We’d lived together all year but were never truly alone, not like that. For walks, sure, or in the library, where there was always someone around the corner at the reference desk.
I’d almost convinced myself we’d truly made it to the level of platonic friends until, per the game’s rules, I climbed over that wine rack to curl up in the dark with him, and my thumping heart and flipping stomach proved they’d never stopped waiting for this moment, this closeness.
I clear my throat, but the memory seems to stick in my windpipe. “We must’ve been down here for at least an hour.”
I have no idea if that’s true. I just know every second before we touched felt like a century. Then once we did, time lost all meaning. I think of the black hole documentary I watched with my dad a few years ago, how astrophysicists speculated that there were places in our universe where the rules of time and space inverted, moments becoming a place where you could stay indefinitely.
“I had a good distraction then,” Wyn says. No flirtation, no charm. Earnest Wyn. Matter-of-fact Wyn.
“You had the exact same distraction.” I hold my arms out to my sides, shimmering my hands.
He looks skeptical. “Fine, then distract me, Harriet.”
I tut. “Where are the famous Wyn Connor manners?”
His eyes glint, only the left dimple winking into being. “Distract me please, Harriet.” His voice drops a little.
I suppress the shiver that sizzles down my spine.
He takes another sip of wine and goes back to pacing, clenching and unclenching his fists. His hands, I know, go numb when his claustrophobia kicks in.
I have to do something. I have only one idea.
I stand, brush past him, and swing one leg over the rack under the stairs.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Helping.” Careful not to topple the thirty or so bottles slotted through the rack, I swing my other leg over, hunching so as not to hit my head on the underside of the stairs.
“Yes, the extra one square foot of space is a huge relief.”
“If you put yourself into a smaller space, inside this room,” I say, “then you’ll know you can get out of that space whenever you want.”
“But we still can’t get out of the room,” he says.
“It’s not a perfect science,” I say. “But it’s something. And honestly, no matter what, we’re not trapped. Worst case, we call the fire department. But let’s try this first—I can’t afford an Armas-approved door, and I don’t want you to have to return that coffee-table book.”
A huff of laughter as he swings his leg over. That’s a good sign.
I sidestep to make room for him, but with the angle of the stairs, stooping isn’t enough this far back. I lower myself to the ground and scoot into the corner.
“Now what?” he grumbles.
“Now? Now we put our heads together and try to solve the Zodiac murders,” I say. “Sit down, Wyn.”
He promptly obeys. At this point, I think he’s in the exact right headspace that I could tell him to stand on his hands and sing “Ave Maria” and he might do it.
“Pretend you’re playing the game,” I say. “Pretend we need to be as quiet and still as possible until they find us.”
Raggedly, he says, “That’s not going to work.”
“Wyn.”
His neck bows, his shoulders rising and falling with his shallow breaths.
“Wyn.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m trying not to freak out.”
“Don’t apologize.” Without thinking, I reach for his hand. After the initial spark of surprise, of recognition, I realize his fingers are ice-cold and shaking.
I flatten his palm between mine. “Look at me. Talk to me.”
He keeps his head down.
“Talk to me,” I press again.
“About what?” he asks.
“Anything,” I say. “The first thing that comes to mind.”
“Getting trapped under the armoire,” he says. “That’s all I can think about. Being sure I was going to die before anyone found me. Losing feeling in my leg, and then the pain coming back worse when the shock wore off.”
“Okay, anything other than that,” I amend. I think about my meditation app, the visualization exercise I’ve been relying on these past five months. “Tell me about a place you love.”
He gives one firm shake of his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey.” I scoot closer. Our knees bump. “You don’t have to apologize. Not for this.”
“I thought I was over this shit,” he huffs. “I’m doing so much better. Everything is so much better—I thought this would be better too.”
It stings, hearing that: Everything is so much better. I brush the thought aside, clear my throat again. “Tell me about when we played that game.”
I don’t mean to say it. Or I don’t know, maybe I do. Maybe I need to know that he remembers, that he hasn’t totally forgotten what it felt like to love me, while I’m trapped with him burned onto my heart, my brain, my lungs, my skin.
Finally, his gaze lifts. There’s a beat of perfect stillness. “I was hiding,” he says thickly. “And you came down first. You almost missed me.”
“And then what?”
“And then I moved,” he says.
I blink. “You moved?”
“So you’d see me,” he explains. “And you did. I scared the shit out of you, and I felt bad.”
“You never told me that,” I say.
“Well, I did,” he says. “I hadn’t been alone with you, not really, in a year, and you came down the stairs, and I wanted to touch you so badly. But you didn’t see me, and you started to turn, so I moved.”
My sternum heats. My thighs heat. Even the backs of my knees melt a little, wax too near to a flame.
“And then we heard footsteps,” he goes on, “and you were going to be completely visible, so I pulled you back into the corner with me, where you’d be hidden.” His fingers twitch between mine. Some of the warmth is returning to them.
“I pulled you into my lap,” he says hoarsely. “And I prayed Parth would go back upstairs without finding us, and he did. I could feel your heart racing, so I knew you must be able to feel mine too, and then I realized I was hard. I was so fucking embarrassed. I expected you to get out of my lap once we were alone.”
His eyes return to mine, his pupils dilated from fighting the dark. “But you didn’t.”
My heart races, the liquid warmth rushing out from my center as it replays in my mind.
How I stayed there, in his lap, with his arms around me, terrified that any movement would break the spell. Finally, one of my ankles started to go numb, so I shifted the slightest bit, and he let out an uneven breath at the motion that made me feel like I’d swallowed a hot ember.
Hungry, and desperate, and brave all at once.
How he always made me feel.
“Then you touched my jaw.” He lifts my hand slowly, sets it against his scratchy jaw.
“I didn’t mean to,” I get out, almost defensively.
I don’t even know if I mean way back then or now. My pulse is screaming through my palm and fingertips into his skin. The memory of that fevered first kiss in the dark presses in on us from all sides.