Chapter 27
“What are you doing?” Amusement tints Jacob’s voice, jingling in his low melody. I can hear him, but I can’t see him. For a second, I almost think he’s an auditory hallucination because the sound of laughter from him is so rare now. But there aren’t many other people who would be here this late.
“Floor time.” I’d shrug, but it’s hard when you’re lying down.
“I’m familiar with the concept.” He leans over me like a moon, eclipsing the fluorescent lighting and twice as beautiful.
His dimple is a natural wonder. There’s a familiar, faded logo on his chest. Jacob’s wearing his Twin Cities Robotics Society shirt.
It must be old because it’s bordering on too tight over his strong biceps.
I wonder if he knows how good he looks or, like many attractive people, is wholly unaware that he simply radiates sexiness at a wavelength impossible for the rest of us to achieve.
There’s something in his eyes that makes my stomach flutter, but it could also be because a rib is out of place. “Typically, that’s reserved for existential crises in the comfort of a room, not a dirty workshop floor,” he says. “Right?”
“I dislocated a rib,” I admit. “Sometimes this helps it go back.” His eyes go wide as the blood drains from his face.
“It’s okay. It happens all the time.” That doesn’t seem to soothe him.
“It doesn’t really hurt unless it’s a rib that doesn’t go out of place very often,” I say.
“It happens a lot to this rib. It’s mostly a weird sensation.
” Still, he gapes. “I’m fine,” I insist and start to pull myself up.
The spasm of my back muscles takes my breath away.
He looks at me like I’m a misbehaving child when the pain makes me wince.
Okay, perhaps I’m a little less than fine.
I stay seated, trying to catch my breath.
He sits on the floor in front of me when he realizes this is as far as I’m going for the moment. “How did it happen?” His arms wrap around his knees as he watches me.
I roll my shoulders, wiggle back and forth, trying to get the muscles to unknot and relax so everything can go back to its rightful place. “Ribs are tricky,” I explain. “They like to move for no reason. I reached too far for a wrench at a weird angle, and it went—” I pop my lips.
Jacob grimaces. “And that happens a lot?”
“Unfortunately.”
He shudders, which is a common reaction. The first time I dislocated, it hurt so badly I couldn’t breathe. After rushing to the ER, my dad and I shuddered in unison as the doctor explained. Now, it’s mostly uncomfortable, outside of brief moments of breathtaking pain.
“Nothing is stable when it happens. It makes me feel like I’m three seconds away from rag-dolling like a Skyrim NPC,” I say.
His chuckle and gentle smirk set my belly aflutter again.
His smile from the party last night was the first thing on my mind when I woke up this morning.
There’s clearly something wrong with me.
I said we weren’t enemies, that was all.
I’m not sixteen anymore. This is embarrassing.
“Anything I can do to help?”
I take a deep, testing breath. It still hurts. “I should probably call it a night, try to massage it out in my room.”
“Do you need help with that?” he asks. My brain short-circuits. He blushes furiously. “No, no. Not like that,” he stammers, and my synapses fire again enough to make me laugh. “I meant, if there’s anything I can do, let me know.”
It’s a lot easier with someone else. I’d ask Fatimah, but she’s with Sonny right now.
I can’t risk a larger injury or more pain by hoping it’ll fix itself.
I chew on my lip. “Okay, yeah. Um, sit behind me.” I scooch towards him and turn so my back is facing him, and he opens his legs as I slide between them, closer than we’ve ever been. “Sorry, this is weird. Never mind.”
“You’re already here.” His murmur is a soothing timbre, so different from the laughing melody of a few minutes ago. “I’m not bothered if you’re not.”
I swallow. It’s not weird. We used to be friends. I would ask my friends to do this. I was thinking of bothering Fatimah. Why am I nervous? “Are you sure?”
“Mari,” he says, low and smooth. It soothes me like a lullaby. I want to hear him say it again. “Tell me what to do.”
“Okay.” I shrug off my hoodie and pull my hair over my shoulder.
The cool air of the Builder Bay raises goosebumps along my arms and the strip of skin around my torso exposed by my cropped T-shirt.
“Place your palm here.” I reach around and point at a spot on the right side of my back.
His hand is like molten metal through my thin shirt, and I can’t help but jump.
He pulls his hand away quickly. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no, sorry.” How do you explain: I feel like a spooked horse every time you get too close to me? “How are your hands so warm? It’s freezing in here.”
“I run warm,” he says quietly as his hand tenderly returns to the exact spot.
I remember a night, so long ago, when the heat of his body was so close to mine, the promise of something more on his lips. Nope. I’m not falling down this rabbit hole right now. Not when I am literally between his legs.
“Okay, hold your hand there as I lean back into it,” I say.
“Is this okay?” he says.
“Yeah, I’m going to move a little,” I say before I wiggle against him, trying to convince my body to sort itself out.
His other hand comes to my other shoulder to keep us both steady.
With both his hands on me, it feels more intimate.
I’m no longer cold, but I still have goosebumps.
“Can you move like an inch lower and angle your hand up?” I hold out my arm to show him the angle I need, trying to focus on the reason we’re here.
His hand moves in gentle, precise moments. It reminds me of the rovers he builds by day. Remote vehicles performing gentle but precise tasks in alien environments or delicately dismantling bombs. Am I the alien or the bomb?
“Like this?”
I lean back slightly, and the pain takes my breath away for a moment before the tension disappears, and my breath floods back into me.
“Yeah,” I sigh, relieved. I push back harder and rock back and forth.
“Yeah, that’s good. Thank you. That did it.
” I roll my spine forward, leaving his warm hands behind, and stretch the other way, letting my body calm itself further.
I try not to think about the brand of his hands on my skin, how the air is extra cold in their wake.
I definitely try not to think about the fact that I’ve shifted closer to him, my hips firmly between his thighs.
When I sit up, my back almost touches his chest. Oh, god.
My whole ass was wiggling between his legs.
I glance over my shoulder at him, and he’s back to unreadable.
“Sorry if that was weird. I appreciate it.”
“I’m glad I could help.” He’s gone hoarse. Oh god, I made him uncomfortable.
To make matters worse, if he doesn’t get up first, I will be putting my entire ass in his face when I try to get up. Stiff bodies do not make for graceful floor exits. “Can I ask for one more favor?”
“Anything,” he says.
“Can you help me up?” I give a small laugh.
In an instant, he’s up and holding his hands out.
“Like this,” I say as I grab his hands in a way that won’t strain my thumb joints.
He pays rapt attention to the slide of our palms. I’m almost worried that mine are too sweaty to hold. I nod, and he pulls me up.
And when I think things couldn’t get more awkward—really, I think the universe is going for a record on awkwardness today—my unsteady body pitches itself into his chest. His firm, warm, delicious-smelling, perfect chest.
“Whoa, you okay?” he asks as he steadies us both.
An arm comes around to brace my back, and one of his hands grips my hip.
I’m wondering if I even have a rib cage left because it’s so hard to breathe.
The sudden position change made me dizzy and discombobulated.
I have the almost irresistible urge to nuzzle into his radiating heat.
Those big, stormy eyes search mine. “Mari?” That voice again.
I remember myself, where we are, and what’s happening.
I jump back, away from his tempting heat.
“A little unsteady on my feet sometimes.” I stumble over my words and my feet as I put some space between us.
“Thanks again for your help. I have to go.” I snatch my hoodie from the table and scrabble out of the Builder Bay.
I am not sixteen. We’re not even friends; we’re just not enemies. What is wrong with me?