Page 43 of Look, Don't Touch

I make myself look away from his mouth. “Did you pet her?”

“Yes, the damn thing demanded attention at all times. I can remember her messing up a poster I was working on for science class. She jumped onto the dining chair and then onto my back. The T in atom ended up being four times as big as the other letters in the word.” His head shakes in a slow back and forth.

“What did you do to Pepper for messing up your project?”

“Pfft. I scolded her, then scooped her up and buried my face in her fluffy neck.” He drags a hand over his face. “I loved that dog.”

I want to know what happened to Pepper after his parents died, but he changes the subject. Or, more accurately, deflects it.

“Do you have any pets?”

To say I’m grateful for the subject change is an understatement because I would’ve asked my question, and I’m afraid of the answer. I smile. “Believe it or not, I have a cat.”

“I don’t know if I do,” he agrees.

“Most days I don’t believe it, then I come home to maniacal meowing until I feed him, and then he’s done with me until the next morning.”

“And how do you feel about…”

“Plinko,” I supply. “I suppose I feel about him, how he feels about me. Indifferent most days, like I could leave my door open others, and then there are the few when I don’t know how I lived without him.”

He sips his coffee, and I sip mine.

“What made you get a cat if all the mixed feelings?”

“My therapist thought it would be a good exercise in bond forming.” I shrug one shoulder. “And she’s big into animal rescue, so…” I offer an upturned hand.

“Fucking therapists.” He chuckles.

“Right.” My mouth stretches into a smile, and I’m laughing before I can stop it. It feels good on my insides, like it’s loosening something that was pinching before.

“So my therapist has a therapist,” he muses.

“Don’t trust a therapist who doesn’t have one of their own. We deal with a lot of people’s stuff on top of our own.”

A large group walks by. The kids outnumber the adults ten to one, and I guess it’s a field trip to the zoo, which is a few hundred yards farther down the path. They’re loud and touchy, and I’m suddenly grateful on Mr. Judge’s account that he wasn’t touch-averse during his younger years. Then I realize I don’t know that for a fact. My lips are forming the words when he speaks.

“Please tell me he was already named when you got him.”

“Nope.” I giggle. “Plinko is a Doc Fitz original.”

He turns to me, almost grazing my knee with his. “Why Plinko?”

I lift my gaze to him. My giggle dies, but my smile stays. He’s so interesting to look at. Sure, he’s beautiful, but he’s even more compelling. “My babysitter was an old lady who lived down the street. She always watched The Price is Right.”

“Plinko is a game on there,” he recalls.

“Yes. A game of chance. Kinda’ like life. There’s only so much we can control, and the rest is up to physics.”

We finish our coffees in silence, people watching, and getting lost in our thoughts, but still sharing space like I’m not accustomed to, and I’m fairly certain he isn’t either.

He stands without a word and offers his hand. I stare at the veins, muscles, and bones carving his skin with my lips parted in complete shock. Slowly, my gaze makes its way up to his. He gives a curt nod.

With measured movement, I gently lift my hand and place it in his.

I’ve never been electrocuted, though it’d been threatened more times than I could count. I suspect it’s what her touch feels like. Like being electrocuted.

My life is on the line. I’m terrified. Yet the current courses through me, and I’m alive. I’m energized and frenetic in a way I haven’t been in a long, long time.

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