Chapter Thirty-Seven
“That was surprisingly fun for a fundraiser,” says Zarmenus. “The ones back home were always so boring. Although one time a pair of Hellhounds escaped. That was fun.”
We’ve made it back to our dorm room. As I take my phone and wallet out of my pockets and put them on my desk, he drops down onto his bed, instantly getting comfortable. Bell appears out of nowhere and jumps onto his chest, demanding to be petted.
“Right?” I say. “Frat boys know how to throw a party, I’ll give them that.”
It truly was a great night. The pool eventually became crowded, with hundreds of people together enjoying the music.
The DJ’s mix was all mash-ups of popular songs, some of which have no business sounding as good as they did.
I had a long conversation on the bleachers with a drunk frat guy who kept asking me for relationship advice.
He reminded me a little of a golden retriever, and I hope he follows my advice and tells the girl he likes how he feels.
Like always, Zarmenus was the life of the party.
He showed off his control of his magic by creating a phoenix out of flames and having it fly circles over the pool, a magic trick that was cut short when pool staff told him to stop.
He also saved the day when a shark fin appeared in the pool, which wound up being a poltergeist that Zarmenus had to banish with a spell.
Another major thing happened, and as fun as everything else was, it’s what I’ve been thinking about most. Zarmenus asked to kiss me.
Even if it was to throw people off our scent, he still asked.
And now I’m here wishing I’d said yes, even if I know in my heart of hearts that it’d be a terrible idea.
It might be the worst idea. I know with complete surety that I did the right thing in turning him down.
So why do I feel like this?
Suddenly I’m back in the pool, treading water.
Zarmenus is in front of me, his fiery eyes the most beautiful thing on this, or any, world.
I say yes, and we move to where it’s shallow enough to stand.
He pushes me back into the pool wall, leaving his hands on my waist. I hook my hands around the band of his necklace and pull him to my lips.
Instead, I did the sensible thing. The right move. Only now I’m kicking myself because I could’ve done that, but I didn’t.
“What are your plans for the rest of the night?” he asks. He runs a hand through his hair. It’s still slightly damp from the pool, making it curlier than normal. It suits him.
The true answer is I’m going to spend the night thinking about what could’ve been if I’d said yes.
“I think I’ll just go to bed,” I say instead. “You?”
“Yeah, same.”
“Cool.”
It’s like there’s a spell that’s been cast over the space.
I can feel it, I’m just not sure that he can.
There’s a lot being left unsaid, which makes total sense.
I don’t know yet how he feels about me turning him down.
As brash as he can seem sometimes, he can be so earnest. And I think it takes an incredibly strong person to brush off being rejected for a kiss.
If our roles were reversed, I’d be devastated.
“I’m going to brush my teeth,” I say. I spin away, shattering the spell, and go into the bathroom.
I turn the tap on and just watch the water run for a second.
I shouldn’t care this much. People kiss all the time, it’s not a big deal.
It would be my first kiss, sure, but I’m eighteen.
I should kiss someone and get it over with.
We’ve been acting like boyfriends for so long now.
Would it really have been so bad for us to kiss one time?
Seriously, why didn’t I let him kiss me?
I wish, just once, I’d let myself do something completely reckless.
Yes, kissing him might’ve ended in disaster, but at least then I would’ve been able to kiss the incredibly attractive prince of Hell in a pool.
For the rest of my life, no matter what happens, I’d always have that.
I could be an old man in a nursing home, and I could look back and think: I truly lived.
In the mirror, the ghoul appears.
I know, I think, as it turns its head to stare at me, its toothless mouth stretching open to reveal a glistening red throat. I’m a mess.
I undress and step into the shower. I turn the taps until the water is scalding hot and steam billows around the tiles.
I step into the water, letting the burn wash away any unwelcome thoughts.
Just. Stop. Thinking. These thoughts are no good, they don’t help.
Zarmenus only wanted to kiss me as part of our lie.
Do I want to kiss him knowing that he doesn’t truly want to? Hell freaking no.
I pump some of my face wash and start scrubbing my face.
At the same time, I’m worried kissing him could change things forever for me.
If I’m being totally honest with myself, I’m getting scarily close to having actual feelings for him, if I’m not already there.
A kiss might be amazing, but I can’t forget that he’s leaving at the end of the semester.
Do I want to be heartbroken? Plus, what if we kiss and I can’t handle it, and mess up our fake relationship?
If I put myself out there and get burned, will I really be able to keep pretending we’re boyfriends?
I’ve come so far, and I’m so close. I’m not going to lose my internship now. One kiss isn’t worth the risk.
Or is it?
Something tells me kissing Zarmenus is worth every risk.
The image floods my mind again, and I’m back there, in the water, inches from him. His eyes have lit up in that mischievous kind of way of his.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks.
“Yes.”
The replay is somehow hotter this time. The entire party fades into the background as he leans closer to kiss me. He’s now an inch away from his lips meeting mine. I manage to stop the thought, pausing us before anything happens.
Stop. Just stop.
I try to think about something else, something I should be thinking about. Like my classes or my assessments. Something safe and normal. It somewhat works, with my thoughts about my upcoming paper on Java, a programming language. I like it, but there’s nothing sexy about Java.
I stay in the shower for way longer than I normally do. The steam has fogged up the entire mirror, but through the steam I can make out four distinct ghouls. They are identical in shape and size as the first.
That’s new.
I dry myself and get dressed in one of my old T-shirts, one I only sleep in now, and some boxers.
I cross the room and climb into my bed. Zarmenus is beneath me, reading one of my horror mangas.
Bell is curved at the foot of his bed, asleep.
I can still smell the chlorine from the pool in the air, thick and heavy.
Our room is always warm, but it’s even warmer than normal tonight.
It’s a dry heat, like a perfect summer’s day.
“Good shower?” he asks.
“Yeah, great,” I say. “Although there are a few more ghouls now, I thought you should know.”
“Give a ghoul an inch, they’ll take a mile. Should I call an exorcist?”
“It’s fine, I’m used to it.”
Our bunk bed creaks, and he stands up so he’s facing me. “We need to talk. May I?”
Before I can answer, he’s climbing up the ladder to my bed. He sits on the end of my bed cross-legged.
Even though we share the space, it still feels like he’s crossing an enormous line. This is basically the one space in this entire room that should be completely off-limits to him. He should not be here.
Yet he is, and I don’t mind. Not even slightly.
I should, though, right? I’ve never had a guy in my bed before, and I’ve always felt protective of my space.
“Talk to me,” he says.
“About what?”
“Why didn’t you want me to kiss you?”
I’m surprised, because over the past few hours I’d managed to convince myself that I’m the only one who is analyzing that moment over and over. I was pretty sure that Zarmenus had simply moved on. Is it seriously possible he has been as fixated as I was?
It seems too good to be true.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just can’t stop thinking about it, and I know until we talk it out, I won’t be able to sleep. Did I upset you?”
“No,” I say.
I think of a million lies to hide the truth.
I could tell him that I simply didn’t want to, or that I don’t feel that way about him.
That I have kept to our arrangement, and I only think of him as my annoying roommate, someone I’m only pretending to date in order to get an internship.
I don’t want to lie to him, and I know from the regret I’ve felt that keeping things locked tight inside my chest isn’t a guaranteed success.
It can feel worse than taking the leap and falling flat.
It’s a different kind of pain, but it’s still pain.
I decide to take the leap and tell him what I’m feeling.
“I haven’t kissed anyone,” I say. “And if I’m going to kiss someone for the first time, I want it to be real.”
I search his face for the judgment I’m sure is going to be there. But there’s nothing.
“What makes you think it wouldn’t be real?”
My heart is pounding so hard I’m worried I’m close to a heart attack.
What is going on right now? He scoots closer so he’s only inches from me.
I remember how I felt in the shower, where I wished that I had said yes and gone for it.
Somehow I’m right back in a moment that feels very similar, and my thoughts are still telling me that I should pull away, to swerve before I crash.
He puts his hand on my leg. I almost want to recoil, even though it feels so good. What is he doing? We have history, and so much on the line. Doesn’t he know how dangerous this is?
“If you want me to kiss you,” he says. “All you have to do is ask.”
His hand moves farther up my thigh, brushing the bare skin.
The room feels even hotter now. I’ve never been touched there, and now I wish that I’d worn more than boxers after I left the shower.
Also, who knew that being touched there would feel this good?
It’s not exactly a noteworthy area of my body.
Does he want to kiss me? I am about to ask, but then I stop myself.
That’s my doubts talking again. I should examine this logically.
He climbed into my bed. He put his hand on the bare skin of my upper thigh and has talked about kissing me.
He told me that the only thing stopping us from kissing is me giving him permission.
I don’t need to ask him if he wants to. He’s made that screamingly obvious.
“I’m nervous,” I say.
“It’s okay, we can go slow.”
He shuffles closer and leans in close, kissing my forehead.
“See, now you’ve been kissed. No reason to be nervous.”
I laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Thank you.”
His smile settles, and he moves closer. His hand moves up my leg.
“This okay?” he asks.
“More than okay.”
We both move closer, and he kisses me properly.
He starts gentle, his lips just briefly pressing against mine.
Still, it knocks me for six, the air in my lungs catching.
His hand moves up my thigh to my side, running up my body to the side of my face.
The touch totally overwhelms me. An out-of-control fire rages throughout my body.
I close my eyes as he kisses me harder, our faces turning to the side.
He pulls away, and the sudden loss is nearly too much for me.
He is watching me, a hunger in his eyes, a want as intense as mine.
He comes back to kiss me, and this time it’s different. I fall backward, and he gets on top of me.
And it feels fucking good.
His hands go under my shirt, slipping under the material to touch the bare skin of my hips. His palms are rough and hot. He stops only to pull his shirt off, tossing it over the side of the bed so it falls to the floor.
I raise my hands, and in seconds my shirt is gone. Even if it’s still PG, being this naked around him is making my heart race at a dangerous speed.
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
Then we crash back into each other, with him kissing me down into the bed. I run a hand down his muscled back. His skin is red-hot, but doesn’t burn.
What am I doing? There’s no way this will end well.
He starts kissing my neck, which kills any hesitation I had left. I can feel the scrape of his stubble against me, and it turns out that’s something I really like. I sweep a hand through his hair, which is feather-soft.
He pauses. His necklace hangs down in the space between us.
It reminds me that I’m not seeing the real him.
I reach out and touch the pendant of the necklace.
“Is something wrong?” he asks.
“No. But you don’t have to look like this if you don’t want to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to kiss the real you.”
“Are you sure?”
I’m not, at least not completely. He was kind of terrifying. But I want this kiss, even if the circumstances around it are fake, to be real. And how real can a kiss be if he’s not in his true form?
“If it’s too much for you, we can go back,” he says, as the glamour fades.
Bright orange cinders ripple across his body, and his skin turns red.
Dark, pointed horns appear on his forehead, but they’re nowhere near as large as they were when we were at Adam’s.
In fact, aside from his skin color and the horns, he’s barely changed.
He’s clearly not human, but he’s nowhere near as terrifying as he was the last time.
Up close, I notice his eyes have become brighter, the brown mixed with an orange as bright as sunlight.
His transformation starts a fire on my blanket, which he puts out with his hand.
“What?” he asks.
“You look different.”
“I have a few forms,” he says. “This is what I look like when I’m not trying to scare someone. This is what I look like most of the time.”
So this is the real him.
“Are you disappointed?” he asks. “I can look scarier if you want, but if you want the real me, this is as close as possible.”
“No, this is good.”
“Because I have an even scarier form,” he says. “If that’s what you’re into.”
“Shut up.”
I take hold of his necklace and pull him closer. As he kisses me, I have one crystal-clear thought.
I just had my first kiss.
And I wouldn’t change a single thing about it.