Page 52 of A Lab Rat's Guide to Fated Love
Vir hadn’t really considered that possibility yet and what might comeafter. He certainly wasn’t ready to consider it now.
“Vir?”
Still not trusting his voice, he averted his eyes from Nori’s scrutinizing gaze.
The waves had just spat out a bunch of broken seashells by his feet. And it was the perfect time to flick them all back into the water one by one. Using his toe.
Flick.The first one landed squarely in an oncoming wave.
“What’s wrong?” Nori asked, trying to peek at his face, but he had a seashell to flick.
Flick.It missed the water entirely and landed a foot away in the opposite direction.
“What—” Nori stepped right in front of him and grabbed his face between her palms, “—is wrong?”
Flick.He just got a chunk of wet sand this time.
“Why won’t you look at me?” Nori’s big brown eyes moved into view.
And as they peered right into his, full of concern and warmth, leaving him nowhere to hide, it finally hit him.
“Do you—” His voice cracked.
“Do I what?”
He pried her hands away from his face and took a small step back before speaking again.
“Do you really think it’s going to work?” Wet sand shifted beneath his feet as he dug his toes in, and his next words slipped out before he had a chance to think them through. “I want to live.”
The insidious greed—greed for moretime, morelifehad been growing inside him all this while, without him even realizing. Each passing day had been making him want another one, and another, and another. But since when? And what else had he become greedy for?
Vir didn’t have to think too hard to know the answer to that.
Nori didn’t reply right away.
With his eyes focused back on his toes, he picked a sense of hesitancy from her. But overshadowing it and everything else, was a fierce protectiveness as it slowly ballooned out of her, growing bigger and bigger till it engulfed him fully in its cocoon.
“Yes. It’s going to work,” Nori spoke with such conviction he almost believed her. Almost. “I’m going to make it work. You’re going to die a hundred-something-years-old grandpa someday.”
Nori
Vir looked up to meet Nori’sgaze, and the intensity in his eyes held her glued to where she stood. She had a sudden, strong urge to reach for him. To rise on her toes and press her lips to his brow before the moisture in his eyes had a chance to spill.
Denying herself this simple action burned like a wound festering inside her chest. She bit her lip and dug her bare heels into the sand to keep herself from inching closer to him.
She was going to make sure he had a fair chance at a long and healthy life. And a happy one.
That meant she couldn’t do any of those things she ached to do—reach for him, comfort him. She couldn’t allow herself to feel things she wasn’t supposed to feel. It’d be cruel to lead him on when she had no intention of letting it go anywhere.
She wouldn’t—couldn’t do that to him.
Vir’s throat bobbed as he swallowed nervously before taking a small step closer to her. Slowly, deliberately, he leaned in and paused with his mouth inches away from hers. Hesitant, yet also as if challenging her to move away from him.
As if he could tell she didn’t want to.
Nori didn’t know whether it was the sudden proximity or his uncharacteristic boldness that did it, but for a split second, her resolve faltered. And before she could reason herself away from him, she leaned in and closed the gap.
Nothing could’ve prepared her for it—the urgency and raw force that her mouth crushed his with. Her body reacted of its own accord as their lips gave into each other like two chunks of soft, warm clay, melting and molding together to form crazy abstract volumes.
