“Why Mexicans?”
“Not just any Mexicans. He was talking about one Mexican family in particular. We had this nanny when we were younger and she came around to borrow Tabby’s car to pick her kids up from the airport. We haven’t seen her—or the car—since. Well, actually, that’s a lie. We saw pictures of her on Facebook. She was back in Mexico.”
“Is that why Tabby doesn’t have a car of her own?”
“She still thinks Janua is bringing her car back. She’s waiting.”
I turned my face into the pillow to muffle a laugh, but it only seemed to encourage Cabe, who moved to sit on the edge of my bed, his arm appearing on my other side as he leaned over me.
“You think this is funny? Noah even looked up Janua’s son—has his number saved and everything. He’ll sell my damn car in a heartbeat, which means I’m your new shadow. At least every second day of the week. The rest of the time you can have the grumpy one.”
I remained where I was, my laughter dying off already. “I already have two shadows,” I moped, pulling myself upright again.
I couldn’t see Jayden’s men from where I sat in my bed, but I knew that they were lingering somewhere outside. If I walked to the window, I would probably be able to search them out. Cabe was no longer a silhouette and I could make out his features in the bare moonlight filtering in through the open window. He was staring at me intensely, his eyes a curious shade of brown, lit with an emotion that seemed to teeter halfway between a dance of mischief and a plummet of gravity. It was always easier to see Cabe in the half-shadow of night rather than the full relief of day. Darkness brought out the truth of him. Some people were like that; nocturnal, in a split-personality kind of way. Cabe’s body woke up in the morning, with the sun; but his mind woke up at night, with the moon.
“What are you staring at?” I asked him gently.
“You,” he replied instantly, without reservation or self-consciousness. “Always you. Why is that?”
“I’ll tell you someday.”
“Keeping secrets?” He smirked, one of his hands twitching in my direction—an unconscious movement. His smirk faded instantly and he leaned back, trying to put distance between us.
It was excruciating. I shoved my hands beneath me so that I wouldn’t reach out for him. I had always hated the way he and Noah used to swaddle me up in blankets so that I couldn’t use my hands when I was straining, but I would have given anything to have them lying either side of me like they used to. A strangled sound escaped my throat as Cabe shifted to lean even further away from me, apparently battling his own thoughts.
“I… I… I need to go,” I spluttered, suddenly pushing back the covers and springing from the bed.
The floor was cold as I rushed for the door, and I shifted uncomfortably on my bare feet as Cabe pushed in front of me, plastering his back to the door and folding his arms, casting a frown down my way. The polished floorboards seeped ice up over my feet, tingling at the base of my calves. Coupled with the slight breeze that tickled through the open window to stir strands of hair against the back of my neck, I was cold enough to inch closer to Cabe’s warmth instead of stepping back as I should have.
“Where could you possibly be going at this time of night?” he asked.
“Miro’s room.”
His frown deepened as he shook his head. “No. You don’t do that. We would have noticed.”
I was seconds away from losing it and I wasn’t even sure how that would manifest because the strain was now filling me with a righteous anger to match the overwhelming yearning. I needed my pairs; I needed their closeness, their comfort, their strength; and they weren’t giving me what I needed.
I planted a hand against Cabe’s chest, pausing only a moment to marvel at how the softness of his shirt felt against the hardness of his body before I bunched the material up into my fist and yanked on it, a simultaneously satisfied and angry sound bursting from my throat as his face was pulled down to loom over mine.
“I’m his Atmá, Cabe, why wouldn’t I visit his room at this time of night?”
He stared at me for a long time before he moved, bracing me between his hands: with one fist twisting into my clothing the same way mine had his, pulling at the stretchy nightshirt that I had worn to bed. The other hand landed between my shoulder blades, making me feel immediately trapped. He hauled me forward, and I relaxed my grip, smoothing over the wrinkles that I had made in the front of his shirt. He straightened up, but used his new grip on me to lift me to the tips of my toes, until I was leaning into him.