Page 65 of Make Them Bleed
Juno: Stop. I’m smiling and I hate you for it.
I lean my forehead against the cool glass and let myself breathe. My hands still shake with the memory of the loft, and now they shake with the phantom of a wall and her mouth. I want. God, I want. But want is not a plan. I step back from the window and let the room resolve again into the couch.
Juno: Okay, I’m going to take a shower and pretend the steam is washing off other people’s fingerprints.
Juno: Goodnight, Arrow.
My chest pulls tight again, but in the good way.
Goodnight, Juno. Dream about something where I’m in it.
Three dots. Then:
Juno: That’s all of them.
I put the phone face-down on the coffee table and sit there for a minute, palms buzzing, heart stamping out a ridiculous rhythm. The hallway light clicks on, and Gage pads out in socks, carrying a drive.
“Plate’s a match to the Marina set,” he says, like we weren’t just having a quiet emotional earthquake in the other room. “Time stamp puts it at twenty minutes after your Unknown text.”
“Good,” I say, accepting the drive. “Bad. Both.”
He studies my face like he’s checking exposure. “You look less like a man being eaten alive by bees.”
“She told me how to be useful,” I say. “I can work with that.”
He nods, yawns in a way that makes me yawn because biology is code. “I’m crashing. Wake me if the rivers start speaking Latin.”
“Copy.”
He shuffles down the hall and shuts his door. I clean up the table by muscle memory—cups, a stray cable tie, a sticky note that saysDON’T GET ARRESTED(Render must have planted it like a guardian angel). I set two alarms: one at 6:30 to finish the Huxley packet, one at 7:15 to secure bagels with cream cheese too fancy for our tax bracket.
23
Juno
Sleep is a rumor. My brain keeps replaying the same loop over and over again. Arrow’s mouth on mine in the loft, the way he stopped when I asked, the way he didn’t hesitate when I saidtruth. Every mandala petal I shaded last night turned into his hands on my hips, his voice in my ear. Steady, low, a compass I didn’t know I was allowed to follow.
When the knock comes, I don’t bother with the peephole. The deadbolt clicks, the door swings, and there he is: jeans, black Henley, a paper bag of bagels tucked in the crook of his elbow, coffee carrier in his hand. His hair is damp, like he sprinted through a shower and gravity lost the argument.
“Morning,” he says, that crooked smile flashing—and whatever speech I planned about boundaries and breakfast evaporates. I launch.
The bagel bag and coffee carrier hit the entry table with an undignified thud as I fist both hands in his shirt and pull. Arrow’s shock lasts exactly the length of a heartbeat. Then his mouth is on mine, hot and sure, one big palm braced on the doorframe beside my head, the other cupping the back of my neck like I’m something precious and perfectly claimed.
Everything tilts. His scent is driftwood soap and cinnamon from my coffee order and the faint electric ozone of rain on wires. I taste mint and the remembered sweetness of last night’s almosts, and I make a noise that would embarrass me if I had any shame left, which I do not.
“Hi,” I murmur against his mouth.
“Hi,” he breathes back, voice wrecked already.
The world narrows to breath and heat and the light rasp of his beard grazing the corner of my smile. He kisses me once more, slower, and then pulls back just enough to look at me—really look. My chest heaves. His gaze is molten and meticulous, the way he looks at code when it’s about to do something beautiful.
“Door,” he says softly, a question wrapped in a single syllable.
“Close it,” I whisper, dragging him inside with me.
He hooks the toe of his boot behind the door, kicks it shut, and the softthumpis a drumbeat I feel in my ribs. Before the lock can even settle, I’m up on my toes again, mouth searching. He laughs against my lips and changes the angle, tilting me with careful hands until I’m flush to the door, pinned only by gravity and want.
“Juno,” he says, my name like a worn-in psalm as his thumbs skim the line of my jaw. “Tell me what you want.”
