Page 58 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
Miller lets out a strangled laugh, warm breath in the hollow of my throat. “More than.”
My hair falls over his face, tickling across his cheekbones, and I push it out of the way. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He reaches up to brush it behind my ear, tugging gently at the end of a curl before dropping his hand back to my waist. “I love your hair.”
“Even when it’s eating you?”
He grins, and this close it’s like it takes up his whole face. “Especially then.”
“Good,” I say, and he echoes, “Good,” and then we’re kissing.
And, I mean—I’ve kissed people before. That tourist at the lake. Declan Frey in the dim alcove off his living room. Boys I knew so briefly they lit on my life like fireflies before disappearing.
Kissing has been fun, or fine, or really bad. Kissing Miller is nothing like the others.
We come at it so eagerly that our teeth scrape, and still—it’s perfect. Miller hooks his good arm around my waist, holding me against him as his palm presses between my shoulder blades. His chin’s tipped back, and I can feel the curve of his throat under my thumb when I run my hand down to his chest, the movement of his jaw when he pushes his lips to mine. My fingers cross the fabric of his sling and his heartbeat underneath. His mouth opens under mine and I want to stay here forever and kissing Miller feels like breathing—like I might die if it stops.
His fingertips press to my waist, pulling me closer, and his cast hits my hip bone.
“Careful,” I whisper, right into his mouth. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You couldn’t,” he says, and when he kisses me again I hesitate. Somewhere, my computer dings with another text message. “Ro.”
I look at him, his blue eyes inches from mine. His face angled up to meet me, the swoop of his hair over his forehead. He tips his head back into my palm, giving me the weight of him.
“It’s all right,” he says, like he knows what I’m thinking. Which is that I did hurt him once. “We’re all right.”
“I love you,” I tell him. Every version—that kid who cried ata dead tree in the woods, and the one who went to that stupid party with me, and the one who signed up for MASH when we hadn’t spoken in years. Even the one who yelled at me, fury running through him like a fever, at the Fast Freeze. The near-reality where we never found each other again lands on me, heavy and all at once. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” Miller says. “We’re here now.”
I brush my thumb over his bottom lip, the thin ridge where he split it on the staircase, and he kisses my finger.
“I missed you,” he says quietly.
“Since the plane?”
Miller shakes his head. “The whole time.”
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, careful not to squeeze too hard. He leans his forehead into the slope of my neck and for a minute we just sit there, breathing.
“Me too,” I whisper over the top of his head. “The whole time.”
“I love you,” he says. I pull back, and he looks up at me. “You know that, right? It’s been true all along.” Miller swallows, shakes his head just a little. “That’s been the hardest part of this whole thing, pretending that I didn’t.”
I lean my forehead against his. It feels like a miracle—his chest under my hands, him holding me here in my bedroom.
“I don’t want you to ever pretend with me,” I tell him. “No more Hidden Miller.”
He tips his chin up, presses his mouth into mine. “Deal,” he whispers. And then, “Ro?”
“Mmm?” We’re too close to look at each other; when I open my eyes he’s all blurry.
“Can I call you my girlfriend now, or is that still the wrong vernacular?”
I burst out laughing, and Miller smiles. “I think I’m ready to make an exception to the rule,” I say, and he stamps a kiss against the side of my neck.
“Generous.”
