research. It’s only research. Lie back and think of the fucking Dewey Decimal System.
“And I leaned in,” Jane says. “And I—”
Her other hand ghosts over August’s throat before sliding backward, her thumb grazing August’s pulse, and August’s eyes close on instinct. She touches August’s hair with her fingertips and pulls it gently away from the side of her neck. The cool air is a shock to her skin.
“Is—is it helping?”
“Hang on,” Jane says. “Can I—?”
“Yeah,” August says. It doesn’t matter what the question is.
Jane makes a small sound, ducks her head, and there’s breath against August’s bare skin, close enough to mimic the gesture but only just not making contact, which is somehow worse than a kiss would be. It’s more intimate, the silent promise that she could if she wanted to, and August would let her, if they both wanted the same thing in the same way.
Jane’s lips skim August’s skin when she says, “Jenny.”
August opens her eyes. “What?”
“Jenny,” Jane says, drawing back. “Her name was Jenny. We were a block from my apartment.”
“Where?”
“I can’t remember,” Jane says. She frowns and adds, “I think I should kiss you.”
August’s mind goes searingly blank.
“You—what?”
“I’m almost there,” Jane says, and fuck if August can’t suppress a shiver at those words in that voice from that soft mouth. “I think—”
“That if you—” August clears her throat and tries again. “You think that if you—if you kiss me—”
“I’ll remember, yeah.” She’s looking at August with a precise kind of interest. Not like she’s thinking about a kiss, but more like she’s focusing hard on an objective. It happens to be a disastrously good look on her. Her jaw goes all jutty and angular, and August wants to give her anything she wants and then change her own name and skip the continent.
Jane’s watching her face, tracking a raindrop that rolls from her hairline to her chin, and August knows, she knows, if she does this, she’s never going to stop thinking about it for the rest of her life. You can’t un-kiss the most impossible person you’ve ever met. She’s never going to forget what that tastes like.
But Jane looks hopeful, and August wants to help. And, well. She believes in in-depth, hands-on evidence gathering. That’s all.
Compartmentalize, August tells herself. For the love of God, Landry. Compartmentalize.
“Okay,” August says. “It’s not a bad idea.”
“You sure?” Jane says gently. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“That’s not—” That’s not the issue, but if Jane doesn’t know that by now, she probably never will. “I don’t mind.”
“Okay,” Jane says, visibly relieved. God, she has no idea.
“Okay,” August says. “For research.”
“For research,” Jane agrees.
August squares her shoulders. For research.
“What should I do?”
“Can you touch me?” Jane takes one of August’s hands and holds it to her chest, right below the hard line of her collarbone. “Right here?”
“Okay,” August says, more of a shaky exhale than a word. “Then what?”
Jane’s leaning in, taking advantage of her height to bracket August in, burning so hot that August can’t make sense of the chill sweeping up her spine. So steady and beautiful and close, too close, never close enough, and August is so completely, irreversibly, spectacularly screwed.
“And,” Jane says, “I kissed her.”
The train plunges out of a tunnel and back into the deafening rain.
“Did she kiss you back?”
Jane’s other hand finds its way to August’s waist, to the place that feels designed by the profound unfairness of the universe to fit it so exactly.
“Yeah,” Jane says. “Yeah, she did.”
And Jane kisses her.
The truth about wanting someone to kiss you for ages is, it rarely lives up to whatever you’ve imagined. Real kisses are messy, awkward, too dry, too wet, imperfect. August learned years ago that movie kisses don’t happen. The best you can hope for in a first kiss is to be kissed back.
But then, there’s this kiss.
There’s Jane’s hand on her waist, and the rain rushing down onto the roof of the train, and a half-remembered moment pinned against a brick wall, and this kiss, and August couldn’t have imagined it would feel like this.
Jane’s mouth is soft but insistent, and August feels the press of it in her body, in a place much too close to her heart. If looking at Jane feels like flowers opening, being kissed by her feels heavier, the weight of a body that’ll be gone by morning settling into bed beside her. It reminds her of being homesick for months and tasting something familiar and realizing it’s even better than you