on the metal stairs. “What, you don’t trust me?”
“Of course I trust you. That was … it was …” I was waving an arm. “Too dangerous. So much too dangerous.”
“Hence why I didn’t let you do it.” He leaned over and put the shirt over the bottom of the window frame. His torso was shaped like that V you so rarely saw in real life, his skin was golden brown, and the tattoo went all the way over his shoulder. All the way over his pectoral muscle, a diagonal line of black across the shoulder like the edge of a feather cloak, and a design of spearpoints and triangles and a suggestion of plaited rope. Black ink, brown skin. He had so little body fat and so much thickness of muscle, you could do an anatomy lesson just looking at him, his back and shoulders perfectly illustrating the shifting slabs of rhomboids, trapezius, and latissimus dorsi.
Stop it. This is not about his muscle development. “It’s my flat, though,” I said, keeping to the program. “And here.” I pulled off my own T-shirt. I had to wriggle some. It fitted snugly, because I liked to wear clothes that fitted snugly, because I’d grown up never wearing clothes that fitted snugly. I handed it to him. “Use this. And what? One shirt isn’t enough protection, and you’ve already seen me half naked. Twice. Besides, I’m wearing a bra.”
“A red bra.”
“Yes. I enjoy color. Sue me.” It wasn’t any kind of fantasy lingerie. It was a normal bra that happened to be red and unpadded, because I refused. I had small breasts and wasn’t ashamed of them, but, again—that made showing my bra, or me, absolutely no big deal.
“Nah,” he said, and he was starting to smile. “Red’s good.”
“Also,” I said, moving on, because here we were, pretty bloody close together and, you know, half-naked, and I’d swear I could feel his heat, and I also wanted to study his tattoo, especially the part on the pectoral, because there it was, more or less at eye level, and that was a lot of pectoral … “Also,” I said again, “you should stand here and boost me instead. I was thinking I could hold onto your belt while you stood on the railing, but you’re too much heavier. You’d pull me over and I’d break my arm, and you’d fall anyway. Whereas I’m nimble and not big, we know I can get through a tight window, and you’re clearly strong. Your holding me makes sense.”
“Not to me,” he said. Then he was up on the railing again, arranging my shirt over his, then grabbing the window frame while I wanted to put my hands over my eyes like Obedience, but couldn’t stand to. He hoisted himself up and swung his body over the sill, though, like a circus acrobat. The last thing I saw of him was his legs in those snug, faded jeans, and then the soles of his boots. He must have landed on his palms in there. I hoped it hadn’t been his head.
I leaned against the railing, put my hands on my knees, and tried to breathe.
My heart couldn’t take all this adrenaline.
It was a good thing he was leaving.
22
The Bat Cave
Gray
Once again, I was riding an adrenaline overdose. What was I doing here?
I knew what. I was riding my bike on one wheel past a girl’s house. Fifty-fifty chance of success. You’d end up on your back on the pavement with the bike on top of you, or you’d wow her with your mad skills.
Had that ever actually worked on the girl, though? Probably not.
Just now, I was upside down on my palms, avoiding the shards of broken glass closer to the wall, with my boots still on the other side of the window. I walked my hands forward, jumped my feet down, heard the crunch of those glass shards under my feet, and stood up. After that, I took a couple of deep breaths and thought about a man subject to vertigo who chose to stand on a narrow railing and pull himself through a high window.
Such a man would probably not be thirty-seven years old. Presumably he’d have learned better by then. On the other hand, I couldn’t have let Daisy do it, and her brother hadn’t exactly been stepping up.
That was the explanation. At least that was the one I was going with.
Bloody hell, though, but she’d looked good in that skimpy little bra.
I found the