Page 49 of Left-Hand Larceny
I want to say something—break the silence. Tell her it’s okay—but my mouth is glued shut.
Finally, she turns. Her face almost composed now, if I ignore the way she sinks her teeth into her lower lip, the shine of her eyes.
“Thanks for helping with the ice,” she says. Her voice is too normal, too light. “And for yesterday. And… for everything else, too.”
I nod, my throat working uselessly. “I t-told you, Sadie. A-anytime.”
She edges toward the door, giving me a little smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” she says.
I nod again. Can’t seem to make words happen.
Sadie hesitates like she wants to say more. Apologize, laugh it off. Or she could be giving me a chance to respond. I’ll take anything she wants to share. Without thinking, I reach out and catch the end of her long braid between my fingers. She freezes, but doesn’t step out of reach.
The strands are soft. Cool like silk. Thick.
This close, she smells like coconut and cinnamon and sun.
I meet her eyes as I let her hair slip from my fingers like it’s something fragile. Precious.
Sadie stares up at me, wide-eyed.
Slowly, carefully, I push a loose strand of hair back behind her ear, letting my fingertips brush the metal studs in her ear. Letting myself watch the way her chest rises and falls. I trail my hand down the length of her braid. My knuckles brush the cotton of her polo. She shivers.
Neither of us moves for a long, suspended moment.
Then—too fast—she steps back, pulling out of my reach.
“Thank you, Ragnar,” she whispers.
She turns and slips out of the rehab room before I can stop her. Before I can say anything stupid or dangerous or honest. The door swings shut behind her with a soft snick, and I stand there, dripping and cold and aching, staring at the empty doorway like an idiot.
What the hell am I doing?
The way my hands are still tingling—still aching—to touch her is a giant, blinking neon sign that I’m in deep, deep trouble.
I grab my clothes, yanking on my sweats and hoodie with rough, impatient movements. I don’t care that my trunks are still wet. My skin is stretched too tight over my bones. My heart won’t slow down.
I sit on the edge of my tub for a long minute, elbows braced on my knees, head hanging. The metal chills my ass.
Maybe it was nothing.
She was just emotional. Tired. Vulnerable.
I imagined the way she leaned in when I touched her.
Or…
Maybe there’s something between us that neither of us knows how to handle. Maybe she wasn’t one-hundred percent honest—with herself—when she warned me off.
I close my eyes and the fatigue sinks deep into my bones.
Tomorrow, I’ll see her again.
Tomorrow, I’ll have to be normal.
I’ll have to smile and banter and pretend like I didn’t almost kiss Sadie Jones in the rehab room.
