mean the world to me,” she whispered. “And you were right. Kissing, romance, sex, all of that. I don’t really want it. But I do want you. I want this.” She waved her hand at him, the room, everything. “I want to lie here with you, talking. I want to curl up next to you while you sleep. I want to rest my head on your chest when I feel bad, and I want to lean my shoulder against yours just to feel you there.”
He stared at her a long moment, the soft lines of his mouth curling into a slight smile, his sharp eyebrows drawn, his dark eyes on her. Something shifted in his expression, but she couldn’t read what it meant.
She gave him a nervous smile. “Say something.”
He looked at her, those beautiful black eyes soft. “I’ve been thinking too. About what I want. About who I am. About who you are to me. And I still don’t know that I’ve figured it all out yet. Maybe I never will, not completely. But I think, before, I was scared about how it would go wrong. About how everything I didn’t know and didn’t understand yet could end up making things between us worse. That was flawed logic—it won’t go wrong as long as we talk about things, as long as we work together and communicate what we want.”
Nita agreed. “I think we’ve been doing a good job of that lately.”
“We have.”
He leaned forward then, slowly, and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her body tight against his own, and all her muscles relaxed, because sometimes you didn’t need words to understand, and Nita cuddled up against the warmth of his chest, pressing her face into the rumpled fabric of his T-shirt.
His hands were wrapped around her back, and he turned his face into her hair and whispered softly, “What you said, about touching, about supporting, about being near.” He swallowed heavily and tightened his grip on her, fingers warm and gentle on her back. “I’d like that. I’d like that very much.”
She smiled into him, her head on his heart so she could hear it beating a soothing rhythm, her uncertainty fading as she took his words and held them close. She knew exactly what they were to each other, and she didn’t need a word for it. They were themselves, terrible, vicious, and united, and they understood each other and what they each wanted, and that was all that mattered.
They lay like that, a perfect tableau, both smiling as they whispered to each other until they drifted off into warm dreams.
Thirty-Six
THE NEXT MORNING, Nita rose and showered so she could go out and find them breakfast. Kovit, who was essentially trapped in the hotel room, lay in bed, his hair mussed and his eyes bright, drinking vampire blood wine from the bottle while he read through comments on the videos of him. Every once in a while he’d mutter something along the lines of “that’s not anatomically possible, asshole.” She’d tried to get him out of the comments section, but it was no use, so she left him to it.
She made her way outside. The day was too hot, like every other day, and the streets buzzed with excitement. Whispered conversations swirled around her.
“—they still haven’t caught that zannie yet—”
“—heard there’s talk about suspending the DUL—”
“—all bullshit to me—”
Nita went to a pizzeria across the way and sat just outside while they made her pizza. Pizza for breakfast was the sort of quality lifestyle independence afforded her, and she enjoyed taking advantage of it.
“Hello, Anita.”
Nita froze, her whole body turning to a small, frightened statue at the sound of that voice. She turned, slowly, like she was in a horror movie, until she faced the person behind her.
Her mother.
Her mother, who was trying to kill Kovit. Trying to take Nita back, control her life. Who’d sicced the black market on Nita. Who’d murdered her own best friend.
Her mother’s hair hung loose, just touching her shoulders, the red so vivid against the black that it looked more like fresh blood than hair dye. Her eyeshadow was dark blue, as was her lipstick, a blue that almost looked black. She looked like a gothic mermaid, not the kind that sang in Disney movies, but the kind that stole your voice by ripping your vocal cords out with her bare hands.
“Anita, darling.” Her mother grinned, thin and sharkish. “How are you?”
Nita opened and closed her mouth like a fish, before