After we came to a stop, time seemed to pause.
I should have scrambled up and skated away. But my brain took a minute to put the whole situation together. And while we waited for the moment to make sense, I was caught in suspended animation, my body fully pinning his flat to the ground, my nose almost touching his, our gazes locked together in incomprehension.
What the hell just happened?
The first head I worried about was his—because I saw it hit the concrete.
“Oh god,” I said, talking loud over the disco in my ears before yanking the earbuds out by the wires. “Are you—”
“I’m okay.”
And then there was a pause, as I noted that I, too, had just fallen down—and so the next head I had to worry about was my own.
I had one job these days: not to fall.
And here I was. Fallen.
Oh, shit. Did I just break my brain?
The thought pinned me there as I did a quick assessment. Had I hit my head? No. Was my head bleeding? Not that I could tell. Did my head hurt? No. Nothing hurt besides my scraped knees and palms. How much had Joe’s body cushioned my impact? Enough?
I did a quick scan of the rooftop, half checking for a possible cork-shaped piece of skull, still skittering across the concrete on its side like a hockey puck.
Nothing. Coast was clear.
As far as I could tell, I was okay.
But that’s when I realized I’d been lying on top of Joe—draped over him like a human weighted blanket—for far longer than was proper. I could feel my thighs mashed up against his. I could feel myself rising and falling on his chest as we both tried to catch our breath. I could feel my heart beating—or was it his?—against my rib cage.
I felt a little dizzy for a second there, but whether it was the fall or my wonky brain or just the fact that I hadn’t been this close to a man in a very long time … I couldn’t say.
Time to pull myself together.
I shifted backward, peeling myself off him, and stood up slowly.
Once I was vertical, I got a little mad. “What are you doing here? You shocked the hell out of me!” I demanded. “How did you even get up here?”
Joe didn’t answer me. Still lying on the concrete, he lifted up on his elbows but paused there, looking at me in a way that felt more like he was gazing.
Maybe his head was injured, after all.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Nobody ever comes up on this roof. Nobody has the passcode to that door but me!”
Joe shook his head a little, like he was trying to shift his thoughts back into place.
“This is a private space!” I said. “This rooftop is part of my—” But I didn’t know how to describe it. “My area. You can’t just come up here!”
When Joe finally climbed to his feet and started tucking his shirt in, his voice was a little hoarse. “The door downstairs was open.”
“So you thought that was an invitation to just come on up here?”
“I think the lock’s broken,” Joe went on. “The dead bolt’s frozen in the out position.”
“That’s a Mr. Kim problem,” I said. “Unless you’re a locksmith.”
He put his hands in his pockets. “I was just worried about you.”
He was? Huh. “Well, I was fine.”
“I saw that.”
Oh, god. He’d seen me skating. To headphone disco. “You clearly did.”
“You can really skate,” he said.
“Fine,” I said, refusing to take the compliment. “So you came up here and saw I was fine. Why didn’t you turn around and leave?”
“I was kind of mesmerized, to be honest.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
Mesmerized? Mesmerized by what? My skating prowess? The ridiculousness of my outfit? The comedy that always ensues when a person wearing headphones can’t resist doing dance moves out loud, like a mime? I decided I didn’t want to know. “I’m allowed to do what I want on my own rooftop, Joe.”
“I’m not saying you’re not.”
“And you’re not allowed to sneak up here and watch me.”
“I didn’t sneak up. I thought you should know.”
“About what?”
“About the broken door lock.”
Okay, that wasn’t totally unreasonable.
“Once I de-mesmerized myself, I was trying to tell you. So you could get it fixed. But when I called your name, you didn’t hear me.”
“Yeah. Well. I was listening to music.”
“What were you listening to?”
Not relevant! “Why do you want to know?”
Joe shrugged. “You looked happy.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Fair enough,” he said, lifting his hands in defeat.
In case it’s not already clear, I felt irrationally angry at him. I’m not sure I could even have pinned down a reason. Because he came up without asking. Because the lock was broken. Because he interrupted me. Because before I saw him, I’d been freakishly, genuinely happy, for the first time in so long and now, thanks to him, I had to be … whatever this was.
Annoyed.
Or maybe just plain old embarrassed. Because there is literally no way to skatedance in silence without looking like a serious goofball.
“Anyway,” Joe said, taking a couple of backward steps. “Sorry about interrupting you. Definitely call about that lock.”
And then he turned and started walking back toward the spiral stairs—and that’s when all that anger I’d just been full of disappeared in a puff. Because the back of his T-shirt? It was streaked with blood.
“Wait!” I called, skating after him. “Are you okay?”
He turned back. “I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding,” I said, skating around to get a better look.
“Am I?” he asked, trying to peek over his shoulder.
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
“I mean, it stings a little,” he said.
I skated back around to his front. “Take it off,” I said, all business, gesturing at his shirt.
He thought for a second, and then he nodded, and then he crossed his arms, grabbed the hem of his T-shirt, and peeled it off.
Friends, Romans, countrymen—I might not have been able to see his face, but let me tell you … I could definitely see that shirtless torso. I mean, I had a physical reaction to beholding that thing—and it wasn’t because he was chiseled or extraordinary or some airbrushed fantasy you’d see in a magazine. It was just … strong and solid and nice. So … appealing, somehow.
It just looked like a body that would feel good under your hands.
I pushed that thought away the second I noticed it.
But can I just add? An absolutely stellar shoulder-to-hip ratio. As a professional artist: thumbs-up.
What was that word he’d just used? Mesmerized?
Anyway, that wasn’t what we were here for. I shook it off and skated back around to check out the damage on his back. “Oh, you really got scraped,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “We skidded a few feet.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, the volume on “annoyed” turning itself way down as “apologetic” ramped up.
I looked down at my scratched-up palms. His back made them look paltry.
“Come on,” I said, ready to remedy my guilt with stellar first aid, starting to skate back toward my door. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
But when I looked back, he wasn’t following.
I skated back to him. “Let’s go.”