So I nod. “I trust you.”
I turn around in my seat, facing the window. My reflection stares back: wide eyes, hair drifting over my face. And then my reflection is gone. Tate wraps the black fabric across my eyes and I bite down on my lower lip.
“Is it too tight?” he whispers in my ear.
I shake my head. A heady warmth unspools in my stomach at the feeling of his breath, hot against my ear.
“No peeking,” he adds.
The car begins to move, gliding out into traffic.
With my sight gone, the rest of my senses are heightened. I can hear the slow, easy breathing of Tate beside me. His scent is of clean, crisp cologne and something else, like the salty air of the beach. I imagine him moving closer, what it would feel like to have his hands on me, without my being able to see him.
There is silence between us for several blocks and then Tate finally speaks. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not—” I begin, but catch myself. I can tell he wants a real answer, I can sense it in the tone of his voice—he wants the truth. But I can’t bring myself to tell him I’m picturing his hands on my skin. “I’m thinking about the ocean,” I say, partly honest.
“What about the ocean?”
“The air,” I say. “It smells like salt and sun, and also slightly green. And—” I pause, but Tate doesn’t speak. I can barely even hear his breathing now, like he’s suspended, waiting for me to continue. “I’m thinking about the feel of the waves,” I add, “when they rise up over your legs. When I was little, I always thought the sea was alive, trying to drag you out with it. It’s so...desperate, like it tugs from the farthest part of the ocean floor. Sometimes I want to let it—let it take me out into the deep, where I could drift for thousands of miles. Until I wash ashore on some distant continent. I like the idea of that.”
There’s a long silence, and I wonder if he’s looking at me. “I like the way you think about things,” he says finally, and I hear him shift on the seat.
I lick my lips, then bite the bottom one. I hear Tate inhale. “Charlotte...” he says, his voice pleading.
“What?”
“Just...don’t do that, okay?”
“Why not?” I say, and to my surprise, I’m comfortable again. I’m enjoying this. I take my lip back between my teeth, bite down gently. Knowing his eyes are on me makes me tingle all over. Like he’s touching me, even though he’s not. Like it’s his teeth on my lip.
“Charlotte. I don’t think I can handle it,” he tells me, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “You’ll make me crazy.”
So he’s not the only one with power here, no matter what he says. I lean back in my seat, smiling to myself.
The car comes to a slow stop and I realize the sounds of the city have dulled. We’re not on a main street anymore.
I feel a sudden swirl of wind when the car door opens—it coils around me and sends chills rushing down my arms even though the air is warm and balmy. Tate’s hands touch mine in a burst of electricity, and he guides me out of the car. A horn honks in the distance. I have no idea where we are.
We walk only a few steps before moving through a doorway into a building that smells faintly of dust and upholstery.
Then the toe of my shoe meets with something hard.
“Steps,” Tate says beside me.
I lift my right foot, tentative at first, afraid I’m going to careen forward and land on my face. But Tate holds me firmly—one hand on the small of my back, the other laced through my fingers—as we move up a series of carpeted stairs.
“Where are we?” I ask when we reach the top, my free hand extending forward to feel for anything that might give away our location. But my fingertips feel only open air. And Tate doesn’t answer. Instead, he leads me forward, then releases me completely. I feel unmoored, like I could fall at any second.
“Tate?” I whisper again, reaching my fingers up to touch the blindfold covering my eyes, but he is suddenly beside me, his hands trailing up my arms, slowly, slowly. I hold in a breath, feeling his fingers glide up my neck to the back of my head, where he finally loosens the blindfold and it falls away.
I have to blink to bring the dimmed expanse of the room into focus. It’s a theater, grand and ornate, with gold rimming the arched ceiling and red curtains draped all the way to the floor. We are on a second-floor balcony, overlooking scores of empty seats below and a massive screen at the front. There are ladders against one wall and cans of paint and white cloths spread out across the floor. The theater is under construction.
“It’s called the Lumiere,” Tate says beside me. “Have you heard of it?”
I shake my head, looking at him for the first time since he untied the blindfold. He looks almost anxious, like he’s hoping I’ll like the surprise. “It’s incredible,” I tell him.