Erasing Faith(27)

I blew out a huff of air. Apparently some people weren’t so enamored with the Hermes girls, after all.

With a swift kick off the ground, I pushed my bike from his stoop into traffic. Navigating the city during rush hour was a nightmare. Hungarian drivers were fond of laying on the horn, cursing like sailors, and causing perpetual gridlock. Plus, they seemed to think that stopping for bicyclists was an optional pursuit — if I didn’t pay attention, I’d be run over multiple times each shift.

And, honestly, paying attention had been something of a struggle for the past ten days.

Ever since I’d watched Wes walk away from my doorstep, I could barely focus on anything. Not my classes, or my job, or even the words on the pages of my favorite novel. Even now, riding from one delivery to the next, I couldn’t help myself from replaying our goodbye over and over in my mind…

We didn’t hold hands when he walked me home. It seemed, through some unspoken agreement, we both needed a little space after so thoroughly invading each other’s privacy back on the bridge. This connection… it was new. Scary. With Wes, I was swimming in uncharted waters. Miles offshore, so far over my head I’d lost sight of any familiar points of land.

“Thank you,” I whispered finally, when we were a block or so from my apartment.

Wes flinched at the sound of my voice — he seemed far away, lost in distant thoughts I had no access to. His expression was unreadable, his dark eyes carefully averted from mine. In lieu of a real response, he turned his head slightly to glance at me, nodded once in acknowledgement, and kept walking.

This was an entirely different man than the one who’d held me in the circle of his arms on the bridge.

I had no idea what to think, to say, to do. So, heart lodged firmly in my throat, I walked the rest of the way home without breaking the silence until we reached my door.

“Well, this is me,” I mumbled, my eyes on the cobblestones by my feet. They were surprisingly shiny — worn smooth by the tread of thousands of feet over hundreds of years. When, once again, Wes failed to respond, I scuffed the toe of my sandal against a stone, abruptly angry at the turn my magical night had taken.

Lifting my eyes, I glared at his expressionless face.

“I don’t know what happened to you in the last thirty minutes and, frankly, I don’t care. You might not want to admit it to me or even to yourself, but something changed tonight. Shit got personal. We invaded each other’s space. We made ourselves vulnerable for a second. You saw me, and I saw you, Wes.”

I was breathing hard by the time I broke off — I’d become quite worked up as the words poured from me in a frustrated torrent — but that didn’t stop me from continuing.

“Maybe we got too personal. Crossed that comfortable little line of distance strangers draw around themselves to keep things superficial and fun. But, if you remember, you’re the one who dragged me across that damn bridge and across that damn line!” I threw my hands up, exasperated. “I don’t play games, Wes. That’s not me. I don’t do half-assed or hot-and-cold, high-handed or hush-hush. So, even though you don’t want to hear it, I’m going to tell you anyway…”

I narrowed my eyes at him and took a deep breath.

“Thank you. Thank you. For tonight, for the bridge. For giving me a little piece of your strength when I needed it.” I wanted to reach out for his hand but I held back, determined to get the rest of my speech out. “You did something for me that no one on this earth has ever even attempted to. You put yourself out there for me. You made me face my biggest fear. And, up until a half hour ago, when you started pulling the silent treatment on me, you gave me what was probably the best night of my entire existence.”

Almost against his will, his face softened. His dark eyes thawed a bit at my words, locking onto mine and holding in a stare I wanted to shake off in a fit of childish indignation but couldn’t quite bring myself to break.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he finally whispered, his words so low it seemed as if he was talking to himself.

I lifted my eyebrows in question, but he didn’t have any answers for me.

Our eyes locked as another moment dragged on in total silence. We stood, taking each other in as we had that first day in Heroes’ Square. Except tonight, we weren’t total strangers. There was an underlying intensity, an intimacy, in our glances now. A deeper understanding that hadn’t been there before.

He took a deep breath, as though to steady himself, before leaning forward into my space. My breath caught as he laced one hand into the hair at the nape of my neck and, to my absolute astonishment, pressed a lingering kiss to my forehead. My eyes closed automatically as I savored the sensation of his lips on my skin. I breathed in his scent — rich leather and exotic, unnamable spices.

I wondered what he’d taste like.

My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it. I should’ve been embarrassed by its rapid throbbing, but I wasn’t. Nothing in my life had ever felt so right as the soft press of Wes’ mouth against my forehead.

And yet, after a few seconds of internal celebratory cartwheels, I began to realize this wasn’t the beginning of a fairytale romance — it was the ending.

A goodbye kiss.

He pulled away, but I still felt the imprint of his lips on my forehead like a searing wound. A brand of his own making, scorched permanently into my skin like an invisible tattoo.