Kate searches my gaze, her eyes dancing between mine. Sticks break under feet. Voices grow closer.
“Hold that thought,” she whispers. Then she plants one last, long kiss to my lips and leaps like a cat from my arms, scoops up a paintball, and launches it toward her sister as Bea steps into view.
“Paintball fight!”
? TWENTY-FIVE ?
Kate
It’s the longest train ride of my life.
Christopher sits beside me, staring straight ahead, his thigh pressing into mine, hard, insistent. Those kisses on the paintball field play on a loop in my brain, and a flush creeps up my throat, flooding my cheeks.
Our eyes meet in the reflection of the train’s glass across from us.
His eyes pin mine, sharp, hungry. My eyes say the same thing—
Want, want, want.
Peripherally I’m aware of the group’s conversation, Toni and Sula dramatically replaying the highlights, Bea cackling with joy about defeating the bros in black.
All I can focus on is the sound of my breath sawing from my lungs. The heat pouring off Christopher. Every point of contact between my body and his.
My thighs squeeze together.
Christopher’s reflection smirks knowingly.
Never one to turn down the chance to retaliate, I lift my arms over my head, acting like I’m stretching out my shoulder, putting on full display the diamond bits that are my nipples poking into my sweater.
His smirk dies away. I watch his grip curl around the edge of his seat, until his knuckles are white. There’s still a splatter of green paint on his hand, flecks of yellow and blue clinging to his wrists, his neck, his hair, that make me flash back to just an hour ago at Peace, Love, and Paintball.
I see him as he looked then, turning right as I crept up on him and splattered a yellow paintball over his head, the grin on his face as he crushed one in his hand, then wiped it down the side of my face, making me scream with delight.
The train slows to a stop and we all ease out of our seats gingerly, walking slowly, sore as shit. Everything hurts.
The group leads the way, while Christopher and I fall behind them. I feel his hand settle low on my back, warm, comforting, torturously good.
He slants a glance my way, his eyes meeting mine, before they dance down to my mouth. The pressure on my back increases.
He wants me. And I want him.
I want his hands and mouth, I want more of those kisses that made my skin spark and dance like a live wire, arcing, lit up with relief as I grounded myself—my mouth to his mouth, my hands on him, his hands on me, welcoming the energy thrumming through us.
Up on the sidewalk, everyone pairs off and hugs goodbye, shivering against the cold. I participate in the ritual, barely paying attention, hardly knowing what I say.
And then it’s just the four of us on the sidewalk, Bea curled into Jamie for warmth, Christopher shoulder to shoulder beside me, giving me his heat.
A car whooshes by, pounding bass, a raw ache rattling the air like an echo of what’s inside me.
“Well, my lady.” Jamie wraps an arm tighter around Bea’s shoulders, smiling down at her. “May I escort you home?”
“My dear sir, how about I escort you home?” Bea says as she grins up at him.
“I won’t say no to that. There’s a cab,” Jamie says, waving it down. “You two coming?”
I shake my head. “I want to walk.”
Christopher says, “I’ll walk her home.”
Jamie and Christopher seem to exchange some kind of look I can’t read as Bea rushes my way, hugging me hard, whispering in my ear, “You okay?”
“Yes. I promise. Love you.”
She wraps her arms tighter around me and says, “Love you, too. I’m one call or text away. Because, uh . . . just in case it wasn’t obvious, I will not be coming back after I take Jamie home. Well, not until tomorrow morning.”
I snort a laugh, then pull away. “It was obvious, yes.”
She grins. “Okay. Night, KitKat.”
“Night, BeeBee.”
After Jamie tucks Bea into the taxi, he follows her, pulling the door shut. I look up at Christopher and find him staring down at me. He steps closer and zips my coat all the way.
“Do you mind walking?” I ask.
“Of course not,” he says, eyes on his task as he tugs up my coat’s collar to cover my chilly neck, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “I had a sneaking suspicion that despite going hard for two hours at paintball, after that train ride, you’d need to move.”
“I had to sit still the whole time.” I wiggle my legs at the knees, working out the restless energy that’s built up in my system. “I feel like a shook up bottle of bubbles.”
“Hmm. What should we do about that?” Christopher squints into the distance, eyes on the empty sidewalks. Then, out of the blue, he says, “Race ya.”
And he takes off.
I’m stunned for a split second, before I explode after him. “No fair!” I yell. “You got a head start.”
He glances over his shoulder and flashes me a grin. “I’ll make it up to you later.”
“No, you won’t,” I holler, pushing my legs, which used to take me ahead of all the other kids on the playground, which got me middle-distance track medals, the thrill of air burning in my lungs, my muscles working until they were spent and finally able to rest. “Because I’m gonna beat you.”
He laughs. Actually laughs. “Sure you are, Katydid.”
A green light for opposing traffic makes him screech to a halt and makes me stop beside him. I stare up at Christopher, my chest rising and falling heavily, a smile lighting up my face.
“You are so getting burned,” I tell him, bouncing on the balls of my feet. “You weren’t around for my track-and-field days, Petruchio, so you don’t know you’re up against a second place in states for the eight-hundred-meter and first place for the sixteen-hundred-meter races.”
He stares down at me, dark eyes filled with something knowing and warm. “I was there.”
“What?”
He looks up at the light, watching it, waiting for it to turn red. “Just because you didn’t know I was there, doesn’t mean I wasn’t.”
I’m still gaping when he runs through the crosswalk.
“Christopher!” I yell, pumping my arms tight against my body, evening out my stride, then fucking leaning into it.
He glances over his shoulder. His eyes widen as he sees me gaining on him. “Shit!”
“Yeah, you better be scared!”
He laughs like it’s disbelief, turning the corner onto my apartment’s block, making a fatal mistake, swinging wide and losing precious ground. Which is when I lean tight into the corner and pour everything into the last stretch of our race, streaking past him and taking the lead five feet before we make it to my building’s door in a stumbling mess of ragged breaths and hands slapping against the glass.
I laugh deliriously, my back against the door, Christopher’s hands planted on either side of my head.
The fun and laughter of our race dwindle in the silence. The wind stings my cheeks and beats against my thick coat. I watch it plaster Christopher’s jacket against his body, wrenching his hair off his face.
I can’t take my eyes off him.
And he can’t seem to take his eyes off me.
Staring at him, it’s like I’ve lost a layer of my skin, so raw, so keenly aware there’s nothing I can hide, nowhere to escape how much I want him.
I slide my hands up his chest, breathing unsteadily, feeling his chest work like bellows as I search for words I don’t know how to say. For all my bravery and badassery, traveling the world, learning new languages and customs, rules and regulations, finding places, getting lost, learning from mistakes, scraping by, I can’t find my voice or the words I need.