Page 33 of Under Locke & Key

Rachel’s hand traces up and down my spine, just on the edge of tickling, and I focus on that. On her quiet shushes and sweet tone. I don’t make out the words but this is probably what a wild animal feels like when someone is trying to coax it out into the open.

“We’re going to be fine. We’ll get out of here, I promise.”

I latch onto that, working to slow my breathing to something other than gasps and eventually things calm. My face is wet with tears when I lean back, my head against the wall behind me, and I wipe them away with my forearm.

Little catches betray me, but her hand is on my knee, stroking her thumb back and forth and I am grateful she’s here.

“Rachel,” I croak. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for? If anything it’s me that needs to apologize. If I hadn’t called you over for help, if I’d warned you about the paint can this wouldn’t have happened. If I hadn’t tugged on the handle too hard . . .” she says, her voice glum. “This is my fault.”

I cover her hand on my knee with my own and she gives a big sigh.

“We need a plan but first I have to make sure you’re okay,” she says, concern laced through every word.

“I’m fine. Or at the very least, I will be. This used to happen way more when I was younger. I’ve found coping skills and stuff to help but yeah. Dark plus small space equals claustrophobia and panic. I never did get the hang of escape art the way I did the other aspects of magic.”

“Is the coping skill to avoid small, dark spaces?” There’s a hint of teasing in her voice and I lo—adore her for it. Distraction is a great way out of a heightened state.

“Pretty much. Am I that obvious?” My chuckle is as dry as my throat and I wish we had some water in here.

“Not obvious, but I’ve been around you for a while now. Long enough to learn some of your tells and tendencies.”

“Oh yeah? Care to share?”

It’s intimate in here. Coming back to myself she’s sitting in front of me, her back against the door but her hand is on me and our bodies are so close it wouldn’t take much to touch her.

“You overthink a lot. There are these moments where I can see your mind whirring as if you’re constructing what you’re going to say word for word before it comes out.

You doubt yourself and I don’t know if it’s innate or learned from somewhere, because your parents seem to think you are the best thing to walk the earth. ”

Emotion sits heavy on my throat, not dissimilar to panic, and I’m not sure I’m ready to be stripped bare like this. But she keeps going, peeling me away like she’s the paint stripper and I’m being exposed for the first time in thirty years.

“You care deeply about the people in your life, just from the way you talk about them and seeing you with your friends. You’re courteous and considerate, sometimes to the point that I worry it’s at your own expense.”

She takes a deep breath before she dives into the next statement and I brace for impact.

“Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to make you smile so big the corners of your eyes crinkle. I’ve come close. When we first met, that was my first thought, that you looked like you’d forgotten how to smile and how badly I wanted to be the one to make you do it.”

Her nervous huff of a chuckle slips between us and I know she intended it as a way to release the pressure between us, but it’s done nothing to quell the feelings rising within me.

“God, it’s so hot in here. I’m not . . .

I might have to shed a layer because it’s getting a bit unbearable in here.

” She’s rambling and she tugs her top over her head, exposing the tank top she’s wearing as an undershirt.

It clings to her, a bead of sweat highlighted by the flashlight, meandering down her neck and between her—no.

I cannot think of that right now. We’re stuck in here and I need to get my shit together.

“Distract me, please? I don’t do well with heat. Hopefully something breaks it soon.” Her hand returns to my leg and the first day of scouting locations comes to mind, when I divulged my fear and she reciprocated.

I find my own voice, wanting to be seen by her but wanting to escape too. If I’m talking about her then she’ll stop talking about me.

“I hated how beautiful you were. It hit me in the stomach when you walked through that coffee shop door and I wasn’t prepared for it.

That whole first meeting I kept trying to find ways to focus and not screw it up so that you’d stay,” I say.

She says nothing for a moment so I fill the silence. “You’ve got your own quirks, too.”

“Oh, been studying me?” Her voice is kind of breathless and I love that I’ve affected her even a little.

“I study everyone. It makes it easier to know what response they’ll be expecting from me and how to convey myself correctly. So yes, in a way.”

I slip her hand from my knee, twining our fingers together so I’m holding it.

“You push yourself, likely because you feel the need to prove your worth through what you can produce or show externally. You have a carefully constructed image, professional but friendly. I’ve never seen you ruffled even though I know for a fact this has to have been hard for you,” I say.

Her fingers tighten around mine and if I don’t get this out now I won’t have the courage again. Something about being in the cocoon with her . . .

“No one has seen all the sides to you. ángel probably most but not all. As if you’re keeping some things just for you, protecting those parts and yourself.

I know you want to make your parents proud and prove you belong, as if you’ve never really felt comfortable anywhere you couldn’t show yourself useful. ”

Lifting her hand in mine, I plant a kiss on the back of it.

“I don’t want that from you. There’s nothing to earn with me.

You see me as a person, not a faceless name on the payroll, not a trophy or doll to move around within your life to your satisfaction.

These past couple months with you have brought me so much light and I can only hope that I’ve given you even a fraction of that.

” My throat tightens as I speak, the confession getting dangerously close to being too open.

“You’ve given me peace,” Rachel responds before I can spiral.

“Safety. I know it sounds stupid and I know no one wants to hear that they’re solid or safe but that’s something I’ve always had to be for others and I’ve never been able to just breathe .

When the burden of keeping everyone around you happy falls on you, there’s no time to fall apart. With you, I feel like I could.”

Stephanie’s words from months ago spring to the surface, weaker now, less hurtful.

She called me a dining room table, spitting my attempt to be dependable and stable back into my face.

Hearing that Rachel appreciates something Stephanie made out to be a failing fills me with something I’m not ready to examine too closely.

“I hope that makes sense. Being in Dulaney, being with you, doing this”—she gestures at the general area around us and I know she means what we’re building—“It’s made me feel like myself for the first time.

You’re right about me not knowing where I belong, trying to be the ‘right’ version of myself so that I might—for the first time in months the need to present, to perform , isn’t there. ”

Her big brown eyes are shimmering with unshed tears and she worries her bottom lip between her teeth when she’s done talking.

“I don’t know where this is going, or if you think you might want to stick around Dulaney once we’ve got the business going, but if you did . . . if you stay, I’d be here to catch you if you fall. Think about it.” I smirk, hoping she picks up on the second meaning there.

I don’t want her to fall apart, and I’m careful to phrase it that way.

“Is that a dig at my potentially risky behavior and balance issues? Because if so, that’s not very nice.” She sticks out her tongue but there’s no heat behind her words.

“Catching you that day . . .” I take a breath, amping myself up to go for this, to lean into the flirting. “Nice wasn’t exactly on my mind with you in my arms.”

Her eyes dart from mine down to my lips and it’s ridiculous how desire can make me go from panicked to desperate in a wholly different way mere minutes later.

“Care to share?” It’s cheeky but breathless, her words giving her away and letting me know she’s just as on edge about it as I am.

Coming off of my panic attack, the adrenaline still clinging on slightly, or perhaps that’s just my latent fear needing to be redirected, I take another risk. Leaning toward her, my hand cupping her jaw as I approach, I wait for her to stop me.

She doesn’t and our lips meet. Not as tentative as it should be.

Something about Rachel tips me over from sane and level-headed into something different—a stranger in my own skin.

Want and fear twist in my stomach, both begging to be freed, clawing up my chest. As much as I ache for her, this broom closet is not the time nor place.

“Let’s get out of here and I’ll show you.” I barely recognize my own voice, the intent behind my words, a gravel I’ve never used on anyone.

“Challenge accepted.” Rachel’s grin is wicked, that dimple cutting into her cheek and I’ll never tire of seeing it, knowing I had a part in it being shown off.

We rise to our feet, her body brushing against mine and it’s torture, knowing I can’t indulge right now no matter how much I want to.

Not while my anxiety is barely contained and Rachel’s fanning herself because the heat is getting to her.

I’m not far behind. Stuck in this little closet, no air, on the hottest day of the summer so far is a sure recipe for disaster.

If we don’t get water soon we’ll overheat and dehydrate.

“We can’t shove it open. The handle is useless. What other options can you think of?” I muse aloud and Rachel barks out a laugh.

“What’s so funny? We’re stuck.”