Page 47 of Tilly in Technicolor
Tilly shrieks.
“What?” I shriek back at her.
“That’s cold!”
For a moment, I contemplate leaving this contrarian girl right where she is.
“I think you’ll be able to cope,” I finally grumble, rubbing the goop on her skin and sliding my fingers under the crack to reach whatever I can under there.
“I’m not sure that’s true. I completely lack resilience.” There’s a hint at something in her tone that makes me think she might be enjoying this. Just the tiniest bit.
She has me equal parts panicked and annoyed, but an unintended smile cracks across my lips.
“Let’s give this a go,” I say, gripping her upper arm with one hand and her waist with the other. It’s absolutely awful timing that I notice how soft her skin is. How perfectly the dip of her waist lines up with my palm.
Desperate to push any similar thoughts out of my head, I give her a tug.
I was expecting there to be much more resistance, I really was. But no. She’s dislodged in an instant, and the force of it has me falling back, head hitting the floor and the weightof Tilly’s body landing fully on mine as she lets out a windedoof.
For a moment, I can’t breathe, and it’s not only because Tilly’s elbow landed firmly in my diaphragm.
It’s the way her legs are tangled with mine, the warmth of her seeping into me, the soft puffs of her breath against my neck and the tickle of her hair against my chin.
It’s…
I’m…
I don’t have names for the odd emotions surging through me, but I feeleverything.Like my heart is unfolding, expanding further and further until it threatens to burst out of my chest. Like bees are buzzing in my stomach, and warm honey is dripping in my veins.
It’s so much all at once, but, for some reason, I hope it never stops.
After a moment, Tilly shifts, lifting her head and looking down at me. And it’s like… fuck. I don’t know. Maybe she’s feeling everything, too? Is that possible? I’ve spent so much of my life feeling disconnected from others, I don’t know what to make of this charged, live wire that’s suddenly tethering us together.
“Are you okay?” Tilly whispers, and I feel the breath of her words dance across my mouth.
I nod. “Are you?” I manage to ask, my voice hoarse. My limbs apparently no longer belong to me, because, suddenly, the pads of my fingertips are resting on her cheeks.
Tilly nods back. The friction of her skin against mine feels like a sharp zap of lightning up my arm and straight to my chest. The gentlest glow of pink warms the spots I touch. Pantone 12–1305, Heavenly Pink. All of a sudden, I’m convinced the color was named only after Tilly gifted it to the world.
We stay there, suspended in a moment, focused on nothingbut each other. Tilly leans a centimeter toward me. I lift my neck an equal distance up. My head is spinning, and fragments of questions poke at my brain. What is she…? Is this…? Are we…?
Is she going to kiss me?
Then an even more important thought solidifies at the forefront of my mind:
I want to kiss her.
Right as I’m about to close the distance, a booming knock rattles at the door, scaring us both. We jolt so hard our foreheads smack together. Tilly lets out a string of curse words as she rolls off me, and I cradle my head in my hands as I groan.
The second, obnoxious knock creates a pulsing pain in my skull, and I scramble to standing, ready to kill whoever just stole that moment from us.
A third, even louder knock.
I’m at the door in four long strides, and I wrench it open. “What the fu—”
“Good to see you, too, Ollie,” the world’s most familiar voice says. “You always were one to give the warmest of welcomes.”
I close my eyes, then sigh, using my free hand to rub my temple.
