Page 29 of What You left in Me

I slide into the passenger seat, the cut of my velvet dress parting at the thigh and exposing my skin to frigid leather. My hands shake so hard I fumble the buckle twice before it finally clicks into place.

Fortunately, Finn doesn’t reach over to try to help. He just stares through the windshield, one hand on the wheel and the opposite elbow propped up in the window.

We pull onto the empty road. Willowridge is the farthest thing from a city that never sleeps; it rolls its sidewalks up by ten and pretends nothing bad happens after. The radio is playing some classical station, violins threading through static like threads through a torn cuff. The dashboard throws a pale blue glow across his face, defining the planes and contours of his features, accentuating the slant of his cheekbones and the small white scar at his throat I’ve always wondered about.

For a long minute, it’s only road and breath and the soft hiss of the heater. The silence feels like a strain on my chest, like I forgot how to talk. When I finally find some words, they come out sounding trite: “Thank you,” I manage, clearing my throat. “For… all of it.”

All Finn gives me a wordless grunt. I watch his grip tighten around the wheel, the veins and tendons in his hand protruding in a map of restraint. I should let it go and look away, but I can’t. He’s magnetic. The open collar of his tuxedo shirt flashes his collarbones. His jacket hangs open, hinged on those broad shoulders, pure muscle cloaked in luxurious fabric. He looks like a man built to carry burden and resenting the yoke on his back anyway.

For the first time since he blew back into this town, he doesn’t look invincible.

He looks… God, I hate to put it this way, but—human. He looks so, so human.

I startle when he says, without turning his head and out of the blue, “You keep doing that.”

“Doing what?” I ask, sounding guilty even to my own ears.

“Staring.”

“I’m not…” I start, and then I am, and I huff out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “Okay, maybe I am. You just… you look different tonight.”

“That bad?”

“No,” I deny quickly, too quickly. The truth slides out before I can dress it up. “Like you’re carrying more than usual. And somehow still standing.”

He doesn’t answer.

The car eats the road in smooth swallows. The classical station fades in and out, strings sawing something mournful that feels too on the nose.

We pass the turn for Elm Street. Then, Morrow.

We should be ten minutes from the estate, and I should be thinking about bed, about brushing my teeth and setting an alarm and waking at dawn to go back to the hospital.

I should be texting Julian.Thank you for staying with my mom. You’re wonderful.

I should be listing to myself all the reasons I am good and sensible and safe.

Instead, all I can hear is my own voice saying the next sentence before I decide to say it.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

The confession hangs between us, tender and blasphemous. The wheel shifts under Finn’s hand. We pass the next turn, and then, without signaling or even bothering to ask, he eases onto a darker stretch of road, with trees leaning in, a ditch that eats noise, without any houses or witnesses. He pulls onto the shoulder and kills the headlights. The world folds inward.

We sit in the dark with only the radio whispering. I can hear my heartbeat where the seatbelt crosses my ribs.

“Ariane,” he says finally, and my name in his mouth is a warning, a prayer, a dare. “This is a bad idea.”

“I know,” I agree, breathless.

He turns towards me. The blue dash light balances under his eyes and makes them colder. We look at each other. The car is suddenly too small for the two of us. Every stupid, careful thing we’ve been trying not to be exists in the space between our mouths.

He doesn’t lean in first.I do.

I don’t decide. My body just moves, like a bird that forgot it swore it would not fly. I unclip my belt, the tiny metallicsnicktoo loud, and twist toward him, knee catching the console, hem sliding higher up my thigh. One hand fists in the front of his shirt, dragging him to me. The other catches in hair that’s softer than I expected. His breath floods my mouth, and I taste mint and the heat he’s eternally effusing. It singes the paltry remnants of my willpower.

We collide.

My mouth opens with a sound impossible to swallow. He meets me like he’s been starving, and someone finally took the lock off the kitchen. Teeth bump, tongues slide, and my spinelights up like someone struck a match along its notches. He grips the back of my head, gathering my hair into his fist, angling me where he wants me—and I let him, I let him have whatever he wants to take, becausethinkinghas left the chat.