Finding It (Losing It, #3)(33)

My mouth went dry.

Would it be weird if I reached out and touched the toned muscle there? With my face?

If he weren’t currently glaring at the long-haired guy, I’d think he was doing this on purpose.

We pulled into the station I’d chosen, and Hunt picked up my hand again as the train slowed to a stop. I followed him out of the station and up to the street, and even once we were out of the crowds of moving people, his hand stayed tight around mine.

Whatever had happened between us last night … it had changed him. He was touching me again now, but it was different than the way I could remember him touching me last night. Now he touched me like he knew me, not like some stranger in a bar. He looked at me when he thought I couldn’t tell. And he wasn’t asking questions, at least not any prying ones.

Something in my stomach began to cave in, and I could feel it falling away.

“Nothing else crazy happened last night, right?”

“You mean besides your pansy comment?”

That actually sounded exactly like something I would say.

“Yes, besides that.”

“You might have declared your love for me once or twice. Asked to bear my children.”

I rolled my eyes. “Be serious.”

“You don’t think a declaration of love is serious?”

“I don’t think a declaration of love happened.”

“Are you remembering more?”

“No, I just know myself. I might get touchy-feely when I’m drunk, but it’s the other kind of touchy-feely.”

He nodded, and no more jokes came, so I guessed that I had hit it on the head. He didn’t know my secrets. I’d just hit on him. A lot if I could guess. That’s why he was acting differently. And that I could deal with.

He tugged on my hand, and together we surfaced out of a stairwell into our spontaneous destination. The neighborhood was quaint and picturesque with narrow, winding, cobblestone streets. Those streets were dotted with trees under a blue, blue sky.

“You’re right,” Hunt said. “This neighborhood is incredibly dangerous. Downright terrifying. I’d understand if you wanted to go back.”

I swatted at him, but he ducked my blow, laughing.

“Come on, princess. Let’s see what kind of trouble we can get into.”

I wanted to get into all of the trouble with him. Every kind. Multiple times preferably.

We wandered for a while, turning when something looked interesting, taking our time, just admiring the scenery.

(I was totally counting Hunt as part of the scenery.)

“So where to next?” he asked.

“Um, straight, I guess?”

“I meant after Prague. Where are you jetting off to next?”

I sighed, and wiped at a trickle of sweat on my forehead. “Nowhere.”

“You’re staying here?”

“No. I mean I’m going home. I think.”

I pulled my hair over my shoulder, trying to keep it off my heated neck.

“You think? Are you homesick?”

If home was my past, sure. Otherwise, not a chance in hell.

“It’s complicated,” I said. “I don’t know what home is anymore.”

“I think home is wherever you are happiest.”

I wanted the ease and joy of my college friends. At eighteen, they’d been my first real taste of family, and now that family was broken up into tiny pieces and scattered all over the U.S. It wasn’t fair that I only got to keep them for four years before they went back to their real families or started new ones with stupid British boyfriends.

“What if home’s not a place you can ever go back to?”

We turned from the road we’d been following onto a path that led into a park. The long line of trees and sweeping fields of green relaxed me.

He said, “Then you find a new home, a new place that makes you happy. It’s not a once-in-a-lifetime deal, Kelsey. People find home in new places, new dreams, new people all the time. Home should feel effortless, like gravity.”

I didn’t trust gravity. It seemed to always be pulling me in the wrong direction.

“It’s not that simple,” I said, then I pulled away and walked a little faster, hoping he’d take that as a clue to change the subject.

“Of course it’s not simple. The best things usually aren’t.” He caught up beside me and said, “Why go home if it’s not where you want to be?”

“Because I don’t know what else to do.”

He took hold of my elbow and pulled me to a stop. “You could keep traveling.”

“I’ve done that. It’s not working.”

“What do you mean it’s not working?”

I wasn’t about to tell him that it wasn’t working because I was still depressed. This guy had seen more vulnerability from me in a few days than anyone else had seen in years.

“I just mean … I’m not having as much fun as I thought.”

“Maybe you’ve been doing it wrong.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He let go of my elbow to rub his hand along his jaw. When he spoke, he did it slowly as though he were choosing his words carefully.

“You said you wanted an adventure. What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve done?”