The Steep and Thorny Way(71)

“Opal’s not as bad as some.”

“She’s fast, though. I kissed her once, at a party, just to see if I’d like it, and she wanted more from me.”

I sat back on my heels. “You’ve kissed girls?”

“Just her.” He moved the canteen and the lantern to the other side of his legs, opening the space between us. “And you.”

I lowered my eyes and fussed with the handle of the basket. “I only agreed to that unfortunate kiss because I worried the Wittens would hurt you worse than what Laurence just did.”

“A true love’s kiss, then.” He smirked and wrapped his arms around his knees, peeking at me out of the corner of his eye. “One given to save a life. You must love me dearly.”

I snickered through my nose, and my face and neck burned as much as when I’d swallowed down the Necromancer’s Nectar. “Come on.” I reached into the basket and pulled out the chunks of ice wrapped in the cloth. “Let’s get this ice on your nose. That’s an ugly shade of purple you’ve got there.”

I held on to his back and set the chilled cloth against his nose. He raised his left hand and helped me hold the ice in place.

“Ahh,” he said, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He breathed a sigh that warmed my palm, while his eyelids batted closed. “Thank you.”

“Better?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Joe . . .”

“Uh-huh?”

I kept my fingers below his on the cloth. The sides of our hands touched. His breath fluttered against my skin.

“How long have you loved him?”

His eyes remained closed. “I don’t know. Since I first saw him, I guess. Since I first came to Elston.”

“Didn’t you move here from some little town in the mountains when you were about thirteen years old?”

“Yes.” He gave a small nod. “That’s when I was certain. Of everything.”

I lowered my hand from the frozen cloth, finding my fingers numb. “That’s a long old time.”

“We weren’t much of friends at first,” he said, his voice quiet. “We even got into a fight over a game of baseball at one point, not long after I moved here. But we had our eyes on each other from the very beginning.” He shifted from side to side, readjusting his weight. “It took a little growing up—a little whiskey one summer night right before we both turned sixteen—before we ever broke through all that tension and kissed each other.” He opened his eyes and looked at me from above the cloth on his face. “He’s the one you kissed when you were little, wasn’t he?”

I sat up straight, and my face warmed again. “H-h-how did you know?”

“Because of how much you yelled at him in the woods. The hurt in your voice.” He gulped with a noticeable bob of his Adam’s apple. “He always talked about spending his younger years running around with you and Fleur.”

“Well”—I picked at a corner of the basket with the tip of one of my nails—“we were just kids. Those hardly count as real kisses.”

“That kiss in front of the Wittens”—he lowered the ice to his lap—“that was your first then, wasn’t it?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.” I shrugged again. “I don’t even know if we can genuinely call that a real kiss, either.” I continued to pick at the basket, although I drew my hand away when I realized how much the sound of the wicker echoed across the rafters.

“Come here,” he said in a whisper.

I raised my eyes to his. “What?”

He lowered the ice to the floor on the other side of him. “I want to give you a real kiss.”

I snorted. “You mean a pity kiss?”

“No. A thank-you kiss.”

I traced my finger across the edge of a floorboard. “I thought you didn’t want girls, Joe.”

“It doesn’t matter. I want to give you a good kiss that will erase the one in the woods. That shouldn’t have been your first.” He tugged on my wrist with a gentle pull. “Come here.”

I snickered. “Your nose is all swollen. What if I bump it with my nose?”

“Just”—he slid me closer to him—“come here.”

I scooted over to his side.

We both smiled and laughed a little, our heads bent close to each other. Then his face sobered. He cupped his right hand behind my neck and pressed his lips against mine with a kiss soft and sweet. Not the kiss of a lover, or a brother, or even just a friend. A kiss that defied explanation. One that eased all the way through me with an unexpected sense of peace.

Our mouths left each other with a gentle sound, and we remained side by side, my legs bent toward his. His hand left my neck and returned to his thigh, and then to the cloth filled with ice, which he pressed against his nose again.

“We should get you some food.” I slid myself back over to the basket. “I also brought—”

A twig cracked outside the stable.

Joe and I stiffened, our shoulders squared toward the stable door. I refused to breathe—refused to move even the tiniest muscles in my fingers—and I forgot all about the derringer crammed down inside its new hiding spot in my boot. Wind whistled between the boards in the roof and rattled across splinters and nails in the rafters. A chill seeped down my body, starting at the roots of my hair, slicing down the length of my back.