No Kissing Allowed

Chapter 22: Hazel Eyes

She'd been assessing him since the moment they met with those stern brown eyes.

Were they brown?

Jamie reviewed the various mental snapshots in his head. In her yellow dress the day she met him, he could have sworn her eyes were light brown. But they were green this afternoon. Mossy green.

Had he remembered incorrectly? Jamie switched on the lights. "Look at me a moment."

She glanced over her shoulder but looked away again, blinking against the glare. "Why?"

"Your eyes," he answered. "They're bothering me."

She didn't turn her head to let him see. Instead, she made two circles with her fingers and pressed them to her face. "Not the optometry shop again. Are you giving me a vision test this time?"

"No, not your vision. Your eyes." He tugged on her shoulder, trying to crane around for a better look. "What color are they?"

"They don't have a color," she said.

"What do you mean? Are they hazel? Let me see."

He went up on one elbow, trying for a better angle. She relented and met his gaze for a moment, and he searched the red-rimmed orbs.

"Hazel isn't a real color," she explained. "It's a certain way light scatters when it hits molecules of pigment. It's just a placeholder term for a color we aren't quite capable of perceiving."

"I'm perceiving it right now," he countered.

"And what color do you see?"

Jamie hesitated. He could see how the color had confounded him before. It was not easy to pin down. A light greenish brownish mix. The color of the rocks at the edge of the beach, covered with sand and moss.

"Hazel," he pronounced.

Cora squeezed her eyes shut. "No more eye contact." She shook her head. "I can do skin contact or eye contact but not both at the same time." She turned her face away.

"Is that repulsive to you, too?"

"The opposite. I don't want—" she cut herself off. "Nothing. Just turn the light out, please."

He complied, settling for skin contact for now. "You don't want what?" he prompted.

"Nothing."

"What?" he coaxed.

"I don't want to fall in love with you by accident."

Smart girl, Jamie thought. But why did it feel like being stabbed with a thin needle of fire when she said that? The sensation was so sudden and palpable, it made his chest contract.

"I don't mean love love—" she stumbled over her words, trying to explain herself. "There's a hormone. It gets released with various forms of—of intimacy."

"Ah." Jamie settled in behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder so his lips were near her ear. "You mean oxytocin?"

She shrugged in surprise, knocking him in the chin. The impact made his teeth clatter together, but she didn't seem to notice. "You know about oxytocin?"

There she went again. Cora made-of-glass. Broken glass, more like. All sharp edges and tiny slivers, piercing him with her doubts. "Oxytocin," he repeated, adopting his most plummy accent, his best impression of an Oxford don. "Oft referred to as The Love Hormone by popular media. Did Robbie sneak me the notes on that too, do you suppose? Or perhaps I'm semi-literate after all."

She seemed unfazed by the irritation that had crept into his voice. "You're a puzzle. I can't pin down exactly what you are."

"Hazel eyes, personified," he quipped. "Not easy to pin down. Perhaps you should stay another day and get a better look at me."