Page 25 of Inception

I smiled, seeing an opening. “Thanks, but you’re not my type,” I quipped. I couldn’t help myself.

Dead air. He wasn’t even smiling.

My cheeks ignited. “I’m just kidding,” I rushed to clarify. “It was a joke. I know you weren’t offering to be my boyfriend.”

It seemed like a funny thing to say in the moment. He probably thinks I’m some high school twit now. Damn me for not having a better mouth filter on this thing.

“I knew it was a joke,” he smiled lazily, and then craned his head in closer to me. “I’m just not sure I liked the part about not being your type.”

“Oh.”Ohhhh. Butterflies began waltzing in my belly as my lips moved again. “Well, that part was a joke, too.” The words just sort of spilled out on their own.

He was grinning now, and God was he hot.

“W-what about you?” I stammered, feeling flustered and desperate to redirect the conversation. “What’s your story? Do you have family here? A girlfriend?” I applauded myself silently for slipping that in.

“No family here. No girlfriend.”

“Well, don’t tell me everything all at once,” I scoffed at his nondisclosure.

He smiled crookedly. “If you want to know something, you’ll have to be more specific in your asking.”

“Okay.” I already had a question ready. “How old are you?”

His lips curled up. “Probably too old for you.”

Probably. At least it wasn’t a definitely.

“Your answers are still pretty vague,” I noted.

“I never said they wouldn’t be.”

His eyes gleamed under the moonlight like two magnificent onyx stones—dark, mysterious, and beckoning. I looked away, afraid of what they were stirring up inside me.

“Everything okay?” he asked coyly. He seemed to be laughing at me again, like he knew he was having an effect on me.

“Yeah. Totally.” I looked back up at my surroundings, suddenly noticing we had already reached the main boulevard and were about to take a turn down an unfamiliar road, though in all fairness, most of the roads were still unfamiliar to me at this point. “Are we walking all the way?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?” he asked, evaluating my face.

Well, let’s see. Essentially, the Blackburn estate sat atop the undulating rises of Hollow Hills, overlooking much of the town below. It was a long way up the winding roads, especially on foot, and left us exposed and at the mercy of a wide number of possibilities (night-walkingpossibilities) so yes, it was definitely a problem for me.

Of course, I couldn’t very well say that to him.

“Well, there’s a lot of road to cover. I’m afraid my feet won’t make it,” I said instead, sounding incredibly lazy.

“It isn’t very far if we take that short cut,” he pointed. “We can go straight up through the wooded park and then cut through the cemetery—avoid all those side roads.”

“Thecemetery?” I stopped walking.

“Yes,” he said, stopping with me. “Are you uncomfortable with cemeteries?”

“Um, yeah. Only entirely.”

He examined me for a moment, grinning. “Because of the goblins and monsters, I presume?”

“No, actually. Because of the dead people.”

He laughed as though I’d said something funny. “A taxi it is then,” he winked and pulled out a cell phone from the inside of his overcoat pocket.

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