The Thrashers(89)

Jodi usually painted with music on. Without it, she could hear the scratch of the brushes like wood being sanded down. In the silence, the lab had the atmosphere of a confessional.

“I think my mom killed herself.” She whispered it to the Manhattan skyline.

To his credit, Julian didn’t pause or react. He bent at the waist to dip his paintbrush, wiping off the excess like she’d shown him, and then straightened and continued.

She thought maybe she could get away with just saying it. She’d spoken out loud. Maybe that’s all that needed to happen.

“When I got to the car, your window was only half-down and your seat belt was still on.”

She could tell him about Paige’s shoe to her face, or remind him about her inability to swim, but she just swiped a new line at a new window.

“Did you give up when the car flooded,” he whispered, “or before it even left the bridge?”

Jodi finished a window. “Dad never let me near a pool because my mom drowned in our bathtub after taking too many painkillers.” And after a pause, “I was in the tub with her. I think she wanted me to die, too.”

Her throat felt choked again, that same sensation from earlier. There was nothing else she could say without cracking into a million pieces.

It was too quiet. The silence forced her to face him. There wasn’t pity in his gaze or a rush to say the right words. He just looked at her and saw her.

“Maybe she did. But I don’t want you to,” he said. Like it was as simple as that.

She held his gaze, waiting for the right response to come to her. Quick as a flash, he reached up and ran his paintbrush over her exposed clavicles with a naughty smile.

Jodi’s mouth fell open, eyes wide. He bit his lip and lifted a brow.

She stepped up to him, waiting for him to make a run for it, examining his black tux. She swept the brush through the hair at his temple, turning it gray. When he didn’t stop her, she did the other temple as well.

He cleared his throat with a smile, bent down to freshen up his brush—so she thought—and pressed his hand into the paint tray. He stood tall and planted his gray hand in the middle of her chest over her sternum, leaving a handprint over the apron.

She gasped and drew her brush down his chest before she could think. Down his tux.

“Oh god. That was dumb. I’m so sorry—”

His paintbrush pushed into her ear and she squealed. He wrapped her into a bear hug, untied her apron, and dipped his fingers into the paint can on the table. She could barely laugh out “No!” before he clawed at the front of her dress to match his slash of gray.

His raspy laughter in her ear warmed her stomach, and she shrieked when he pushed his temple against her cheek to smear the paint onto her skin. She pushed back, reaching her brush for the paint can, but he caught her wrist, tugged her waist close to him, and swallowed her laughter with his lips against hers.

Jodi’s chest shook, like an aftershock following a quake. She gasped in air, and Julian’s tongue brushed across hers. The paintbrush clattered to the concrete floor.

His hand stained with gray paint pressed to her jaw and the back of her neck, enveloping her, and his mouth moved over hers in the way that people who knew how to kiss moved their mouths—teasing, testing, trying.

Her fingers curled in his tux jacket, and freshman year welled up in her mind—Zack’s birthday party and spin the bottle. Julian’s mouth brushing over hers for half a second before he was wiping his hand across his curled lips—

She pushed at his shoulder and the moment their lips parted she rushed out, “I’m sorry.”

Because clearly, she did this, right? Julian Hollister didn’t want to kiss her. Somehow he’d pressed his cheek to hers and she’d moved their mouths and he’d fallen forward, closer—

“For what?” His eyes searched hers. His hand was still cupped around her jaw, fingers on her neck. Holding her. Dragging her nearer to him.

His breath crested over her forehead, and she thought of him coming to see Our Town, and how he’d come after her tonight when no one else bothered. How she would have let herself drown if he hadn’t outright refused.

She flung her arms around his neck—maybe like they did in the movies, maybe like an awkward baby bird—and shoved him back against the wall. He laughed as their mouths connected again, but hissed and looked down. He’d stepped in the paint tray, his dress shoe’s sole soaked.

“Oh god,” she said, pressing her eyes closed.

His hands curled over her cheeks, pulling her face back to his. He kissed her in a way that wasn’t soft, but wasn’t aggressive, only stopping to tug the apron neck over her head and toss it to the side. He backed her into the worktable, his height looming over her as her eyes fluttered closed. His hand dragged down over her painted collarbones, resting between her breasts—where he’d pounded her ribs to get river water out of her lungs.

And she wondered what it was they were doing, and if it was wise to let him crack her chest open a second time, just to see if he fit inside.

Her mouth felt drunk and needy against his, and she knew she couldn’t be as good at this as he was used to, but she didn’t care. Not when he was slanting his lips to nip at her, taste her—making her head spin while she tried to keep up.

“What the hell is this?”

They broke apart at the voice, and Jodi whipped her neck around to see Zack in the doorway. His eyes were wide, but narrowing.