The Dead Romantics (17)

I hated how I couldn’t do both.

“I told you,” sighed a soft male voice, “I don’t need to hear you read from your damn book agai—oh. Hello.”

I spun toward the man—and froze. A tall shadow sulked against the brick wall. He quickly pocketed his phone and stood straight, making himself even taller, and with my eyes already blurry with tears, he looked like a shadowy nightmare.

Oh no. Narrow, darkly-lit alley. No one around. My life spinning out of control.

This was where I got murdered.

“If you’re gonna kill me, do it already,” I hiccuped a sob.

He paused. “Come again?”

“No one’s around. Do it quick.”

He sounded baffled. “Why would I want to do that?” He stepped out of the shadows, and I could see his face finally. And that made it all the worse. It was a murder-y stranger, but not of the life kind. He was the kind to murder a career. My career.

Benji Andor.

And worse yet, he could see my face now, too. His thick eyebrows knit together. “Miss Day?”

“Shit,” I cursed, quickly looking away. Oh no, could he see me crying, too? That was mortifying. I wiped my eyes. “What are you doing here, Mr. Andor?”

“Ben,” he corrected, “and same as you, I suppose.”

“Crying in a back alley?”

“Not that, no . . .” He judged his words carefully, frowning.

Why—why did he have to be here of all places? I had half a mind to turn around and go back inside but . . . Lee would still be reading from that stupid book. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to remember it existed. I just wanted to disappear.

I pressed the palms of my hands against my eyes and took a deep breath. It’s okay, Florence. Calm down. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter— Then his voice, soft and a little hesitant, asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

No.

Yes.

I didn’t know.

I wanted to get away from Lee Marlow and his words. I wanted to get away from his memory. Everything about him—because he reminded me that I only had myself to blame. And I didn’t want to remember that. I didn’t want to remember any of it. My heart still felt like it was freshly broken, shattering all over again, the jagged pieces falling deep into the pit of my stomach like fresh pains.

And I didn’t want to feel that anymore. It had been a year. Why wasn’t I over him? Why did I still want him to look at me like I was the only story he wanted to learn (irony, that one), and tuck my hair behind my ear, and kiss me like I was the heroine in a romance, and tell me I was loved? That he loved me.

I missed that the most. I missed it so much, the closeness, the certainty that I mattered.

And I wanted to matter again.

To someone, to anyone.

For a moment.

“Yes,” I decided, and reached up—because he was so damn tall and I was very much not—and took his face in my hands and pulled him down to crush my lips against his. They were warm and soft and dry, and my fingers brushed against the stubble on his cheeks. My stomach burned, but it filled the ache.

He made a surprised noise, jolting me to my senses. I quickly jerked away. “Oh my god—I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t . . . I wasn’t . . . I usually don’t do this.”

“Make out in back alleys?”

“Kiss tall strangers.”

He gave a snort that sounded like laughter. “Did it help?”

My lips still felt wet and tingly, and he tasted like a rum-and-Coca-Cola sort of dead poet (Lord Byron?), and I didn’t mind. I gave a nod. “But it doesn’t mean anything,” I added quickly. “It doesn’t—this doesn’t mean—I’m not going to fall in love with you.”

“Because romance is dead?” he asked, tongue in cheek.

“Six feet under.”

“So you say . . .”

And his mouth found mine again. He pressed me up against the side of the wall, and kissed me like I hadn’t been kissed in—well, at least a year. The night was cold, but he felt like a furnace. I curled my fingers around the collar of his dark coat and pulled him closer. As close as I could. His hands were warm as his fingers came up to cradle the sides of my face, and we danced in the dark alley while standing still.

We didn’t talk. We didn’t think—or I, at least, didn’t think. Not about Lee Marlow, or the book due, or anything else, even though Ben didn’t even know it was me doing the writing. I wasn’t his author. Not the one who was going to turn the book in late; Ann was. He thought I was her assistant. The middleman. No one.

I wanted to be no one for a moment.

He broke away, breathless. “Miss Day?”

“It’s Florence,” I gasped. My lips throbbed.

“No, um—that’s not—your phone,” he said rigidly. “It’s ringing.”

Oh. Was it? I just noticed. It was my Mom’s ringtone. That struck me as odd through the haze of kissing Benji Andor. Why was she calling this late? It was late, wasn’t it? I untangled my fingers from his coat and dug for my phone in my crossbody purse. He still hovered over me, bent near, shielding me against the world, and it was . . .

Nice.

It was nice in a way few things had been tonight.

When I found my phone, I realized I had over twenty missed calls from my mom— And Carver.