Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell Page 0,59
scorching, it’s cool now, almost cold. Simon tightens his arm around me. He’s not as hot as he used to be. (Literally. He’s a less combustible combustion engine.) But, Crowley, he’s still so warm.
I try not to think about how long it’s been since I felt him like this. Against me, shoulder to knee. I’m afraid if I do, I’ll hold on too tight. I’ll do whatever I did in the first place to scare him away.
He points to the sky above us, black as pitch here in the desert and filled with twinkling stars. I see them, Snow, I’m not blind.
When his right arm drops, he winds that one around me, too. I close my eyes.
What is this? Why is he letting me this close?
Is this a real change? Or just a middle-of-the-night, middle-of-the-desert exception?
Am I only allowed to hold him when we’re on the run?
SIMON
Baz’s hands finally come to me. Up the back of my shirt. Familiar and cold.
You’d never think you could crave someone cold, that you’d find yourself always moving closer to them because of it. But Baz is the kind of cold I want to cover.
(His hands are feather light on my back. Feather light and chilled through.)
I want to warm him by hand. By heat, by cheek, by stomach.
I bring my wings up around us and press him into the truck bed, pressing myself into every grey inch.
When was the last time …
No. Don’t think about the last time.
Don’t think it might be now.
Don’t think.
I’m wet from the river spirit. My nose is the same temperature as Baz’s chin.
I knock my face into his. I hang over him.
This is the point, the proximity, where I usually pull away.
“Can I?” I say, pressing in. I’m not sure he’ll hear me, over everything.
BAZ
His hair is sticky with dust. His face is cold and damp. He’s clumsy like this. Hitting me with his chest. Shouldering me. Butting my head back into the metal of the truck.
I touch Simon Snow like he’s made of glass. Like he’ll explode if I cross the wrong wires.
He touches me like he can’t decide whether to push or pull me, and he’s settled on both.
I go where he wants. I take what I can get.
“Can I?” he asks.
Can you what, Simon? Kiss me? Kill me? Break my heart?
I touch him like he’s made of butterfly wings.
“You don’t have to ask.” I say it loud enough that he’ll hear me, over everything.
SIMON
Cold lips, cold mouth.
I’ve never heard Baz’s heartbeat.
And I’ve lain all night with my head on his chest.
BAZ
My favourite part of kissing Simon when he’s cold is the way he goes warm in my hands. Like I’m the living campfire. Like I’m the one who lives. I warm him in my arms, and then he warms me in his. He gives it all back to me.
SIMON
I’d give him all that I am.
I’d give him all that I was.
I’d open up a vein.
* * *
I’d tie our hearts together, chamber by chamber.
BAZ
It’s good, it’s good, it’s so good.
And I resist demanding an explanation.
Why now, what’s the key? How do I get back here tomorrow? Promise to let me back in.
Sometimes Simon kisses me like it’s the end of the world, and I worry he might believe that it is.
* * *
The truck stops too soon. Shepard doesn’t want to drive into Vegas at night. “We’re less likely to get noticed in the morning,” he says.
He pulls into a campground, and all four of us bed down in the back of the truck, Penny between Simon and me, for safety. There’s only one sleeping bag, but I spell the truck soft with “Cushion the blow!”
Shepard can’t get over it. He keeps jumping up and down like a kid in a bouncy castle.
“So,” Bunce says, “what do you know about this hotel we’re headed to?”
“The Katherine?” he says. “It’s one of the vampire hotels. The oldest, I think. The parties there are infamous—every night in the penthouse suite.”
“There are vampire hotels?” Simon asks.
“There are vampire everything in Vegas,” Shepard says. “There are probably vampire dry cleaners. Vampire taxis. Vampire accountants…”
“I thought you said you’ve never met a vampire,” I say.
“I haven’t. I hadn’t.”
“So how do you know where they party?”
“I know people who know,” Shepard says. “Well. Not exactly people…”
Bunce huffs. “So we’re going to crash a vampire party and hope your charm attack works on them? ‘Hi, I’m Shepard, and I just want to be friends. Please tell me all your vampire secrets.’”
“God, no,”