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When he didn’t continue, she cleared her throat. “So, tell me to mind my own business, but…did anything ever happen between you two?”
Deflecting her with banter felt pointless now. “We kissed once,” he admitted. “Last December. ” He scraped a hand over his stubble, remembering. “She cried afterwards and said it had been a mistake. ” The memory of the most wonderful moment of his life, followed swiftly by the most terrible, still had the power to hurt him.
Meghan took this in silently, without judgement. “She seems really in love with Alex,” she said finally.
Seb almost laughed. “Yes. She does, doesn’t she?”
Meghan’s rueful smile acknowledged what this must be like for him. There was a pause that felt weighted – then with a rustle, she shifted upwards on the bed until their heads were almost level. He could feel the warmth of her arm through his shirt.
“So, if I promise not to cry…” she said.
Seb knew what she was going to do – could have stopped her, but didn’t. Resting a hand on his chest, Meghan leaned close. Her mouth was warm, giving. Seb responded without being able to help himself, his heartbeat quickening as their lips moved together, the kiss staying soft.
Meghan drew away, her cheeks pink. “Bad idea?” she asked finally.
“Yes, I’d better throw you out now. ” Seb meant it, though he spoke jokingly.
She looked down. Her hand found his, and she gently explored his fingers. She swallowed but didn’t speak again.
And then somehow Seb found himself touching her autumn-bright hair, smoothing it away from her face. Their eyes locked and held. He knew he should pull away; instead, very softly, he stroked the corner of her mouth with his thumb. Her eyes were so blue, like pieces of sky – you could fall into them and never find your way out.
Coming to his senses, he dropped his hand. “You were right – this is a bad idea,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. ”
She squeezed his fingers. “Seb, look, I really care about you, and – and unless I’m crazy, it’s not one-sided. I mean, the way you look at me sometimes… You do like me, don’t you?”
“Like” was an inadequate word for whatever it was he’d begun to feel for Meghan these past few months. He just had no idea what the right word might be, when it wasn’t “love”.
“You know I do,” he said roughly. “But, Meggie” – the nickname came out of nowhere; it suited her – “I can’t change how I feel about Willow. I’ve tried. ”
“Okay, but – wait, wait, let me get this straight,” she said, sitting up a little. “I like you, and you like me – boy/girl liking, right? Not just friends?”
He had to smile; she looked so earnest. “Yes,” he admitted. Of course he was attracted to Meghan, with her leggy dancer’s body and golden spray of freckles across her nose – her warm, happy energy that always seemed to soothe him, embrace him. He’d have to be devoid of all his senses not to be.
“But you’re in love with someone else,” Meghan went on, “who is also in love with someone else, and who doesn’t seem likely to change her feelings anytime soon – and so you don’t even want to explore this thing with me a little? See what it could be like with us?”
When she put it like that, his reluctance seemed slightly insane. “I just don’t want to hurt you, chiquita,” he said again. The endearment came with no planning either – “querida” belonged to Willow.
Meghan shrugged; her blue eyes had begun to sparkle. “Hey, not so fast there, hombre. I could hurt you, you know. Maybe you’ll fall madly in love with me, and I’ll dump you. ”
“Yes, this is true. ” Seb was smiling now. There was a pause; he rubbed his stubble. “Wait – have we just agreed to something?”
Meghan gravely pretended to consider. “I think we’ve agreed that you should just kiss me and we’ll take it from there. ” Then she grinned and bumped him on the chest with her fist. “Because to tell you the truth, this is kind of agonizing. ”
And suddenly Seb had realized that he had no desire at all to resist her any more.
Now, a month later, Seb’s love for Willow remained as strong as ever – he sometimes thought he’d cheerfully barter his soul to get over her. But meanwhile, the relationship with Meghan was making him happier than anything had in a long time. She was beautiful, kind, fun to be with – she seemed to know him better than he knew himself. They’d been keeping a low profile, but he was becoming less and less interested in maintaining it.
Maybe I can fall in love with her, Seb thought, folding the note from Meghan carefully and putting it back on his bedside table. Maybe I really can.
As if mocking the idea, a sudden flash of awareness told him that Willow had just returned. All other thoughts left him. Seb snapped on a T-shirt – and when he left his room, found his footsteps leading him to the medical bay. His eyebrows drew together sharply. What was going on? Willow had said she was all right.
He knocked but went in without waiting for an answer. Alex was sitting on the examination table, shirt off; a bullet wound gaped in his toned bicep. Willow stood tensely beside him. Claudia, a recruit who’d been training to be a paramedic – the closest thing to a doctor they had – was there; Alex winced as she examined his wound.
“You were lucky – it looks like a clean, through-and-through shot,” she said. “I don’t think you’ve damaged the bone. ”
Seb gave the injury only cursory notice; what had hit him the second he walked in was the mood. Both Willow and Alex were still reeling from something that had nothing to do with however Alex had gotten shot.
The foreboding Seb had felt for days intensified. “What’s happened?” he demanded.
Alex gave a thin smile. “Might have known you’d show up. ” As Claudia stepped away to rummage through the supply closet, he rubbed his temples and said in a low voice, “I’ll be announcing it to the others soon. The angels aren’t linked any more. ”
At first Seb thought he hadn’t heard right. “What?”
Willow held out her hand. “Here,” she said quietly. She wasn’t offering comfort, she was offering information. Seb took Willow’s hand, trying to ignore the feel of it in his, and closed his eyes.
A rent in the sky – angels pouring in – an ominous sense of separateness. For an added kick in the teeth, he also saw how Alex had gotten shot: felt Willow’s panic, her immense love for him.
Finally Seb let go. He opened his mouth to speak, but there were no words. Willow touched his shoulder, her eyes tormented. “I know,” she said.
Maybe she did; it didn’t help. Seb slumped into a chair, watching distantly as Claudia gave Alex a local anaesthetic and cleaned his injury, trimming away the mangled flesh of his exit wound. As she started stitching him up, all Seb could see was a street scene in Mexico City.
It had been Revolution Day: there’d been a mariachi band, dancing in the street – and an angel cruising overhead. Seb had been watching from the balcony of his hostel when he’d seen the angel choose a street girl to feed from and, without thinking, he’d sent his own angel flying out to protect her.
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