Page 76 of Violent Skies

“Because you always order a small one and it’s never enough, so I switch the cups when I give them to you,” he says, looking over at me.

I watch her hand them to him, realizing that the one he typically gives me is larger than the small cup. “You let me think this is a small?” I laugh, taking the medium.

“It’s better than listening to you slurp the bottom of the Styrofoam with the straw like an elephant,” he teases as we walk.

“I do not,” I scoff, leaning against the car and bringing the straw to my lips.

“You’re my favorite elephant though, so it’s okay.” He shrugs, still staring at me like I’m the only thing he sees. When he does that it makes me warm, unreasonably so, and I can’t help but ask.

“What?”

“Just wanted to look at you for a second,” is always his answer. Once confronted the attention always fades. He swallows tightly, spinning his straw around aimlessly, his eyes dropping to his cup.

I always want to ask him why he does that, but I’m always too much of a coward, knowing the answer might break me.

“Hey Cress?” he asks after a minute of quiet.

“Yeah?” I meet his eyes and everything around us dulls in color in comparison.

“I was just thinking maybe after you’re done with your exams we could go out to celebrate or something,” he asks quietly, nervously. I’ve never seen him so sheepish. Not in ten years of knowing him.

“Yeah that could be fun. Maybe we could take the kids to—”

“Just us.” He cuts me off before I can get my idea out and he does it with his lips, the softest, sweetest of kisses. His lips brush against mine, banana, chocolate and the terrifying thrum of anxiety. It’s perfect, it’s dangerous.

I want more.

I shouldn’t.

I can’t.

“Oh,” I whisper, pulling back. I lick my bottom lip as the heat rises on my cheeks.

He steps back like I’ve slapped him and I want to reach out and bring him back to me. My fingers sting and my heart screams.

“You don’t want to?” he asks carefully.

“It’s not that,” I swallow tightly. “Uh—” I inhale, the milkshake suddenly makes me nauseous. “Riggs—”

“It’s him isn’t it?” His expression hardens. “I should have never told him.” Riggs backs away further, his hand tightening around the cup as he throws it in the bin a few feet away. His eyes darting back and forth between my lips and eyes.

“I don’t understand?” I whisper, still dazed from the kiss, still foolishly craving more of it. It’s like my body has always belonged to him and I just didn’t know it until that moment. The earth spins off its axis with the thought.

“It doesn’t matter, Cress.” His eyes are brilliantly, painfully blue as he holds back tears. “We should get back,” he whispers, moving around me to open the passenger door.

PRESENT DAY

“You told him,” I whisper, my heart pounding in my chest.

“What?” Riggs cracks open his eyes, blue as the sky and as painful to stare at as the sun.

“You told Koa that you—” I hiss, slamming on the brakes. Riggs shouts and braces himself on the dash as I turn the Cuda down a side road and throw it in park. I can’t breathe. I climb out leaving the door open and the engine running as I pace in the gravel with nothing but the moon above me.

Riggs is slower to follow but he climbs from the car, the wind pushing through his curls and sticking them to his handsome face.

“You told Koa that you loved me, didn’t you?” I snap, turning on Riggs. “That day you said it didn’t matter! But it did!” I can feel the tears streaming. “It mattered to you!”

Riggs looks down at his bare feet with a huff, his tongue pushing around inside his cheek. I follow his long legs up to where the black pajama pants hang dangerously low on his hips, the spattering of hair leading beneath, the hard lines of his pelvis, the rapid breaths that fill his stomach and chest.