tavern is listening or even looks our way, I don’t notice. Again, the world has narrowed to him and only him. At first I clench my teeth, to hold back the words rattling in my throat. No, I think. You don’t have to do that with him. “I missed you terribly,” I whisper. “I was so afraid to speak to you this morning.”
The heat grows, cocooning me from the cold air of the mountain. “I was afraid last night,” he murmurs.
My head snaps up to find him leaning closer. The edge of my vision swims. “And now?” I ask, feeling breathless.
He doesn’t flinch, his face stone, his eyes fire. “Terrified.”
I’m all lightning, my nerves crackling beneath my skin. “Me too.”
“Where does this leave us?” One of his hands brushes mine on the bar top, but doesn’t linger.
I can only shake my head. I don’t know.
“Let me simplify.” He licks his lips, and his voice takes on a warrior edge, resolute and unyielding. “In a perfect world, without war, without the reconstruction, without the Lakelands or the Guard or any other obstacle you can think of, what would you do? What would you want for us?”
I sigh, waving him off. “It doesn’t work like that, Cal.”
He never wavers, only leaning farther into my space, until our noses are just inches apart. “Humor me,” he says neatly, as if carving every letter.
My chest tightens. “I suppose I would ask you to stay here.”
His eyes flash. “Okay.”
“And I would hope that, in a perfect world, every time you looked at me, you wouldn’t see your brother’s corpse.” The last word comes out hoarsely, broken apart. I lower my gaze, looking anywhere but his face. I settle on his fingers as they twitch, betraying his own pain. “And every time I looked at you, I wouldn’t see him, and what he could have been. If I could have . . . done more.”
Suddenly his hand is beneath my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. His touch is flame, almost too hot to bear. “In a perfect world, who would you have chosen?” he rasps.
I know what he’s asking. Who I would have chosen between Cal and Maven, long ago, before we knew what his brother was, and how far he had fallen. It seems like an impossible question. Balancing two people who don’t actually exist.
“I can’t answer that,” I mutter, slowly removing his hand from my face. But I keep hold of him. “Not because I don’t want to, but because I simply can’t. It isn’t something I can ever solve.”
His grip tightens on me. “I don’t see him every time I look at you,” he says. “Do you really see him every time you look at me?”
Sometimes, yes.
Every time? Now?
I search him, my eyes weaving back and forth over every inch of skin I can find. Sure, callused hands. The veins of his exposed neck. A shadow of stubble already spreading over his cheeks. Strong brows, straight nose, the forever crooked smile. Eyes that were never Maven’s.
“No,” I tell him, and I mean it. “Did you wait, Cal?”
His fingers weave through mine as he grins. “I’m still waiting.”
This must be what it feels like for a gravitron to fly. Somehow my stomach drops and leaps at the same time. Despite the warmth of him all around me, I begin to shiver. “I can’t make promises,” I sputter hastily, already trying to get ahead of the admission we’ve both made. “We don’t know where the world is going. My family is here, and you have so much to do back east—”
“I do,” he says, nodding. “I am also very good at flying jets.”
I can’t help but laugh. “You and I both know you can’t just commandeer a jet when you want to see me.” Though the thought does make my heart skip a beat.
“You and I both know you aren’t going to stay put here either,” he retorts, and his free hand goes to my chin again. I don’t push it away. “The future won’t let you. And I don’t think you can let yourself sit still much longer.”
The words continue to spill out, as quickly as they pop into my head. Obstacles in our way, problems to be solved. “That doesn’t mean I’ll be anywhere close to the States, if and when I do decide to get involved with all this again.”
Cal just grins wider. For a moment he is a second sun, beaming warmth all over me. It breaks and re-forms