“What’s ‘everything,’ E?”
She gave me a miserable look. “I really think you should talk to Laney.”
After Ingrid, Ellis was my oldest friend. She’d always known me as Ren. Accepted me, unconditionally. Took care of me during top surgery when Inge refused to even look because It breaks my heart to watch you ruin the body I loved. Ellis brought me into the Umbra fold. Gave me a new family when mine disowned me, gave me somewhere to belong. When she’d left for Maine, I’d lost an actual piece of myself. My shoulder angel. My pure-hearted boy. And soon she’d leave again, go home to her girl.
Ellis knew something I didn’t. Something about Laney’s plans, something she desperately wanted to share. But if E had a good reason for keeping secrets, I had to trust her.
When it mattered most, she’d been there for me. The one time Inge wasn’t.
“Forget I asked,” I said, smiling. “Getting way ahead of myself. Tam’s probably not even interested.”
“?‘Tam’? You’re on a monosyllabic-name basis?”
“She beat me up the first night we met. We’re not big on formalities.”
The seriousness lifted. Ellis grinned.
“What’s so funny, Professor?”
“You always fall for girls like that. Glutton for punishment.”
“Look who’s talking. If you and Vada weren’t joined at the hip, I would’ve hit her up.” I puffed out my pecs. “She was into this.”
“She just said you had good muscle definition.”
“Then put her hands all over it. She was Swayze in Ghost, and I was the wet clay.”
“She’s an artist, Ren. It’s part of her process.”
“Her process sure is hands-on. But you’d know from experience.”
Ellis turned an impressive shade of red. I laughed and threw an arm around her, brotherly. These moments were priceless. Worth preserving.
It was late and she was tired, so I walked her to a cab. She hugged me before she got in.
“What’s that for?” I said.
“Calling me a boy.”
I watched the car pull away. In my gut, that acidity sizzled.
Back in the club I zeroed in on the sleazebag rubbing himself against Tamsin’s leg, and every muscle in me tensed. I threaded through the crowd, bodies parting around my broad shoulders. Tamsin held my eye as I drew near. The man beside her was nothing, a faceless bro, irrelevant. He tried to sound tough saying blah blah this guy bothering you babe and I cut in hard, elbowing him out.
“Bold,” Tamsin said. Her lips made me think of my finger parting freesia petals.
I didn’t speak. I let the beat pump in my veins, my blood drumming in sync. Tam moved with me. Oh, to touch her. Hips that could perfectly fit the cups of my palms. The smooth cut of her collarbone like carved wood. There was no one else—my peripheral awareness faded. Only this girl, and the music, and my body moving in response to both. We danced and the air between us teemed with lightning and salt, electrochemical. I slid closer; she mirrored me. We played with negative space, pushing into it, narrowing the gap, almost touching, almost, then pulling away. Her heat was thick and palpable against my skin. Every muscle in me coiled, biceps swelling, the V at my groin going taut. I hadn’t felt this present inside myself in so very long. Not once did we touch.
“You’re good,” she said.
“Actually, I’m very bad.”
“Much better at this than martial combat.”
“I could show you other things my body does well.”
That earned a laugh. “You talk a big game, Renard. But I’m faster. Harder. Meaner.”
“If you knew what I’ve been through, you’d see me differently.”
The track switched, the crowd spiraling around us. Her eyes searched mine.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “That first night, I didn’t know about you.”
That I’m trans, she meant. That’s always what they mean.
“Weren’t you stalking me?”
“I prefer to call it recreational reconnaissance.”
“As long as you admit there’s a double standard. If I’d done that to you, you’d have handled me like you did Crito.”
Tam shrugged. Light crazed over her hair, a thousand little rainbow wires. “Fair point. I took you for a bloke, and I don’t particularly give a fuck about boundaries and fairness with blokes.”
Something caught in my throat. Took you for a bloke.
As in, didn’t anymore.
Oh, hell.
“The thing is,” she went on, “I don’t see how my original assessment was wrong.”
“What?”
“You’re a bloke, mate. So, sorry-not-sorry, but you’re not getting the kid-glove treatment from me.”
I swallowed that sticky emotional unpleasantness. I could’ve kissed her then and there. “Thank you.”
“For treating you like shite because you’re a man?”
“Yes.”
“Masochist.”
“Totally.”
Tamsin smiled. “Me too. I like it rough.”
Her words dizzied me. All my blood was going to one place now. “I’m game for a rematch. Let me rough you up.”
“I’d like to see you try.”