They’d never been like this. Wild and out of control, her empathy overriding everything but base instinct. Kat lifted her hand to Andrew’s bare chest, over his heart. “This is… I don’t know what this is.
It’s like you’re inside my skin. You’re inside me.”
His thumbs stroked over her jaw. “Isn’t that where you want me to be?”
The joke was there, inviting her to laugh it off with dirty innuendo. Maybe he’d meant it that way. Old Kat would have clutched at the chance to lighten the moment with a suggestive smile and naughty words.
Instead she held his gaze. “Do you remember my twenty-first birthday?”
He nodded. “Everyone got drunk, so we went back to your place to play video games.”
The memory was so clear, even now. She could remember the dress she’d worn—one of the cheerful, pastel ones her aunt had bought just before her death. Blue flowers and butterfly clips in her hair, and she’d been so young, barely into her belated sexual awakening.
It hadn’t been so long ago. Four and a half years, but she hadn’t felt young for a long time. “I was in love with you by the time you left. I had a crush on you from the first day I met you, but that silly, geeky girl I was… After that night, she loved you with all of her silly, geeky heart.”
“That’s what kills me.” His eyes went dark. “That girl doesn’t exist anymore. Because of me.”
Always shapeshifters and their blame. Their guilt. “That girl doesn’t exist anymore because life sucks sometimes. People suck, Andrew. They do bad things, and the rest of us have to choose between stopping them or not. And sometimes we can’t win either way.”
“No, we can’t. We just have to keep going.”
“We did keep going. In different directions, because that was what you needed.” She closed her eyes, because she couldn’t let him see how much the next words hurt her. “I’m trying really hard to pretend that I’m not worrying about you waking up tomorrow and needing that again.”
“That depends.” His breath feathered over her cheek. “I didn’t know I was killing you all over again by staying away.”
“Everyone knew. They’ve treated me like a broken toy ever since. ‘Poor, stupid Kat got her heart broken and can’t move on.’”
“I’m sorry.” The words were thick, agonized.
“No, it’s not—” She took a breath. Her throat felt tight with tears, but she refused to cry. She refused.
“It was never that simple. I know it, and you know it. It’s easier to blame ourselves and each other.”
“I never blamed you.”
A lie, whether he knew it or not. “Andrew.”
“I didn’t. I don’t.”
“Why not?”
He sighed and propped up on one arm, traced the side of her face until she looked at him. “You saved my life. You did what you had to do, and you’ve tormented yourself over it. You don’t deserve to have me wondering if maybe you shouldn’t have done it at all.”
Her heart might have stopped beating. “If I should have let them kill you?”
Andrew hesitated. “Maybe.”
“I don’t—” No. No talking without thinking. Maybe it was cowardice that drove her back from the edge, but it was too big. Too much, and she wasn’t ready to traverse a path that could well lead them back to the ugliest truths of that night.
Instead she lifted her hand and touched his cheek. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
Amazingly, he smiled. “So am I, now. But it took a while, and I didn’t want you to feel that.”
She couldn’t find it in her to smile back. He didn’t know that she was the reason their attackers had changed forms to begin with. He didn’t know that she’d lost control and brought violence down on them.
For all her mockery of shapeshifter guilt, she was as bad as they were. Worse, because she didn’t even have the courage to own her mistakes.
“Stop.” There was a cajoling lilt in his voice, one she hadn’t heard in a long time. “Come on, smile for me.”
She didn’t have the guts to charge forward. But she didn’t retreat, either, and at least it was something.
A step.
Smiling, she turned to kiss his palm. “You should go back to sleep. Sera’s pulling an early shift at Dixie John’s tomorrow, and if I don’t turn up and let her yell at me, she’s going to be unlivable.”
Andrew brushed a kiss over her chin. “We can stop by for a late brunch.”
“Good. And after that…” The zip drive was buried in one of her bags, wrapped in a scarf for safekeeping. “You have a key to Alec’s place, right?”
“Course I do.”
“Instead of hitting the parts store or Craigslist, I thought we could head over there. He’s the only person I know who still uses a computer with a zip drive.” Though use might be a generous term. As far as Kat knew, the last time anyone had booted the damn thing up had been when she’d done it a year ago just to see if she could. “It’s worth a shot.”
The corner of Andrew’s mouth twitched. “You’re brilliant. If anyone’s going to be stuck in 1995, it’s Alec.”
“Then all I have to worry about is platform and software and encryption…” She closed her eyes.
“Andrew, can I ask you something?”
He wrapped a lock of her hair around his finger. “Sure.”
“Are we sticking together because I’m in danger? Or are we…starting something?”
He stared at her for a long moment, considering. “Starting something, or picking up where we left off?
Either one works, I think.”
“Except we didn’t leave off with crazy orgasms.” She settled her cheek against his chest, mostly because it was easier to say the words when she didn’t have to look at him. “We were so close to starting something. Or maybe we weren’t and it only felt that way to me because I wanted it to be true.”
He combed his fingers through her hair. “We were, but…something wasn’t right yet. Me, I guess.
People around here don’t exactly have nice, uncomplicated relationships, you know? Being comfortable, being friends… It felt so good I didn’t want to let it go.”
His heart thumped under her cheek, just fast enough to prove his casual words a lie. He’d been scared, and she could feel the echoes in him, as clearly as she could feel the pleasure he took in touching her.
“You were human,” she said softly. “I never was, not entirely. It would have been complicated.”
“It seems stupid now,” he admitted. “It feels like I wasted so much time.”
“No.” At least there was one thing she could reassure him about. “I skipped grades, a few of them. I graduated early, went to college early. I was never really around people my own age, so I missed out on the social stuff, and the empathy only made it worse. I was young a few years ago, Andrew. I wasn’t ready. But I would have been so afraid of missing my chance, I couldn’t have said no. Not to you.”
“And with both of us not ready…”
Maybe it would have worked. Maybe it would have been a mess, and ruined any chance they had.
Either way, there was no going back. “I know we keep saying we’re not going to talk about the big stuff, and I don’t want to, not yet. But I need something to hold on to.”
“I’m here,” he said simply. “I’m in it, Kat. Not going anywhere, and we can figure it out together.”
“So we have a thing.” It brought a goofy-feeling smile to her lips. “Can I wear your letter jacket?”
Andrew laughed. “They don’t let you letter in being a giant dork, remember?”
“Depends on where you go to school.” Peace settled over her, following the path of his fingers as he stroked her hair. She yawned and snuggled closer. “If you don’t have a letter jacket, we’re going to have to rethink this whole thing.”