My hands move on their own, guiding themselves smoothly over his body because my eyes have tapped out—they’ve taken themselves out of the equation. And this thing that I’m doing—that I’m trying to work through—it’s going to have to happen in the dark—in the unknown and the unseen—and it’s sick that I’m steady there. I’m best where the nightmares live. I’m comfortable here.
“No way,” he says deeply, his hands stopping mine. He holds them in his own firmly. “We’re not doing this. You can’t even look at me. There’s no way that’s happening like this.”
“Don’t you want to?” I rasp, my eyes still closed.
He takes a tight, deep breath. I lean forward to lay my head against his chest. I follow it when he blows the breath out, resting my head against him in the safety of his heartbeat. I can feel it pounding against my skin through his thin T-shirt. Erratic. Uncontrolled.
I know how it feels.
“Yeah,” he admits roughly. “More than you know. But not like this. Not with you upset.”
“I told you I’m all right.”
“Joss, you can’t even look at me.”
A hot tear escapes my eye and slides down my cheek. I shake my head back and forth as I try to open my eyes. I try to look at him and see him and know it’s all right. That this is Ryan. That this is right. I know I want this, I want him, but I’m a hot mess and I’m screwing it up. I don’t know how to do this. I can’t do any of this, not like a normal girl. I’ve never been normal and I never will be and I’m so much baggage and crazy that I can’t believe there’s enough room in this house for all of me to be in here at once. I’m shocked by every second that passes when my emotions don’t blow the walls of this place.
My tear drips off my cheek. I manage to open my eyes in time to see it land below me. It drops right onto Ryan’s naked foot.
Immediately he knows.
“And it’s definitely not going to happen when you’re crying,” he says softly.
His arms release my hands and go to wrap around me. He’s going to pull me into an embrace, tell me everything is all right, and he’ll fall asleep chastely beside me, snuggling in next to me and all my issues. It will go on night after night until infinity or we die and he’ll never say a word. He’ll never ask for more. But if I ever want the chance to let him in and watch him chase away my demons the way his laugh lights up a room, I need to man the hell up and offer what he’ll never demand.
I push back from him before he can embrace me, my eyes finding his. He looks so worried it hurts. It almost lets me chicken out and bail on this entirely. It could be an awkward moment we both remember forever but never talk about. It could be the setting of the status quo. The beginning of our ending, riding this even plane until the end of our existence. Never more, never less.
Or it could be what Crenshaw said. The Beginning of Everything.
“I’m not crying because I’m sad,” I say shakily. “I’m crying because I love you and I’m going to give you all of me.”
He stares at me, stunned. I’ve seen Ryan in a lot of dire situations, facing a lot of overwhelming odds and obstacles, but I have never seen him so at a loss before. As the silence drags out between us, I worry I’ve broken him.
“Joss,” he says gruffly, pausing to clear his throat.
Terrified of what he’ll say, words begin to spill rapidly from my mouth. “I know it won’t be your first time, but it is for me so don’t ever tell me. Never let me know for sure. I never want to know a name or a hint or hair color. Warn Trent, too, because he’ll spill it and I’ll kill him and I’ll get mad at you an—”
“I love you,” he cuts in quietly. My mouth clamps shut, making him grin slightly. He lifts his hand to run it along the side of my neck, back into my hair. “I’ve never said that before. You’re my first time.”
I can’t handle this feeling. It’s too full, too big, too much. It’s him, it’s Ryan, and it’s everything in me until I’m bursting at the seams, and while I couldn’t look at him before, now I can’t look away. Not to save my life. Not even to save his. I don’t know what happens to me. It’s nothing I expected and I can tell from his reaction that he wasn’t expecting it either. But when autopilot engages, when my survival kicks in, it’s best to just stay out of its way and enjoy the ride.
I grab onto his shirt, fisting it in my hands and pulling him toward me. The last thing I see is his grin spreading into a smile before his mouth is on mine. Then I’m gone. Lost. All I know from that point is the cold of the room on my rapidly exposed skin, the heat of his body close to mine, the sound of his breath always so close, so desperate, echoing mine. I know fear, joy, want, a pinch of pain and a world of heat that starts in my stomach and burns through my veins until I can hardly breathe and I’m clinging to him as he clings to me, his heartbeat racing against my chest and sending me soaring over the night sky into nothing. I gasp his name, hear him whisper mine, then it’s silence and stillness.
It’s dark in the room. Nearly pitch black. Pure shadow and nothing, but it’s all around me, surrounding me on all sides while I lay there with Ryan—with Helios. Burned by the sun, igniting the dark like a star on the velvet black. Unreachable. Untouchable. He’s done this to me. For me. The dark, the empty, the lonely has been pushed from me until it’s enveloped this room and left me nothing but a bright ball of energy, life, and light.
Shaking.
Afraid.
Awake.
Chapter Twenty Three
The Garden Gate.
That’s what Westbrook calls his mansion. His fortress. His castle on the water.
It’s a reference to the Pearly Gates and the Garden of Heaven, but it’s also a nod to the guy who designed and built the place. Apparently he’s taken over the home of a man who was once an electronics and computer expert—Bill Gates. The name means nothing to me, but the older crowd recognizes it: Ali, Alvarez, Todd. It makes me a little happy that Trent didn’t know who he was either. We learned something together, and isn’t that a fresh and new experience?
We got information on the building and the security around it from a few people that survived the destruction of the southern Colony. The Vashons watched last night as people spilled over the walls, desperate to get out and away from the zombies. I listened with Ryan as a lot of them landed on their own mines spread out along the shore, and we didn’t sleep a wink. The few Colonists that survived were very eager to talk. Whatever it took to be kept safe from the absolute hell we unleashed on them.
“I feel like this has gotten away from us,” I confessed as we laid together staring up at the ceiling of the dark, decaying house. “I thought we were freeing people, but what happened with this Colony… It’s not how I saw it going down.”
“It’s more brutal than I expected,” he admitted.
“Why did they do it like that? Why leave everyone alive in the stadiums but murder the entire southern Colony?”
“They weren’t slaves here. Plus, we’re getting closer to this Westbrook guy. You know how the Vashons feel about him. The closer we get, the angrier they get.”
“Remind me not to piss off the Vashons,” I muttered.
“Hmmm,” he grumbled in agreement. I could feel his voice vibrating deep against my cheek where it lay on his chest, making me grin. “Once this is over we’ll get some distance from them.”
My grin vanished as I felt a strange panic set in. “Where will we go?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Home.”
“Your loft?”
“The city. Seattle. It’s home. I don’t want to leave it.”
I felt his fingers thread slowly through my hair, stroking it gently. My eyes rolled closed with the relaxing feeling. If I were a cat, I’d have been purring.
“What about the woods?”
“Crenshaw’s woods?”
“Yeah. We can add on to his house. Make it big enough for the two of us. I can keep up his gardens.”