Page 92 of Finding Him
“So you’re gonna try and killmeinstead?” I raise a brow, looking out the window. It wasn’t a straight drop to the lawn, thankfully. There was a section of the flat garage roof right below the windowsill—maybe a ten-foot drop to the grass below that, but easy enough to step onto.
He laughs, clearly thinking I’m joking. He climbs out first with practiced ease, and then extends his hand back to me. “C’mere to me. I’ve got ya.”
I take a breath, grabbing his hand, and swinging my legs over the sill. His hand is warm and he uses the other one to steady my waist as my socked feet find the cold, textured surface of the roof.
He had insisted I wouldn’t need my coat, that we were just gonna sit out here and not go anywhere. But I’m freezing my tits off within a couple seconds of being out here. The coldness of the tiles bleed through the denim of my jeans as I sit down. He drops down beside me, stretching his long legs out and laying all the way back against the siding of the house, using his elbow to keep himself propped to the side.
“So,” he murmurs once he’s comfortable, gazing up at me. “Reckon yer parents utterly despise me, or what?”
“As if,” I laugh, keeping my arms crossed tight over my chest, and biting the inside of my cheek to keep my teeth from chattering. “I think they love you more than they love me.”
“Well, don’t fret, so does mine,” he says, reaching out and poking me gently in the side. “Maybe they can arrange a trade.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’d just love that,” I snort, then cover my face immediately.Oh, god, did I just do that?
Niall either doesn’t notice or care, trying to coax me into getting “comfortable,” as if anyone could ever get comfortable laying down on roof tiles in freezing cold weather.
“Does it snow here?” I ask, risking sounding stupid. But in Pennsylvania, it would’ve already snowed at least 3 times just this week with how cold it’s been. But Ireland is all rain, rain, rain.
“It’s usually not this cold,” he says. “Even being close to the water. We might get some light snow ‘round Christmas. Some years we don’t get any at all.”
“Huh,” I say, trying to imagine a winter without snow.
I glance over at him, all thoughts of snow melting from my mind. Instead, I’m more focused on how ridiculously long anddark his eyelashes are, which flutter every time he blinks. And, of course, this just leads to more admiring of the rest of his face, something I do more often than not lately. When I’m not ticked off at him, that is.
I never knew that normal boys, you know, who weren’t Hollywood stars or in a Calvin Klein ad, could be so beautiful. Then again, the longer I spent in his orbit, the more I realized that Niall Blue was something much, much more than a normal boy.
At face value, of course he is. An athlete, just a guy with talent on the field and a lot of friends. You might think he’d be a little arrogant, maybe dimwitted. The only mystery about him would bewhy does he bleach his hair?
But beyond that, I’ve seen most of Niall’s layers in the past couple months I’ve spent getting to know him, peeling back more of his paint to see the walls behind them.
He’s really smart, and in high-level classes that he makes good marks in. He’s kind, and caring, and puts other people before himself all the time.
And he’s hurting. Physically, with his knee, and emotionally, with grief that even I can tell is still there.
And with all these layers, it makes sense to me why he would feel the need to drink and numb the pain. But that doesn’t make it right. Sometimes coping mechanisms, however effective, are just habits that need to be broken or replaced.
His hand abandons its resting place on his stomach, making its way across the rough shingles and taking my much colder hand in his.
“They’re cold,” he murmurs, wrapping his warm fingers around my freezing hand. His thumb begins rubbing soothing circles on the back of my hand, essentially rubbing the life and warmth back into my skin.
When I look up from our hands, he’s looking at me. Reallyatme, in a way I don’t think I’ve ever been looked at before. Like I was something actually worth gazing at like a sky full of stars. Like I was something worth wasting his own body heat over to keep warm.
It’s terrifying, the way he makes me feel completely seen.
Does he see all my layers, too?
Maybe he can feel them, tell that they’re there. But I’m still too afraid to open up the door and let him see all the bloody details.
Someday, maybe, someday.
“Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout, Molly?” he asks, voice soft as a kitten’s purr, like he too understood that this fragile bubble we were living in could pop with the wrong amount of force or simply saying the wrong word.
“You,” I answer honestly.
Heat rushes to my face so fast I’m surprised the freezing wind doesn’t turn to steam against my cheeks. But Niall doesn’t mock me. His lips twitch upwards into a sweet smile that shows off the dimple on his chin.
“Me, is it?”
