ARC10

Chapter 5.3

In comparison to my father's stories of mischief and mishaps in romance with the legendary boyfriend, I don't think I've ever really lived a single day. It's high time I got my chance to go down in flames.

I jump and slide over the bar, landing right between the two.

A mug slams against the metal counter, and the chair scrapes across the titanium floor. The iron leg of the old patron clinks its way to the heavy automatic doors.

He stands there, thick and sloped, slightly uneasy on his mismatched legs, glaring at me with yellowed, watery eyes. With a last snarl in my direction, he hobbles from the Sink.

"I have something I wanted to show you." Kai cracks a big, white smile at me.

I will do anything to continue staring at those beautiful, pearly teeth. I wonder if, years from now, after the evacuation of Earth, after the diminishing society has arrived at its new home, after all the fighting and the fear, will his smile still be there. Will it be as bright?

I want a piece of him. Something to hold on to. To think that maybe I looked this good right before I was sent out to the Topside, too. But then again, if he has been accepted as part of Operation Homecoming, there might be something to this kid with his shining-like-the-sun smile. There might be something he can conceal from the disdainful eyes of ground rovers like me. Maybe I'm too broken to recognize it anymore.

He grabs my hand as we leave the Sink in our dust.

He's holding my hand.

The contact pricks like little rapid-fire bursts between my fingers.

Our hands are strange things. They belong entirely to us, yet, with a simple breach in proximity, they become tools. Sensors. Communicators. Things that hold us to other things.

Our hands stay this way as we wend up the Rotunda.

After silence-stuffing conversation about the day's training, we reach his pod on Level 3. His pod, being the exact same size as mine, plays home to three cots.

"I share with my brothers," he murmurs as I occupy the cot opposite from him as a seat. "My folks are electricians."

Servicemen, builders, and clergy—those who work to serve the URE—call Level 3 their home. It's the only place where the functioning amenities exist because this is where the people who know how to repair these things live. When we enter, the well-lubricated door sparks my envy.

He fumbles under his cot until a black shape emerges. He flips open the lid and pulls out a brown, circular object with strings and knobs.

"You have a guitar?" I gasp. Musical instruments are so rare that I've never actually been in the physical presence of one before.

"It's actually an ukulele." His flat palm caresses the wood. He plucks the four strings one by one and sends the most beautiful notes careening against the walls. They sound like drops of water plinking in a steel tub.

He plays tunes I know by heart and a few I've never heard before. He plays for well over an hour before his little brothers return and complain, ogling me. After rolling their eyes at each other, they bid us good-night and switch off the lights.

Kai and I leave the room to sit alone in the common room with the ukulele and a lot of unspoken tension.

I want to ask him about the HHP. My curiosity bubbles inside me to an uncomfortable boiling point. I want to ask so badly, that I bite the inside of my cheek to stop the questions from rolling out.

I want to ask him who his contract is with.

I want to ask him if he has a contract at all.

I want to have him wrap his arms around me in the same way Dean did the other night which felt, surprisingly even to me, comfortable.

I remember the conversation with Dean. He doesn't think I can stop myself. What if I can't stop myself because I don't want to. What will the HHP do?

It's just one time.

Kai's arm snakes around my shoulders in a move Simon would have been proud of. My skin burns with the red-hot pain of too much ice or exposure to an arctic wind. I am suddenly a prey animal, and my senses are hyper aware of every rustle of clothes, every bend in the couch springs, every whiff of the mildew in the common room.

His hand touches my knee. Thank the Lady it's covered in cloth. His hand brushes my thigh, and his thumb—the blessed thumb—rubs slow, pointed circles closer to the apex of my body.

"I'm accepting the position in Homecoming. And if I'm any good judge of character, I'm sure you are too," he whispers like the sizzle of thick-cut bacon in my ear. Hot, hot griddle sensations send chills down my spine from his voice, coating my body in burning oil.

"Mmhmm." I whimper. I can't focus on anything but those circles that unexpectedly have moved higher my thigh.

His other hand, hidden behind my shoulders for longer than I can remember, traces the my neckline in rotation with each finger.

"I figured, this could be our last chance to do anything for us before going off to save the world."

I want to purr. My brain can't comprehend the noise, the meaning behind it, or even what species the noise originates from. At that second, it is the pervasive thought in my mind. I want to purr for Kai because his fingers are doing the exact dance my body needs to hum like the strings of his tiny guitar or whatever it is.

As I lose myself in the motions and fingers and feelings, he pauses. My eyes flutter open. I didn't even realize they were closed in the first place. They're immediately lost in the bright blue bursts of him hovering over the space of a gasp away from me.

"Are you contracted?" he asks, his lips a whisper away from my neck.

I stop breathing. "No."

His head inclines closer to mine, and his fingers rush from tracing my neck to trapping my head in a tangled grip of my hair. He trails a dusting of Milky Way kisses across my neck.

His soft lips slide from my chin to my mouth. The hand grasping my hair pulls my face toward him, locked against his tongue. He breaks through my lips into my unprepared mouth.

The next few moments catch me in a tangle of clothes and lips and arms.

He can have whatever he wants from me.

We're damned anyway.

We pause briefly to stare in dumb fascination at the zipper on my pants. With a speed that would be terrifying if I had been an enemy, his hands are already there, fumbling unrestrained with devil-may-care precision. Kai clutches my hips, ready to slide the stupid things off when a whoosh of wind startles us out of our mission.

The front door opens.