Page 100 of How to Walk Away

“I love your ukulele,” I said another minute later.

“I love yours.”

“I don’t have a ukulele.”

“I don’t care.”

I wriggled around to get a better angle, and he wound up solidly on his back, me straddling him, and my palms flat against the floor on either side of his head, bodies pressed together.

“Are you sure you didn’t get hurt?” I asked then, still kissing him.

“I got a little hurt.”

“Where?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Does it hurt now?”

“Nothing hurts now.”

What was my goal here? Was I trying to seduce my physical therapist? I wasn’t even sure if I had been cleared for that type of thing! All I knew was, I wanted to get closer. I would have climbed inside his rib cage, if I could have. I wanted to devour him and be devoured back. Whatever tangled forest of feelings bloomed in my body every time I saw him—I just wanted to get lost in that forest and never find my way out.

I did get lost. I brought my mouth down to his neck, nuzzling in and biting a little, and he ran both his hands up my back, stopping short, bringing his hand around on my nonburned side to guide my mouth back to his.

For a moment, the two of us, just like that, made up the entire world. Nothing but longing, and closeness, and warmth.

That’s why I didn’t hear Kit and Fat Benjamin clomping up the stairs. Or trundling down the hall. Or turning the squeaky old door handle.

No. The first I noticed Kit and Fat Benjamin, they were pushing open the door and flipping on the lights and discovering the two of us down on the floor.

“OMG!” Kit said, slapping her hand over her mouth to cover a giggle. “This room appears to be taken.”

“Get out, Kit!” I said, in a classic annoyed-sister voice.

“Sorry!” Fat Benjamin said, giving us both a little salute of apology.

They stepped back out of the room and slammed the door shut behind them, leaving the overhead light on.

“Wait!” I heard Kit say on the other side of the door. “Were they hooking up?”

With that, all the moonlight disappeared.

Ian blinked at the doorway where they’d just been, like he was waking up from a dream. I still sat astride him, trying to catch my breath, wondering how to get the moonlight back.

But he was up on his elbows now. “Oh, God, Maggie,” he said, twisting sideways to move out from under me.

I shifted onto the floor beside him as he stood and turned to scoop me up.

He lifted me to the bed.

I held on to a doomed little hope that maybe we were just moving to a more comfortable location.

But once he had me securely settled, he turned away and walked to the window. He touched the curtain idly for a minute, delivering his signature silence. Finally, when he spoke, he said, “Maggie, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“I shouldn’t have done that.”

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