That first kiss sparked something, the lighting of a match against emotional gasoline. It warmed the top of my head, crept between my toes, burned my fingertips like a match that hadn't been blown out in time and had licked flesh.
We ate our lunch, eyes never straying from the other, locked in a heated contest. Neither of us wanted to be the first to look away. If I'd first thought of his blue eyes like ice chips, now I knew how much ice could burn. It hurt to look at him. It hurt to look away. I had to do one or the other, and the choosing was another contest, wasn't it? There was a right choice. There was a wrong choice.
In the end, he looked away first.
I didn't protest when Reed paid for both of us, even though my hand was already going to my purse. I didn't know what it meant when it felt natural to be taken care of by him - by any boy.
His hand lightly touched my wrist. "Let's go, Mayuri," he said, stuffing his receipt in the back pocket of his jeans.
His touch was electric, zapping my mouth dry, and my neck sweaty. I trailed after him, catching up only when he stopped and waited for me at the entrance of the restaurant. The girls were nowhere in sight. A family of seven, with a set of twins in the double stroller, walked past us, all of them talking at the top of their lungs. Reed's eyes followed them, eyebrows drawn together in silent judgment.
"What now?" I asked, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my hoodie so he wouldn't see them tremble.
"We walk around. Be seen. Give the lemmings something to look at."
The way he said it, so matter of fact, made my jelly legs turn to lead. "When you kissed me, were you—" I couldn't say the word. Couldn't or wouldn't. Did it really matter?
"Pretending?" Reed says the word for me, brandishing it with such casual disregard that it almost makes me wince. His next words soothe my open wound. "No. No, Mayuri, I wasn't acting. It was real."
The mall was busier than normal, both ends teeming with high school girls and their boyfriends, middle school girls crowding in front of glitzy stores selling trendy, cheap-quality clothing, and older couples and families strolling hand in hand, not really looking for anything in particular, just walking.
As we walked by a perfumed, dimly-lit store with monogrammed letters on the hoodies, I felt his hand slip into mine. I wasn't expecting it, but my fingers tightened around his. I felt the silver bands on his fingers under the pads of my fingertips, rubbing against my knuckles. The metal was warm from his skin.
"Thank you," I said, breaking the silence. "For doing all this. For me."
"You don't have to thank me." He stared straight ahead, seeming uncomfortable with my gratitude. His hand squeezed mine.
I found myself staring at him, wondering how Reed Norcross could be so calm, how he seemed, instinctively, to fit in with this dangerous world. He turned and caught me staring at him. The briefest of smiles flitted across his face. In those seconds I stared into his eyes, I had my answer. Reed was dangerous, too.
"Yo, Reed!"
The spell was broken. Reed's eyes went from cornered, caged animal to flippant frat boy in an instant. "Hey, Baron," he greeted, jutting his chin in the ever-eloquent dude nod. "What are you doing here?"
The white-haired boy towered over both of us. He held up a plastic bag that had what looked like a slanted check mark across the front. "I needed new kicks." Baron eyed me curiously. "Hey, I know you, don't I?" He tilted his head, revealing a long, swan neck and ghostly ivory skin. "Mayuri, right?" His eyes flicked to Reed's for confirmation.
"Yeah." I felt uneasy under Baron's scrutiny. The wild, hilarious thought entered my head that Baron had figured out my name faster than he'd ever figured out a simple math problem.
"Didn't know you guys were"—Baron looked me up and down—"dating." The sentence held a note of surprise. He ran a hand through his thick mane, ruffling his hipster, quiff hairstyle.
"How'd you find out?" I asked.
Baron blinked at me, almost like he didn't expect me to speak until spoken to. "Uh, Emily. She texted me."
Reed's grin was victorious. He slung an arm around me shoulder, his fingers grazing the top of my chest. It was just a little too close for comfort. I tried to edge away from him, get at least a couple of inches between us, but his arm tightened across the back of my neck and he pulled me even closer. My hip touched his and I froze. When I looked at him, his smile was shit-eating. It seemed to say I was right, wasn't I, Mayuri? My idea worked - everyone bought it!
A smile wobbled to my lips. It scared me how astute he could be.
"I guess Em expected me and her to get together after Dom ditched me for Fen," said Reed.
Huh. That was news to me. I wondered how Reed could still be so close to his best friend after his girlfriend chose Fenris over him.
"Yeah." Baron's eyes were on me again. "She seemed cool about it, though."
Reed made a noncommittal grunt.
"You guys wanna go hang at my place?" Baron offered. "I'm done here."
"Sure," said Reed, not asking me whether I wanted to go or not. "We'll follow you in our cars."
"Cars? Plural?" I could see Baron working it out - again, at a faster rate than he solved math problems. "You didn't pick her up?"
"Yeah." Reed's laugh sounded awkward. "The little lady likes her independence."
Okay, hold up. The little lady? That misogynist pig! I ground my teeth in fury, forcing myself not to shrug off his arm.
It was then that I noticed his thumb was rubbing soothing circles across my breast, almost like he was telling me to play along. Liquid desire pooled hot and heavy in my stomach, and I clamped my mouth shut on the angry retort.
"Cool." Baron didn't spare me another glance. "I'll see you there." He did a salute, a weird flick of his hand against his forehead, and turned around, loping off on his long, gazelle legs.
When his back turned, I scowled at Reed, giving him a taste of my ire.
Reed was unapologetic. "Guys like Baron expect girls to be a certain way."
"Soft, dainty, and helpless?" I asked sweetly, baring my teeth at him.
"He knows you're not really my type. He needed to know you wanted to be there with me. He's not a bad guy," said Reed. "But he's a gossip. Worse than a girl, if you want the truth. If he doesn't buy our relationship, then no one else will, either."
"I don't really want to go to his house."
Reed's jaw dropped. "Didn't you hear me?" he asked incredulously. "It's not an option."
Soundtrack of my life. No options. "Whatever," I said, feeling the need to be contrary. "I have to go home. My mom will be expecting me."
"On a Saturday afternoon? Come on, Mayuri. You can't lie for shit."
"You don't know me," I flared right back, matching his tone, scorn for scorn.
"The fuck I don't." Reed stepped closer. To anyone else we would have looked like any other young couple in the mall, heads bent close together in anticipation of a kiss. "Once you a kiss a girl, feel her breath in your mouth, feel the way her heart beats when it's pressed against yours...it's easy to tell when she's lying." He traced one long finger down my cheek, making me shiver with feelings that I didn't want to feel. Down my neck, past my collarbone, dipping into my cleavage. "Your breathing gives you away. That glazed look in your eye? You're a goner." Reed withdrew, smiling crookedly. "You can't lie to me, Mayuri."
I swallowed past the sahara dryness in my throat. "The fuck I can't." It was the first time I'd ever used the F-word. It sent a horrible, chalky taste in my mouth even as the hair on my arms felt electric with naughtiness.
Reed's eyes appraised me sharply. "Huh. I guess there's a first for everything. Didn't peg you for a potty mouth."
I don't know what made me dare, but I said, "You don't know the half of what I can do with my mouth."
His smile was genuine - or as genuine as I could tell, anyway. "Maybe not," he allowed. "But I'd like to find out."
I felt my blush all the way to my toes.
"Let's go," said Reed. "Baron will be expecting us."
As we began to walk to the parking lot, I thought of a lie I'd been able to get away with. My blog. I'd lied to his face and he hadn't been able to tell. I don't know whether that made me a good liar or a really, really stupid person.
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