arms. “How’s the weather?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t feel it. Please, tell me. How does it feel?”

He stared, dark eyes brimming, though I couldn’t tell with what, under his gently furrowed brow. His open mouth finally settled on the shadow of a smile.

“It’s cool. Just enough to bite, but kind of playful, you know, like in a Christmas carol. It smells like rain and leaves and popcorn. There’s a breeze that goes right through your clothes. You’d be freezing in that outfit. I’d have to give you my hoodie.”

My knees shook, as if I really were cold. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself. He laughed.

As we fell back in step, walking down the street, I froze at a sound from somewhere below us. I lifted my foot. We both looked down at the flattened leaf under my heel.

“Huh,” said Ren.

I gaped at him. He happened to be the closest thing I could touch. I tried grasping at the strings of his hoodie. Though I couldn’t feel them, they tightened. He stared down at my hands.

“You can touch?” he asked.

That cut off my laugh. Probably not. But we only had one way to find out.

I held up my hand. He did the same. We lined them up, slowly drawing closer, like we were about to try one of those old, old ballroom dances, before the waltz, back when people got married having only ever circled each other palm to palm.

“Bottoms up,” I said.

Our fingertips wisped together, overlapping in our respective planes. My whole body bloomed with sudden warmth. Those might’ve been his butterflies in my stomach. They sank all too soon, dead weight.

My hand tingled, but not from the thrill of skin on skin. There was no physical friction. His fingers hovered through mine, unable to hold.

“You feel anything?” I asked.

His voice rasped. “Yeah.”

“I mean, like—”

He shrugged, his warmth slowly receding in the wake of his doubt. It made me shiver. “Well, not physically. Just your presence, which feels good, in a strange way, but—”

“Not as good as a warm body.”

I wouldn’t get to find out whether his lips were as soft as they looked. If they tasted sweet.

We dropped our hands. He stuck his in his pockets, gnawing his lip. I brushed mine over my hair, my skirt, feeling myself in lieu of him.

“Well, shit,” he said.

“Never mind, I guess.”

He looked me up and down, taking in everything he’d be missing out on, before fixing on my face. His shoulders heaved with a deep inhale. “So, um, just to be clear…you’d only be down if we could actually smash?”

I cracked up, not expecting him to say it out loud. The longer I laughed, the hollower it felt.

“You know me,” I said. “Skin deep.”

That ought to have broken the way he stared at me. But it didn’t. He kept on gazing, taking me in the only way he could. I wanted to bury myself in the dark earth of those eyes. “I guess you’d be mad if I, like, fell in love with you?”

I choked on a weird noise, unable to keep it down. It might’ve passed for a scoff. So I grinned, playing as if I were still laughing, instead of tearing up.

“Fucking livid,” I said. “Don’t try any sappy shit.”

He held up his palms in surrender, smiling back. “I won’t.”

As we fell quiet, we couldn’t keep our mouths hitched up for long.

“This sucks,” he said.

I shook my head. “You’re better off. I would’ve ruined your life. Just like I did with mine.”

He had no business looking at me so warmly. “At least you would’ve done something interesting with it.”

“Go on and have some adventures for me.”

“I’ll try,” he said. “Is this it, then? You’d rather not hang, until…whenever you want to try again with Cris?”

If I couldn’t pull my usual one-nighter and had to spend actual time with him, I didn’t know what would happen. We’d been stupid to try reaching my sister so soon, ambushing her when she’d barely even begun processing my death. We needed to wait until the wound wasn’t so fresh, at least another month or so. If I could last that long on this side.

That would be way too much quality time together. No guarantee that it wouldn’t get sappy.

But I couldn’t put all that into words. So I just said, “Nah.”

At least that got a laugh, if a broken one.

I never usually stuck around to say goodbye. Most of my dates ended with sneaking out in the morning. For once, I didn’t want to leave, even if we were only dragging out the unfairness of the whole shitty situation.

I gave him my best effort. “Thanks for this.”

“Anytime,” he said. “I wanted you to have some fun, after what’s happened to you. You deserve better.”

I stared into his eyes, but they didn’t mirror any of my usual tricks back at me. Those depths turned up nothing but sheer earnestness. “You really think so?”

He nodded, his voice dropping nearly to a whisper. “I’m glad we met.”

At least it had happened, if a little too late.

Slowly and carefully, so I could move away if I wanted, he dipped his head down. I gasped as his lips alighted on mine. Though our mouths could only graze through each other, unable to taste, explore deeper, the warmth of his longing burned hot. It seared like thawing from numbing cold, tingling with the best kind of pain.

When he pulled away, I still ached with hunger.

His voice rasped breathless. “See you around?”

Unfortunately. I could only nod in response.

He took a few backward steps, still looking at me, before finally turning to leave. I watched him go, wondering if it was still his regret tightening my chest, or my own.

We really shouldn’t have done that.