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The voice is like cashmere and chocolate. Like a gentle kiss on the cheek, a warm bath on an icy night. “Hello? Are you okay?” It’s a ray of sunshine through an open window, a cool breeze on a hot day. I want to die to its soundtrack. I want to hear it again.
Under the next streetlamp stands a girl. No—an angel. Not one of those biblically accurate ones they’d draw on the whiteboard to scare the shit out of us in Sunday school, but one from the movies. The human-shaped, heaven-sent kind with outstretched wings and a halo hovering over flowing blonde hair. She’s also wearing a fuzzy pink jacket and matching earmuffs, but fuck, who am I to question what angels wear these days?
I’m as unlovable as I am untouchable. So why the fuck is she now touching me?
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” I hadn’t meant to say that aloud. Guess death softens your insides, and liquid shit is coming out of my mouth too. Her wings flutter beneath the light as she cocks her head and flashes me a broad smile. It’s like looking at the fucking sun. A bitter amusement filters through me. “You hear that all the time.” “Yes, but tell me again.”
She’s heaven-sent, I’m hell-bound, and here we are, crossing paths in the middle.
But for once in my goddamn life, I don’t want to know. The moment’s too perfect, she’s too perfect. I ruin everything I fucking touch, and I don’t want to ruin her.
Wren. Her name carves into my heart and etches into my skin. I hope the Devil allows keepsakes in hell, because fuck, I’m taking it with me.
“If you stick your tongue out at me again, I’ll cut it out of your head.”
Even under the cold gray sky, I can tell the garment bag slung over her forearm is a pale shade of pink, and I’d bet my entire arsenal that whatever is inside of it is too. Pink. Pink. Pink. Christ. I never thought it’d be possible to hate a fucking color so much.
My gaze narrows on her with reluctant curiosity. She got her bag back, so why is she still standing there, laughing? It sounds like sunshine and helium, light and loud enough to float over the lawn, penetrate the bulletproof window, and land on my sternum like a weak punch.
And when she touched him, he thought he stood a chance of finding out if what’s underneath that bright-pink raincoat is as tight as her silhouette would suggest. He’ll lose the rest of his teeth tonight. And I’ll lose my fucking mind over her secret.
My attention goes back to the girl in pink. I know every secret. Every secret, except Hers.
I’ve saved everything for it. Every first, from my first date to my first kiss, and beyond, for it. I can’t simply date—there’s no maybe-so’s, no settling, and definitely no friends with benefits. It’s not in my DNA.
My eyes snap upward. “You know, I try to see the best in people, but with you, I really have to squint.” “Don’t squint too hard. I’ll take your eyeballs too.”
He yanks down my dress with a quick tug. It’s a simple, almost reluctant move, as though he didn’t want to touch me at all. It’s gone as quickly as it arrives, but the heat of it lingers.
Memories bounce from month to year to decade, running in spirals and zigzags. And when they grow tired, they run back to Her. Her.
Fuck. I’ve spent the last three years thinking about her. Obsessing over all the things I know and battling with all the things I don’t. Can you keep a secret?
Yet, here I am, thinking about her. Again. Asking myself questions I swore I wouldn’t dig up the answers to. Like why she doesn’t drink liquor, why she panicked at the idea of getting into a car. Why she wears so much fucking pink.
I’d fired the first shot because the thought of another man seeing what I was seeing made me feel violent. The second shot was at the light because I wasn’t worthy of seeing it myself.
But that’s the problem. The Devil himself couldn’t claw Her from me.
She was all bikini body and Bambi eyes, and I couldn’t get the image out of my fucking head even if I blew my brains out. I see it in the dark. Behind every blink.
I know how her hand feels. I know the exact number of seconds it takes for her heat to bleed through my shirt and warm my skin. I could pick out her fingerprint on its texture alone because it’s etched onto my bicep, the hollows of my cheeks, the scar on my face.
Something primal and protective stirs beneath my skin. It’s making me consider dragging her out of here by her silk ponytail and flinging her far away to some distant sunny place, where darkness and panic attacks and other men can’t touch her. I’d keep her as happy and as perfect as the day I met her.
