CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT #2
OK, it’s not actually cold and it does feel a thousand degrees, but that’s because he’s so close heat is radiating from his body onto my bare shoulders. I have no idea why I’m shaking. Suddenly and slowly, all at once, his fingers rest against my left shoulder. I flinch and he steps back.
“What now?” he says.
I turn round and look up. His face is exactly as I pictured it would be. His mouth in a firm line and his eyebrows slightly raised. This is the closest we’ve stood in years, and I can see the tiny freckle under his left eye.
“That’s the wrong side,” I say.
He rolls his eyes and turns me back round, resting his hand on my left shoulder again.
“I’m just steadying myself. I don’t want to mess it up. Permanent marker, remember? Just . . . keep . . . still . . .”
His breath brushes against my skin with each word, and for some reason all I can think of is the epic cluster of spots I had across my shoulders for Shark Week last month. Why am I thinking about that? Why do I care what my skin looks like close-up to Charlie Chamberlain.
Why am I still shaking?
The tip of the pen presses into my right shoulder and I gasp as it connects with a pressure point that’s linked to an eclipse of moths waiting to take off (not mutant ones this time, just regular brown ones, the same colour as Charlie Chamberlain’s eyes .
. . sorry, what?). I bite my lip as the pen traces across my skin, and close my eyes, picturing the outline of Juliana’s tattoo.
“OK?”
“Yeah.” But it comes out as a murmur, so I try again. “Yeah.”
“Are you breathing?”
I let out a long, slow breath, not even realising that . . . My eyes pop open. Did I just let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding? What the fuck is happening?!
“I’m fine,” I say, firmly. Because I am fine and being alone with Charlie Chamberlain joining the erogenous dots on my back is not making me feel anything other than fine. “Are you nearly done?”
“Mm-yeah,” he says, and I can tell he’s smiling. I daren’t move in case he smudges so I try to clear my mind of honey-brown moths and long, deep sighs. “Just . . . finishing . . .the . . . outline.”
I swallow and glance at my phone. We don’t have much time, but I don’t want to rush him. The pen moves quicker, zigzagging against my skin as he fills the outline in.
“How’s it looking?”
“Good,” he says, and I imagine him frowning. “Nearly done.”
He removes his hand from my shoulder, but it may as well still be there from the throbbing hot patch it’s left. Is this some kind of allergic reaction? Have I not been around Charlie Chamberlain for so long that my body is now responding to his touch like it’s succubus venom?
Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, he gently blows on my shoulder, and though my brain knows he’s simply making sure the pen is dry, other parts of my body take it as a mating ritual.
I turn my head a fraction and look in the mirror.
He’s close behind me, his head dipped so I can see the nape of his neck curving into his shoulders as he frowns at his work.
My cheeks must be like beacons under all this contouring, and I appreciate Roxy’s talent even though I’m seething at her.
He moves his hand towards my right shoulder and I brace myself, ready to feel his fingers on my skin again, but instead he flaps his hand above the tattoo before giving it one last blow.
I close my eyes, and a volt of electricity rushes through me as his fingertip gently traces the tattoo.
Everything stills in this intensely intimate movement, and the electricity tingles up through my skin when Orion and Lila’s theme plays faintly from one of the other bedrooms.
Suddenly, Charlie Chamberlain smacks his hands together and I jump, blinking myself back down to earth from wherever I just was.
I mean, what the hell was that?
“You’re good to go,” he says, checking his watch. “What do you think?”
I turn and shuffle close to the mirror. I let out a little gasp at the detail of the tattoo, every cross and curve the same as Juliana’s. Smiling, I look at him in the mirror and his eyes flick from my face to my shoulder.
“It’s amazing,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Welcome.” He looks at me for a few seconds and I’m suddenly hit with a rush of nostalgia for this boy I knew so well. He fiddles with the pen then pops it back in the case. “You better go. Death waits for no man.”
“But it does wait for woman,” I respond, impressed that he remembers Viggo’s line.
“For real though, you need to go.”
I nod and walk past him, shivering as our arms brush each other. He follows me and opens the door and I step out, pausing to look at my cape.
“What’s up?”
I shake my head. “I need my cape.”
He looks around then grabs his hoodie from the bed and throws it to me.
“Wear that; you’ll be fine.”
I put it round my shoulders, not telling him I didn’t just mean I couldn’t walk down like this.
Obviously, no, the idea of walking through the hotel lobby wearing this tiny outfit isn’t thrilling but I can’t do the competition without the cape.
I just feel incomplete, like a fraud, because anyone who knows (which is everyone here) will see I haven’t got it right.
“Just get down there, Eliza. You’ll be fine once you get going. Just think, it’s like filming one of your reels for Insta.”
I look up at him.
“You look at my Insta?”
His eyes widen a little and he scratches the back of his head, then shrugs.
“Your reels sometimes come up if you search for Juliana full costume,” he says with a little side smile.
“Perve,” I joke.
“It’s to appreciate her sword play and nothing else.” I check my phone. No time and no calls from Roxy. “You can do it, Eliza – you’ll nail it. You look awesome on those reels, for real. I mean, really, you do.”
I shrug. “It’s all just special effects though.”
“You are the special effects,” he says, his face serious.
We blink at each other, uncertain whether he’s actually just said those words.
“What?” I say, stepping back towards him.
He shakes his head.
“I . . . I just mean you can do it. You’ve done it a ton of times, with and without the cloak. Or cape. You’ll be fine. You better go.”
I nod. I feel like I’ve just stepped out of a dream and my body wants back into the floaty vibes and the high-voltage touching, but it’s too confused to find its way there again.
He smiles at me for a moment, a smile from another life, then turns away and lets the door close so I’m standing alone in the hallway.
That was interesting. Very interesting.