Together We Caught Fire

by Eva V. Gibson

  “What’s so funny?”

  Grey’s voice snaked past me before I could close the door. I collapsed on the bed, giggling into my cupped hands as he followed me in.

  “Our parents. They just sat me down for their version of The Talk.”

  “They what? What did they say?”

  “Not much. It was all about Connor, and boundaries, and respecting my secularism. The patriarchy. You know them. Skye is actually more worried about your repression, so unless you have a spare half hour, I’d steer clear of the kitchen.”

  “What the fuck. My repression? That’s just …” His voice was the opposite of amused, his face a sudden burst of color. I covered my mouth, choked down my remaining mirth. “This family is so goddamn messed up. I’m the problem, yet they’re fine with you?”

  “Why wouldn’t they be fine with me? I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  “Aside from your little warehouse sleepovers? Oh, nothing. I guess you worked out a payment plan for your art space after all.”

  It was a knife in the back, blade dipped in his most bitter thoughts. His mouth twisted, gaped around a flash of fear and regret, as if surprised those words had made it past his lips.

  “Get out of here, Greyson.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t. I—”

  I leaped off the bed and started toward him, but he stood his ground, a wall of fire and frustration blocking my doorway. Too intense, and far too close.

  “Out. Now.”

  “No.”

  I blinked up at him, then shoved him backward, sucked the air from his lungs and the fight from his bones. Then again, and his hands flew to catch my wrists, but instead of blocking me, he drew me in, held my gaze, pressed my palms to the hammer of his heart. My own heart burst and shattered, re-formed and raged. He had no reason to look so wrecked; no right to draw me in with eyes that pleaded for forgiveness and understanding. Nothing made sense when he looked at me like that—not the drag of his thumbs over my pulse points, soft in contrast to his grip; not the chill that ripped down my back, or the sizzle of blood in my veins. How had we ever managed to breathe without the other? How had I thought we could end in anything but ruin?

  I yanked my hands from his and pointed to the door behind him, too broken to hide the tears gathering at my lash line. Too furious to ever let them fall.

  “GET. OUT.”

  “Elaine.”

  That was all I heard—my name, low and hard, the desperation leaking out around its edges. It said too much and not enough, and only the doorbell stopped his voice before it undid our lives with a rush of words.

  * * *

  The ten-minute drive to the warehouse was spent in a whirlpool of Sadie’s chatter. She kept it up the whole time, I’ll give her that; her upbeat monologue plowed right through my blistering silence and the barely checked ire Grey had settled into once he’d suppressed his angst. The lot was overflowing when we arrived, packed beyond capacity. Extra cars lined both sides of the road, forcing Sadie to maneuver into a faraway patch of curbside grass. She managed to park without incident, but that didn’t stop Grey from cranking the bitch volume to its highest setting.

  * * *

  “Wow, this is a pain in the ass,” he grouched, catching my eyes in the rearview. “Why didn’t you tell us there was a party tonight?”

  “I didn’t know there was.”

  “So he doesn’t even run these things by you? Nice.”

  “He doesn’t need my permission, Greyson. What a concept, huh?”

  “You two are so silly,” Sadie broke in over Grey’s splutters, “sniping at each other all the time, like me and my brother. I think it’s really healthy—like you’re becoming a real family.”

  I scoffed my way out of the car and was halfway to the warehouse before either of them had crossed the road. They caught up with me just inside the door, the three of us winding through the crowded front room. I turned to face them when we reached the hallway.

  “See you guys later.”

  “So you’re ditching us.” Grey stopped in his tracks, and Sadie kept going, jerking to a stop when his arm ran out. “Should’ve known. Should’ve fucking known, huh?”

  His voice drew both our gazes, two sets of eyes—hers, wide and stricken; mine, a dark challenge. Grey glared back at me, ignoring Sadie.

  “What is your problem, Greyson?”

  “Why would I have a problem? Go ahead, go get your fix from—what is he, anyway? Sure as fuck not your boyfriend. Can you even call him your friend at this point?”

  “Grey?” Sadie’s words were small, her voice smaller. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  “Actually, know what?” he continued, as if she hadn’t said a word. “I think you should go back there. Go ask him exactly what he thinks he is to you.”

  “He knows where he stands. You’d be amazed—sex and honesty aren’t mutually exclusive.” I cracked a small, mean smile as he faltered. “Not that you’d know anything about either.”

  “That’s enough. Both of you.”

  Sadie’s eyes darted between us, her mouth thinning down by the second as Grey’s cheeks went from slashes of angry pink to a solid, deep, guilty red.

  “We,” she said, speaking to me but staring hard at him, “are going to go mingle. I’ll come back and get y’all once he calms down.”

  “Take your time,” I said. “Make sure you get that collar on him nice and tight.”

  “Excuse me?” Her face was a cavern of shock, wavering between comprehension and denial. Her mouth worked over a thousand unsaid things. Part of me wanted her to say them all—part of me was absolutely dying for her to unleash everything festering in our little trio. I raised my eyes over her head and met Grey’s. I could bring him down with a word, and he knew it, and all at once, I’d had enough. It was so ridiculous, in that moment, to think he could’ve ever been more than a habit.

  I’d spent years outside his orbit, gazing inward, the whole of the universe at my back. Now there he was facing me, finally wanting me. Hating me, for the way I writhed beneath his skin. His eyes were hard and angry, shot through with a fear that clawed at my throat. Like a kid caught with too many cookies, pathetic and trapped, so clueless it made me sick, and when Sadie turned to face him, they melted into sorrow. She stared, then stammered, then flinched away as he reached for her with penitent hands. I watched his silence devour them both, confessing everything she’d never wanted answered.

  I watched them break, from a place beyond words.

  I turned and walked away, half expecting one of her shrill admonishments to slap the back of my head, or one of his snarls to skitter after me and eat up my wake.

  There was nothing from either but the loudest kind of silence.

  22

  CONNOR WAS EXACTLY WHERE I thought he’d be: in the living space, at the drafting table, focused on his sketchbook. He looked up and smiled as I stalked toward him, blocked his greeting with a kiss that nearly knocked him off his stool. Let sensation overwhelm me; sighed away the memory of Grey’s rage, and his insults, and his tortured, muddled eyes.

  “Okay, then,” Connor breathed, brushing the hair away from my flushed face when he finally drew back, his own hair wrecked by my searching fingers. “It’s good to see you, too, Lane.”

  “Sorry. I might have gotten carried away.”

  “Yeah, not complaining. Something bothering you?”

  “Nothing. Grey’s in a mood.” I pushed aside all thoughts of said mood, and everything it meant. Connor turned back to his sketchbook, hair falling forward to hide his face. “Sadie’s out there dealing with him. She said she’ll come get us after they mingle.”

  “Too many people are here if shit has reached mingling capacity,” Paul yawned from his stool as I settled on the futon. “Laney, tell your boy to send his friends on home so I can get some peace.”

  “This wasn’t my idea,” Connor said, shooting a look at the door. “I thought that was your crowd.”

  “No. It isn
’t.” Paul thumped his forehead against the sculpture. “If I catch the bitch responsible for putting these together every weekend, I swear to God.”

  “Right there with you. Once Sadie gets back here, I’ll clear it out and shut down for the night.”

  Paul nodded in approval, rolling out of my line of sight. I sighed out the last of my nerves, stretched my legs, reached for my toes. Lifted my eyes to meet Connor’s as he rose and walked toward me, holding my gaze. I tipped my face toward him, but he leaned past me, retrieved my knitting project from its paper grocery bag home beneath the futon, and tipped it into my lap; his follow-up kiss landed on my forehead. I smiled up at him, caught the edge of his answering grin as he resumed his work, and if that flutter in my chest even hinted at turning to butterflies, I’d rip it out with my own bare hands.

  I flexed my fingers, picked up my needles, and let them set my rhythm. The blanket flowed over my crossed legs, warm and blue and ever growing.

  “That’s really coming along,” Paul said after a bit. “Though I must say, every hour you spend on it is an hour you’ve spent here not wearing out my boy, so he may not be a fan.”

  “Ha, ha,” I said, throwing a skein at Connor’s chuckling back. It sailed past him, and he went after it, dropping it back in my lap on the heels of a wink. “It was your boy’s idea in the first place. He even spun the yarn.”

  “The poor girl needs something to do when I’m obsessing over work,” Connor said. “Oh, that reminds me, Lane. I have something for you.”

  “ ‘Reminds’ you,” Paul scoffed. “Like you’ve had a single other damn thought for the past two days.”

  “For me?” I blinked at Connor’s hesitant face, at the blush staining his cheekbones. The nervous fingers he ran through his hair. “It’s early for Christmas, isn’t it?”

  “This isn’t a Christmas present. Consider it an apology, since I managed to traumatize you during the creative process.”

  He reached into the shallow drawer of his drafting table and pulled out a bracelet, turned it over in his hands before offering it to me. I ran my fingers over the tarnished twists and folds, the intricate carvings, the inlay of tiny red sunstones—earth and fire, forged together in a flawless cuff. The memory rushed in and sucked me out to sea: the pale, blue-threaded underside of his wrist next to the darker lines of mine. A measuring tape and a sheet of copper. Blood-edged shears and a blood-edged blade, my hands trying and failing to close the wound I’d made in his.

  “Oh my God.” I slid it on, blown away by its weightless, perfect fit, the way it seemed to grow from my wrist. No boy—no person had ever given me such a gift. “Connor.”

  “Oh, thank Christ,” Paul said, swiping a sheet of sandpaper around the base of his sculpture. “He’s been all but soiling himself over that thing for weeks. If you didn’t like it, he’d probably give up the trade for good.”

  Connor’s smile was a living thing, shy and radiant, as he leaned in to kiss me over the pile of yarn. I set my needles aside and closed my eyes, breathed him, slid my fingers through his hair, and pulled him closer. Knocked the pencil from behind his ear and tugged the air from his lungs on a low hum.

  It was a different sort of kiss than the one I’d given him in greeting. This one sparked from a sweeter burn and grew from there, snaking along the path of my pulse. This was as close as I’d been to something real—a wisp of longing, a thrill of anticipation. A thread of fear, woven tight around my throat.

  Butterflies, for sure. Fuck.

  “I love it,” I whispered as he drew back. “Thank you.”

  “It’s a pale imitation of its inspiration.” His smile widened at my scoff. “No contest at all.”

  “The man and his muse,” Paul cackled from his stool as Connor stood, retrieving his pencil from the floor. “Keep that up, Laney, and you’ll get a matching cuff for the other wrist. Rings, necklaces, a fuckin’ crown—anything you want. Shit, you’re about to make me jealous.”

  “Hands off, Paul,” I teased. “This one’s mine.”

  Connor set his pencil on the table with audible finality. I caught him as he tackled me, sighing at the welcome weight of his body, the familiar way we fit. His words drifted into my ear, so soft they were nearly lost along the way.

  “Am I?”

  So wrong, to answer with a yes—risky to think, worse to voice. Impossible not to, when the endgame was that smile lowering to meet mine.

  This was so very, very bad.

  A collective whoop rang out from the front room, followed by yells and raucous laughter. Paul emerged from behind the sculpture, sneering at the closed door.

  “And there’s the cue to shut it down. This all-artists-welcome arrangement is officially on my last nerve.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Connor dropped a last hurried kiss on my mouth and rolled off the futon. I sat up slowly, straightened my sweater, finger-combed my hair forward to hide my flushed cheeks. Suddenly wished I could take back my words and my nods, and whatever the hell had possessed me to let the previous moment spool out unchecked, as if I could just say those things and think he’d let it slide. As if it wouldn’t ruin us, to admit it might be true.

  If I looked at him—if I let myself acknowledge his heart, or if he caught even a glimpse into the unsolved puzzle of mine—everything we were would unravel.

  He moved around the room, collecting his dropped sketchbook and scattered pencils. I took a chance and slid off the futon, crept toward the door, wishing I were a little bit smaller. A lot more invisible would also do.

  “Lane.”

  My name stopped me in my tracks. I forced my lips into a small, painful smile, turned to meet his eyes. They were wide and bright, slashed through with raw streaks of hope, and oh God, there it was. What had I done?

  “Yes?”

  “Everything okay?”

  “It’s fine. Just helping you find Sadie.”

  “And Grey.” Paul rolled his stool slowly into view, then shoved off suddenly with his feet. He glided across the room, side-eye locked on mine, and drifted to a stop inches from the wall. “Your brother’s out there too. Wouldn’t want to forget about him.”

  “He’s not my brother.”

  I left it at that. I turned my back on both of them and stepped into the hallway, immediately choked on a waft of chemicals and vomit. The bathroom door was halfway open, and the light was on, which meant someone—hopefully not Sadie—was either in there making their personal business public, or they’d made a mess of the place and wandered off. I held my breath and knocked. Nothing. The door opened wider at the second tap of my knuckles, and I stepped inside, almost tripped over somebody’s outstretched boot. The spray bottle lay on the floor next to it, diluted bleach water dripping slowly from its cracked nozzle. My heartbeat doubled. I recoiled from the sharp, familiar stink, fighting back a strange scuttle of panic.

  “Oh. Sorry. I—hey.”

  The guy slumped against the wall in front of the puke-spattered sink, chin-to-chest, legs askew, face hidden by greasy hanks of blond hair. Shirt and wall coated in what hadn’t made it to the basin. Paul was going to be pissed.

  “Dude, come on—at least get over the toilet. Are you okay?”

  He shifted and moaned, head rolling to the side in a half-assed approximation of a nod. Close enough.

  “All right, then. Let’s get you up.”

  He heard me, at least. His head bobbed again, and he reached up, his hand all bones and scabs and chapped, stained fingers closing around mine, nail beds cracked and packed with grime, and what the hell was I doing. He was high off his ass, oddly familiar, and oh man, was he a mess. Skin like an old book binding, cracked and weathered. Mouth a decrepit graveyard of sores and rotten teeth. Eyes a scatter of burst blood vessels edging deep-space pupils. He was barely older than me.

  I knew that face. I’d seen it on a street corner, shy and skittish, smiling at the promise of hot coffee. Seen it twisted in a sneer a million years ago, the day Connor taught
me to spin yarn: Aiden, who broke locks and stole tools, got himself ousted from the fringes of the fringe. Who stretched out his shirtsleeves, to hide his shaking hands.

  So weird, how life unravels people, weaving their loose ends into yours, thread by thread. This boy—this Aiden, who wasn’t even supposed to be in the warehouse, let alone coating its interior in vomit; the world had juxtaposed us yet again, insistently and inexplicably, as if determined to make him stick. Damn if the third time wasn’t the fucking charm.

  I had a single goal: locate Sadie and Grey. I was fully justified to go do that, and let Paul scoop this kid off the floor and howl about the bathroom. Let Connor figure out the fastest, most efficient way to remove him from the warehouse without trailing muck all over the place. Let them scour puke off the wall and sink; maybe send Grey home for a spare smudge stick while they were at it, to cut the stench of soiled clothing and unwashed skin. This was their place—this wasn’t my concern.

  But that was the thing—this guy, Aiden? He wasn’t anyone’s concern. Hadn’t been for a long, long time, from the look of him, and what the hell was my problem, that I could so casually wash my hands of a human being? What kind of shitty hypocrite was I to walk away, when I’d spent the past month wrapped around a boy who’d suffered the same indignities and indifference for so long?

  The least I could do was help this person stand.

  I actually couldn’t, though. He was deadweight and limp limbs, way too heavy to lift. There was no way this would work without getting in close, wrapping my arms around his sick-damp torso. I wasn’t sure I had that in me, good intentions or no—but I never had the chance to find out.

  Aiden’s eyes snapped open all at once, inches from mine. They skittered around the room, and there was no spark of recognition or any other thing, only haze; then a sudden flare of panic, and then nothing but whites and burst-vein red as he seized, limbs convulsing, neck locking. Hand crushing mine in a spastic, concrete vise.

  The world caved in. I tripped on my own feet and fell hard, took the brunt of the floor in my left knee. Found myself on his level, eye to eye, and if I could just get him off the floor—get the blood flowing to his arms and legs—if I could help him find his footing, he’d take over from there. He’d walk it off. He’d be fine.