Cressida stepped out of the shadows at the far end.
I didn’t stop, because men are too dumb to back down. We march headlong into confrontations we know we’ll lose. Otherwise we’re making a statement on our penis size or something.
I passed her and kept going.
“Ren,” she called.
Dammit.
Beneath her jacket she wore a plain white tee. Her curls were pinned back. In the dimness her skin glowed a burnished umber, as if it still held the autumn sun, too.
“Look,” I said, “stalking isn’t okay just because you’re a woman. It’s still creepy and threatening.”
She frowned. “Do I threaten you?”
“No. But that’s not the point.”
Pause. Then, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
I shrugged and made to leave. She touched my arm, brief, light, but the imprint of her heat lingered on my skin.
“We’ve had a bad start,” she said.
“Seemed pretty intentional on your behalf.”
“You must understand I’m curious about you.”
Internally I cringed. Another curious cis girl. “Google it. I’m not a spectacle.”
“I’m curious about Cane. My new partner.”
Wait, what? Laney hadn’t said shit about this.
“We’re not partners,” I said. “I’m suspended.”
“The Wolf sent me to tell you that you’re officially unsuspended.”
“Great. So now you’ve got my old position. Where does that leave me?”
“We’re sharing this position, so I suppose it leaves us tangled up together.”
My face went hot. I kept my mouth shut.
Cress leaned against the tunnel, her boots jingling faintly. Knee bent, arms crossed. Wry pout. Like a black girl version of James Dean. It was infuriatingly attractive.
“We haven’t been properly introduced,” she said. “I’m Tamsin Baylor.”
Her name did something to me. Another little surge of heat.
“Renard Grant,” I said.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Grant.”
That “Mr.” made my belly tighten. I couldn’t look away from her mouth. Lush lips, tinted dusty violet. “Likewise, Ms. Baylor.”
“Forgive my aloofness, Renard. I’ve been wearing your bruises for weeks.”
“You left your calling card all over me, too,” I said, and lifted the hem of my tee to show a fading scar.
Her eyes went straight to my Adonis belt. Then climbed, slowly, up the ladder of my abs. I let the shirt fall.
“I see why the girls talk about you,” Tamsin said. “You have a certain charm.”
“I’m not trying to charm you.”
“It’s working anyway.”
Our eyes held for a moment. The air seemed to tremble palpably on my skin. When I breathed I felt the fullness of my chest and shoulders, thick and tight. “You were wrong about me, Tamsin.”
First time I’d said her name. Her lungs swelled, her breasts lifting.
So I was getting to her, too. Good.
“You said I hold back too much. But that’s something I only do with women.”
“Don’t think they can take it?”
“No. I know they can.”
“Then why?”
I stepped out of the tunnel, into the purple dusk. “I don’t hurt women,” I said, “because I know how it feels.”
———
Armin’s condo complex had a nice gym, and he’d given me the door code. I found him on the rowing machine. Everything shone: sterling mirrors, chrome barbells, his skin polished with sweat like buffed copper. We nodded wordlessly to each other. I stripped my shirt off and hit the squat rack; he spotted. Despite his being a head taller and naturally V-tapered, I had more muscle. Broad shoulders, chiseled pecs, a six-pack even at rest. The tats across my chest rippled when I moved: Poseidon whipping the sea into furious foam, a centaur swinging a wicked ax. Reminders of what hadn’t killed me. My sweat brought out the olive-gold of my skin. I was a pretty damn good-looking guy.
Until I stood side by side with Armin. Then I might as well wear a neon sign flashing FEELINGS OF GROSS INADEQUACY.
He caught my eye in the mirror. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.” I dropped into a squat and stood with ease. My body was a well-oiled engine, my muscles pumping like pistons. I’d grown used to it over the years but sometimes I remembered, viscerally, how I’d once felt like I was inside a puppet, only partially in control. Tugging at strings and praying it would obey. Praying no one would notice it was actually a girl.
Armin bumped my elbow at the end of the set. “Want to talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Whatever’s eating you.”
Instead of answering I threw myself into the next set. And because I was overcompensating, I lost the rhythm and failed the third rep. The barbell clanged onto the safety hooks. Armin braced me as I stumbled.
“Ren.”
I shrugged him off. “No, I don’t want to talk about it. That’s what I’m supposed to say, right? Bottle it up. That’s what men do.”
“That’s what men-children do. You’re not a child.”
I stuck out my lower lip. He smiled, that male-model freeze-frame every time.