Motion(Laws of Physics #1)(47)

I felt his breath on my lips as he finished the thought, “You . . . are not allowed to leave the house without me.”

“You were asleep.”

“You know the rules.”

“You can’t lock me up.”

He nudged my nose with his, the barest of touches, a gentle slide, whispering darkly, “But I can tie you up.”

Oh.

My.

GOD.

I held perfectly still despite being out of breath, my eyes on his, my heart in my throat; the sensation of being launched into the air and falling all at once; my lower abdomen a swirling, twisting, universe of activity. Because I wanted it.

I wanted it.

I wanted it.

I want it. So. Bad.

His eyes held me transfixed, turning impossibly darker, hotter, half-lidded monsters, mirrors of my darkest desires, and they lowered slowly—so slowly—to my lips. He licked his bottom lip, also slowly. And he leaned. And I exhaled an incomplete, hitching breath of sweet anticipation. And I let my eyes flutter close. And—

“Hey! Why is the front door open?”

The sound of Gabby’s voice followed by the front door closing had the same effect as a gunshot.

We jumped apart. I scrambled around the kitchen island, placing it between us. He backed up to the kitchen table. Our eyes met—his dark and piercing, mine probably frantic and disoriented—and crashing cymbals sounded between my ears just as Gabby walked into the kitchen.

“Hey you . . . two.” She’d started her greeting with a smile, but ended it with a frown, glancing between us. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Abram, the muscle at his jaw jumping, pushed his fingers into his hair, his eyes sliding to the side and giving the full weight of his glare to Gabby. “What are you doing here?”

Holy hadron collider, he sounded pissed.

She retreated a step, visibly alarmed. “I left a note. Yesterday? On the doorstep?” When he continued glaring at her without speaking, she lifted her palms. “Jeez, Abram. What the hell? You look like you want to murder me.”

Abram’s glare flickered to me for the briefest of instants, and then dropped to the floor. He lifted his hands to his hips, but he still held the partially eaten donut, a fact he didn’t seem to realize immediately. Giving his fingers a stern double take, he studied the donut for several seconds before taking a deep breath and placing it on the kitchen table behind him.

During this odd moment, Gabby sent me a wide-eyed look. I knew it was supposed to impart something to me, but I had no idea what. I wasn’t yet thinking clearly, still recovering from my franghorngry moment of madness.

Make no mistake, it was madness. Gabby had saved me—saved us both—from making a colossal and intractable error in judgment.

“Gabby,” I said, my voice breathless and quiet because my thoughts were too loud. I gestured to the bag on the island. “I picked up some, um, donuts, if you want any.”

“She’s not staying.” Abram said this firmly, his hands now fully on his hips, shifting his scowl from her frown to my face.

I stared at him, working hard to catch my breath and keep my eyeballs from broadcasting how badly I still wanted . . . I still wanted.

He stared back. He blinked. Aggravation dissipated, becoming something else entirely—conflict, concentration, fervor—and I experienced that bizarre tunnel vision again.

Eventually, Abram took a deep breath. He closed his eyes. He shook his head.

“Fine. She can stay for an hour, and that’s it. And she has to leave her cell phone on the kitchen table.” Eyes still closed, he rubbed his forehead like he had a headache.

Gabby’s mouth dropped open, and she seemed to be on the precipice of saying something—likely cheeky and inappropriate—so I shook my head furiously, making my eyes as large as I could, hoping to impart to her that saying anything at this moment would likely result in her being expelled from the premises.

She started, rolled her lips between her teeth, and shifted her eyes back and forth between Abram and me. Clearly a struggle for her to keep quiet, she appeared to be almost bursting with the need to speak her mind. Come to think of it, I’d never known her to hold her tongue. Ever.

It must’ve been a real character-building experience, not getting what she most wanted in that moment; even if it felt like a compulsion; even if it would have been a terrible, terrible mistake.

I know how she feels.





*



If someone had asked me for one word to describe myself prior to Lisa’s phone call earlier in the week, I would have replied, rational.

But no person is just one thing, one label, one facet of their personality or single characteristic or decision they’ve made. This was a fact that could sometimes be super inconvenient. Like now.

“What’s going on?”

My eyes cut to Gabby’s. Held. I couldn’t believe she’d been quiet for so long. It must’ve been a full five minutes since she left her phone on the kitchen table and we climbed the stairs to Lisa’s room.

Gabby sat on the low bookshelf at one end of the room, her legs extended in front of her, her ankles crossed, her false fingernails tapping on the wood. I sat on the bed, my feet flat on the floor, my arms crossed over my stomach. I’d been slouching and staring at nothing since entering the room.