CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
I lost track of how long Kieran spent in the shower.
It felt like a while, but I couldn’t blame him—living Outside, how many opportunities had he had to use a working shower?
The cool water probably felt refreshing after being out in the humid night.
Running around. Almost getting himself captured or killed.
He was so fucked. And I might be, too.
The reality of our situation was finally starting to creep over me like threads of ice. But then I heard the click of the bathroom door, and my heart jumped into my throat.
Kieran emerged wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, scrubbing his hair with a towel.
Even looking like he had taken a tumble off the edge of a cliff, his body still made my breath catch in my throat.
The candlelight flickered off every pane of muscle, lighting him up in an almost otherworldly glow.
No one in Cyllene looked quite like that. Even Zander. There was no substitution for a life spent literally fighting and clawing for survival.
“How was your shower?” I asked lamely.
“Great.” His smile was neither amused nor smug. He seemed genuinely happy and relaxed, and seeing that brought a smile to my face as well.
“I see you finished bandaging your leg.”
I waited for him to jump at the opportunity to embarrass me some more, but his mind seemed like it was somewhere else as he stood in the middle of the room, flexing his leg beneath the bandage.
“Yeah, I have to say…I’m not used to walking away from a fight with injuries like this.
One of the Enforcers shot at me when I was coming over the wall, and I guess my head was somewhere else because really, what a fucking horrible landing.
It’s not broken or anything, but I’m probably not going to be able to put much weight on it for a while. ”
I considered what he had said. And realized he had never actually answered my question from earlier. I smoothed the comforter with my hands. “You never did say why you’re here. Do you all need me for something else?”
Kieran was silent for a moment. He was no longer examining his leg but still seemed distracted. Suddenly, as if making up his mind about something, he strode over to the bed and sat down on the edge. “Give me the larimar stone.”
A beat passed.
“Damnit, not like that,” he huffed, rising again and disappearing back into the bathroom. I heard the rustling of fabric, then he returned with a chain of some sort, dangling from his fingers. It was silver. Pretty, actually. “I brought this for you, for the stone. So you don’t lose it.”
I retrieved the stone from under my mattress. There was a clump of some sort of silvery wire on the center of the chain, and he manipulated it with careful fingers, clamping it around the stone until it was perfectly caged in. A necklace.
When he handed it back to me, a lump formed in my throat. “I can’t wear this around Cyllene,” I said, trying to force my emotional mind to be rational.
“Not every day,” he conceded. “But it’s better for it to be portable.”
“True,” I said quietly. Then, “Thank you.”
“There are a couple other things that I wanted to run past you,” he said with a heavy sigh. “But it’s been a hell of a night.”
I nodded. An incident like the one he had caused tonight had never happened before in the time that I had been alive. At least as far as I knew. I wondered what The Council’s reaction would be. What it would mean for the city.
“I’m not really in any shape to make the trip back tonight,” Kieran continued. Suddenly he wasn’t meeting my eyes again. “And if anyone has come across those Enforcers at the wall, they’ll be looking for me. Would you mind if I slept here tonight?”
There was nothing suggestive in his tone. And nothing pleading, either. I could tell that if I said I wasn’t comfortable with it, he would turn and head right back out the glass door, onto the balcony, and into the night. To face whatever might be waiting for him out there.
“Of course I don’t mind. You’re more than welcome,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen once they find those Enforcers. But with your injuries, you need to rest and recover before you try to take off again. I just hope they don’t know it’s me that you’ve been visiting.”
We both sighed at the same time. We really were fucked.
I flattened imaginary wrinkles in the comforter again.
“You can rest here tomorrow while I’m at my work assignment.
There’s bread and some other stuff in the cabinets.
The good stuff—like the blueberry muffin, or the chicken that one night—I usually get from a friend.
But I also get an assigned lunch at the cafeteria in the Knowledge Center.
I can just pack it up and bring it to you. ”
There was something like true gratitude in Kieran’s expression as he smiled at me again. And there was also something else that, like so many of the looks that Kieran gave me, I couldn’t quite place.
I returned the smile. Then I realized there was one tiny problem with him spending the night.
Where was he going to spend the night?
The thought must have been showing on my face, because he stood from the bed and walked over to my desk. “If you have a spare pillow and blanket, I can make myself comfortable here. I sleep sitting up all the time during scouting missions, so I’ll be fine.”
“Absolutely not!” I said so vehemently that his head snapped back to me, eyes wide. “That’s ridiculous for you to sleep in a chair when there’s a bed right here.”
I said this even as I knew what it would mean.
“You’re fine with us sharing a bed?” he asked. His amused smile was back, and I instantly wondered if he was going to make me regret this decision.
“Yes. I think we’re both mature enough.” There was an unspoken “I hope” at the end.
“I don’t know. Speak for yourself, Maila.”
“It’s either that or you can take the bed, and I’ll take the chair or the floor. I’m not making a guest—and an injured one at that—sleep in a hard wooden chair.”
“If you say so,” he said. His grin was huge now. “Want me to blow out these candles?”
“Sure.” I scooted over toward the wall to make room for him. Thankfully, I already had a second pillow on the bed. I scanned it quickly for stray hairs or anything else embarrassing. Then the candles were out, and we were submerged in darkness.
Or at least, I was. I remembered once again with annoyance that he could see me just fine.
I felt the mattress dip as he sat down, then the full weight of him lying down beside me. The comforter tugged a bit as he pulled it up and over himself.
This was fine. No big deal.
I laid down next to him. Our hands brushed and I jerked mine back, folding it over my stomach instead. Even without touching, I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
He just had a cold shower—how was he still that warm?
The clean, fresh scent of my soap and shampoo filled my nose.
Both were standard issue, nothing like the exotically scented bubble bath and perfumes that Brielle always managed to get her hands on.
But the scent of my soap and my shampoo mingling with the scent of his skin…
it was the most intoxicating thing I had ever smelled.
It was going to be a long night.
We laid there in the dark. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I couldn’t have begun to guess how much time passed. Hours? Minutes? Seconds? It felt like an eternity.
Even without night vision of my own, I could feel that he was still awake. In fact, my intuition told me that he was staring up at the ceiling as well.
That lump returned to my throat, and before I even fully understood what was happening, my eyes began to sting.
“Hey, Kieran,” I said, so softly it was almost a whisper.
“Yeah?”
“Do you regret kissing me?”
For a beat there was nothing but silence.
Then there was a shuffling of blankets and a shifting of the mattress, and I realized he had turned to face me. He was raised up on one arm, leaning over me.
“Are you serious?” His tone was even. I wished that I could see his expression, even if that was often just as hard to read.
“You took off so abruptly.” The words kept coming.
Why did I always seem to do this with him?
“And then you barely spoke to me the rest of the time I was outside the walls. Barely looked at me. And left me here without even saying goodbye. Now you’re in my apartment, without Nya…
in my bed, even…and I don’t understand why. ”
He exhaled. “Maila,” he said in as serious of a tone as I had ever heard from him. “I came here because I wanted to see you.”
I rolled over to face him.
“You’re right,” he continued. “I was being distant. And I’m sorry for that. I just had a lot on my mind. I didn’t know what to expect that night on the beach. I thought maybe we’d make out for a while, and it wouldn’t be all I had built it up to be.”
“Ouch.”
He let out something between a sigh and a laugh. “That’s not what I meant. What I’m trying to say is…I just thought…” He trailed off.
I had never heard him at a loss for words before. I stayed quiet, giving him time to gather his thoughts.
After a moment, he laid his head back down on the pillow. Our faces were inches away from each other. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “Look, what matters is I’m here because I couldn’t stand not knowing when I was going to get to see you again.”
I felt a few of the tears that had been burning my eyes slip down my face. I lifted my hand to wipe them away, but instead I felt his fingers brush my cheek, wiping them for me. There was something so tender in it, I didn’t care that he knew I was crying.
Afterward, his hand drifted to my hair. The gentle tugging sensation as he trailed his fingers through the unbound strands was so soothing, I found myself closing my eyes.
His voice was just above a whisper. “It’s late, I look like I’ve been beaten to hell, and you have your—what do you all call it? ‘Work assignment?’ You have your work assignment to go to in the morning. Let’s get some sleep.”
Then he grabbed me, gently but firmly, and pressed me against his chest.
It was so unexpected that whatever response was forming on my lips completely dissipated.
The feeling of being held by him, his arm draped over me and his chin resting on the top of my head, was pure bliss.
Despite him saying we should both get some sleep, I could still feel him idly playing with my hair.
Summoning some courage, I scooted my legs closer, so that they were touching his.
He let out a hiss and I realized I had bumped his left leg.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“No worries. But wow, that actually did hurt this time.”
I furrowed my brow against his chest. “What do you mean ‘this time?’”
He chuckled softly, shaking us both. “You’re always surprising me with the things you choose to be oblivious about.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but he let my hair go and gave me a playful squeeze, pressing my face against his chest too tightly for me to get the words out. “Go to sleep, Maila.”
He didn’t have to tell me a third time. In his arms, in the bubble of heat that we had created, I was already drifting off.