Undead Girl Gang(61)

“It’s my dad’s,” he says.

Of course it is. I wouldn’t fit into Xander’s robe. If he has one. It would flop open around me like a cape.

“It’s clean,” he adds in a rush. “Fresh from the dryer.”

“That explains its downy softness,” I say, patting the collar awkwardly.

He looks down at the knot on my sash, and maybe I’m imagining it, but his hands twitch like he’s planning how to untie it.

“You can stay in Riley’s room for the night, if you want to be alone,” he says. Ever the gentleman. His lips are plump with earnest concern for my well-being. “Do you want to?”

I drag my gaze up to his eyes. It’s no help, of course. “Do I want to . . . ?”

“Be alone?”

“Can I be alone in here?” My pulse is loud, but it’s been loud all night. You can only be so scared before you hit a plateau. Inviting myself into Xander’s room for the first time isn’t scarier than the shotgun being toted around the woods, hunting my friends.

“Yes.” The word comes out as a sigh. He reaches out and squeezes the tips of my fingers. “Do you want anything? Water? Dinner? Ice cream?”

I shake my head. “Can we just . . . I don’t know. Sit? I want to feel normal.”

It’s not normal to follow Xander to his bed, to hear the door click shut behind us. It’s not normal to agree to watch the TV show on his laptop, even though I’ve never heard of it before. It’s not normal to have him lie down beside me, to feel the hesitation in his muscles before he reaches up to comb his fingers through the knots forming in my wet hair.

The warmth of his breath curls into the space behind my ear as he murmurs, “Is this okay?”

My toes curl in his sheets, and I nod, not trusting my voice. Because I don’t know if it’s okay for friends to spoon or for my heart to gallop as he continues to stroke my hair. But I know that I want this, that I’ve always wanted it.

I’m so aware of every shift of his body beside me that it becomes the only thing in the world. His arm resting below my ear like a pillow. The restlessness in his feet. The long, slow drag of his breath. It all reverberates inside me like a thousand wishes.

Is this the move that pulls his body to mine?

Is this the second the dam breaks?

I get tired of waiting, so I twist myself to look up at him. The black pools of his pupils have eaten the blue of his eyes, making him look at me with new darkness.

“I tried to stay away from you when Riley was alive,” he says, his voice a quiet rumble. His Adam’s apple bobs above me. “I didn’t let us stay alone too long. I didn’t want to get between you two, so I didn’t let you see me seeing you. But I did see you, Mila. And I think you were seeing me, too. Not just Fairmont me. Me at home and at work. Me smelling like embalming fluid.”

I almost laugh. “It’s not a great smell, but it is a you smell.”

“I’ve never had to hide from you.” He smooths the hair out of my face. “I don’t ever want to have to hide from you.”

I pull his face down to mine.

His kiss is like a light switch turning on. It’s gentle, slanting mouths pressed together and warm breath exhaled through noses. Legs twisting together and hands exploring the skin exposed by the robe sliding off my shoulders. The friendly rhythm that had us dancing in circles at the farmers’ market turns frantic and wanting. Hands that grip as often as they caress. I’m not trying to memorize him tonight; I’m trying to feed on him.

The sash of the robe I’m wearing slackens with one jerk of my thumb through the knot. The cotton and fleece of Xander’s pajamas slides over my bare skin, making me shiver and sweat. There are distant thoughts of things I should be worried about right now: my nipple size or pube density or which way the bulk of my stomach is pointing, but he kisses me deep into the mattress, his hands roving over me. There is an inequitable amount of nudity here, though. Blindly, I grope for the hem of his sweatshirt and pull it upward.

I can taste the no on his lips, but everything is moving so quickly. The fabric of his sweatshirt snaps over his head, mussing his hair. His lips freeze against mine when I go to kiss him again.

Consent revoked.

Permission denied.

I sit up on my elbows, clarity coming back to me like a tidal wave, bringing shame on its heels. I pushed too far. I didn’t ask. I’ll have to work to get his trust back. I assumed and was wrong and . . .

The only light in the room is the laptop that got pushed against the edge of the bed frame at some point during our jostling. It drapes us in an eerie silver light, unnatural and robotic. Which makes it all the stranger to see the shadows pushing up and out of Xander’s shoulders. The round heads of so much acne. Like the zit I felt on his back at the farmers’ market.

Except they aren’t zits. Because zits, for all their varying shapes and sizes, don’t come flat-topped or long-stemmed. Zits never grow dense and tan against otherwise flawless white skin.

Because they aren’t zits. They’re mushrooms. Cremini. Portobello. Button. Toadstool. Clusters of them—smooth and porous and brain-like. His entire back is overgrown with mushrooms, each no bigger than a quarter.

No. It can’t be true.

It’s another fuckup of my magic, like June and Dayton coming back from the dead or Caleb not confessing to the murders.