Page 65 of The Blood we Crave: Part Two

“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever given me,” I gush. “How did you get these? They are almost impossible to find.”

With his hands shoved into his pockets, he shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “Rook owed me a favor.”

“Thank you.” I carefully place the lid back on them, grinning. “How did you know Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday? Am I that transparent?”

Thatcher pushes off the railing, making quick work of the distance between us until he’s pressed against me. I can smell his mint gum with every breath that fans across my face. He takes the box from my hands, setting it on the bench next to us.

The palm of his hand presses into my lower back, bringing us chest to chest, while the other trails the length of my arm. He leans towards the crook of my neck, and the side of his mask brushes my cheek, the plastic cooling down my blushed face.

“You’re invisible to most, this enigmatic ghost. You are a mystery to the world, Lyra, and you’ve let me solve you.” His words brush against my ear, making me shiver.

Carefully, more gentle than even he knew he was capable of, he cups my hand with his own. My arm instinctively curls around the back of his neck, and I can hear a familiar song drifting up from inside the Ballroom.

The world below buzzes with life, yet we move in our own bubble up here. Untouchable, trapped in a magnetic force field that refuses to break.

I’ve waited all my life for this. For him.

For him to see me not as the girl who hid in the closet or the ghost he demanded I become but as a woman capable of standing at his side. A person who would weather storm after storm if it meant we came out of it together.

His equal.

“Have I ever told you that I hate when you wear your hair up?”

I pull back, my eyebrows lifting to my hairline. “Sage specifically said this kind of dress was made for updos. How else was I supposed to show off the back?”

His fingers work their way up my spine, touching the buttons along the way until he meets the nape of my neck. I feel him searching for all the pins holding my curls up, pulling them out one by one.

“No dress is worth hiding these away.”

The sound of metal clicking against the floor beneath us rings in my ears. He makes quick work of taking my hair down, pulling all the pins out and letting them fall to the ground without a care.

I feel the weight of it against my shoulders when he finishes. My outgrown bangs are dangerously close to covering up my eyes, and I know for a fact I look like I just stuck my finger in an electric socket.

But I savor the way he massages my scalp, how he wraps the dark strands around his fingers, brushing the curls with his large hands. If things were different, he could be a pianist with those fingers. They were made to play music.

When he is satisfied with the mess on my head, he returns his hand to my back.

“What are we doing?” I whisper as we sway in tune to the melody of the music, his hands on my body guiding us.

“It would be a shame for you to look this beautiful and not have someone ask you to dance.”

“We’ve danced before, Thatch.”

“And just as I told you then, that was a distraction,” he corrects, stiffening his grip on my hand before pushing me outward.

I squeak as my body spins, his arm raised high in order to keep me twirling. My dress lifts, fabric whirling in the star-soaked night. I don’t notice the smile on my lips until it makes the edge of my eyes crinkle.

When he pulls me back into his chest, I land ungracefully, my palm laid flat just above his heart.

“This,” he breathes across my lips, “is dancing, darling phantom.”

If I could live in one moment forever, it would be this one. This is a night you look back on if you’re lucky enough to make it to eighty. You long for it and wonder what you’d do to be young again.

I want to exist with him like this forever. Just me and him.

The nightmare of Ponderosa Springs and his darling phantom.

“When this is over, what will you do?” I think out loud, wondering about what the future will look like for the both of us.

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