Page 103 of Dead Set on You
“Ohmygod,” I groan into my palms, feeling like memory lane is the last place I want to go down.
“It’s so notyou.”
I drop my hands to glare at him. “It isn’tme. Not anymore.” I make a face, and Rafael’s amusement flickers. I refuse to let my past kill the moment. “I don’t think you deserve to know.” I feign indignation, crossing my arms over my chest.
He narrows his eyes. “Backing out of the game?”
“Never,” I say, but really thinking we should stop. “My mother was obsessed with music. Stevie Nicks was one of her faves, right after Annie Lennox. That’s the StevieandAnnie story.” Or the very short, nighttime-swim-appropriate version, because my mother and past don’t have room out here. “Truth or dare?” I go next.
“Truth.”
I peer up at him. He’s watching me the way I want to touch him—with intent, with care, like I’m breakable and burning all at once. “Do you still hate me?”
Rafael laughs with his entire body—and for a moment I falter, wondering if I’ve wasted a truth. I swallow, resisting the urge to take it back. “Raf.”
He stills. “I never hated you, not for a single moment.”
The weight of his words sinks in, sending a hot shiver through me. Drawing me nearer and nearer. I’m close enough I can count water droplets on his skin and watch them slide down the lean planes and dips of his muscles. One droplet pools in the hollow of his neck. Another sits atop his upper lip. I find myself feeling jealous of them … their ability to caress his skin so openly and intimately. If I could, I’d touch him in all the places the water’s touched. I’d be bold and brave, and I’d snake my arms and legs around him, like a jellyfish.
I hate this ghost thing.
“Do you? Still hate me?” he asks. The shift in his tone catches me off guard. The lightness gone. The game paused.
I swallow. “I do …” His eyes shutter for the briefest moment, but they remain dark and intense, as if he’s peering into my soul. Seeing beneath the defenses, the games and the fake truths. “I hate you for making me want something I can’t have,” I whisper, feeling bold enough to lift my finger to his collarbone, to bring it to his skin. Rafael’s muscle shudders beneath my almost-touch.
“That’s cheating,” he rasps. I trace up along his neck and the lines of his face.
“Not being able to experience this is cheating.” I hate that I can’t feel the softness of his skin and taste the lake on his lips. Mostly, I hate myself for not seeing him—and the truth—sooner.
Because I don’t think I ever hated Rafael.
My fingers stilling their path along his chin, I shove the frightening, world-shifting realization deep down for examination another time.
“No,” I answer honestly. “I don’t hate you. Not even a little bit.”
“Good. Because I need to tell you something,” he says. Something tentative lurks beneath his words, and it has a sobering effect.
I search his eyes for a clue. “Is it a good something or a bad something?”
“I hope it’s agoodsomething.”
I want to know and not know. I imagine his good something has to do with another crazy solution for fixing me, and while I know I should be doing everything in my power to get me back to my life, nothing about Evie’s Second-Chance Checklist has a place in this moment—this beautiful, perfect moment.
Almostperfect.
“The thing is, E,” Rafael begins.
Before I can overthink it, I hold a finger up to his lips, shushing him. “Save it for tomorrow. We need to save a few good somethings for tomorrow,” I say. His lips part to speak. “I have a good something too.”
Only my good something hinges on him not seeing us as rivals when tonight’s over, so I silently will the moon and stars to hang out for a few hours longer, just in case.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTWELVE DAYS AFTER, PART I
For the first time since I’ve started waking up on Rafael’s sofa, I don’t completely resent it. Except, perhaps, for the fact that I didn’t wake up next to him, like the way we fell asleep after we spent the rest of the night watchingBridgerton, because while it’s not on my bucket list, reading more books is, and this was close enough (also, Regé-Jean Page).
While I made it through two episodes, it took Rafael all of five minutes to pass out after his birthday festivities and our (very courageous and soul-baring) late-night swim.
I put off falling asleep as long as I could, half reluctant to end a night so full of surprises and revelations and half afraid I might not wake up at all. When I finally fell asleep, it was staring at Rafael’s profile, the lines of his familiar face—fine laugh lines I’ve come to adore. In the time since the accident, he hasn’t shaved, and the scruff has grown on me. So have his smirks and sidelong glances. My favorite, though, has been The Dimple, which hides when he’s not Vela-ing some poor, unassuming soul (i.e., his former mortal enemy).
