A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

Banquet

Harry was on his feet, running toward the cab of the closest truck when Zayn exploded from the Blazer, cutting around the rear of it and running straight toward him, blocking his path to help. Harry changed direction to avoid him, "PLEASE SOMEONE," he screamed, cutting across the snow in an effort to make it into the rest room and lock the door. Off to his left, he saw a truck door being flung open and a driver stepping down, frowning at the commotion; close behind him he heard Malik's feet pounding into the snow. "HELP ME!" he yelled at the driver, and he glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Zayn scoop up a handful of snow.

A snowball hit him hard in the shoulder and he screamed as he ran, "STOP HIM! He's—"

Zayn's laughing shout a few feet behind him drowned out Harry's words: "CUT IT OUT, Harry," he yelled at the same time he launched himself at him in a running tackle. "YOU'RE WAKING EVERYONE UP!"

Trying to drag in enough air to scream again, Harry twisted, landing underneath his sprawled body in the snow, the breath knocked out of him, his terrified green eyes; only inches from Zayn's enraged ones, his teeth clenched into a fake smile designed to fool the truck driver. Panting, Harry jerked his head aside to scream, just as Zayn smashed a handful of wet snow onto his face. Choking and blinded, he heard his savage whisper as he caught his wrists and yanked them above his head. "I'll kill him if he comes any closer," he bit out, tightening his grip on his hands. "Damn you, is that what you want! Does someone have to die for you?"

Harry whimpered, unable to speak, and shook his head, his eyes clenched shut, unable to bear the sight of his captor, unable to endure knowing he'd come within a few feet of freedom, and all for nothing, for this—to end up on his back in the snow with his body crushing him, his hip throbbing from his deliberate fall from the Blazer. He heard his swift intake of breath, the furious urgency. "He's walking over here. Kiss me and make it look good, or he's dead!"

Before he could react, Zayn's mouth crushed down on his. Harry's eyes flew open, his gaze riveting on the truck driver who was cautiously walking toward them, frowning as he tried to peer at their faces. "Goddammit, put your arms around me!"

His mouth was imprisoning Harry's, the gun in his pocket was jabbing into his stomach, but his wrists were free now. He could struggle, and very possibly, the truck driver with the jovial face beneath a black cap that said PETE on it would see that something was very wrong and come to his rescue.

And he would die.

Malik had ordered him to put his arms around him and "make it look good." Like a puppet, Harry moved his leaden wrists from the snow and let them drop limply onto his shoulders, but he could not make himself do more than that.

* * *

Zayn tasted his stiff lips beneath his; he felt his body, rigid as stone beneath his weight, and he assumed that he was trying to gather his strength for the next moment when he, with the help of three truck drivers, would put an end to his brief freedom and his life. From the corner of his eye, he saw the driver slow down, but he was still coming toward them, and his expression was growing increasingly cautious and skeptical. All this and more raced through Zayn's mind in the space of the three seconds they lay there, pretending—unconvincingly—to kiss.

In a last helpless effort to stop the inevitable from happening to him, Zayn dragged his mouth to his ear and whispered a single word he hadn't let himself use in years:

"Please!" Tightening his arms around the rigid man, he said it again with a groaning urgency he couldn't suppress. "Please, Harry..."

Feeling as if the world had suddenly gone insane, Harry heard the plea wrench from his captor as if it were torn from his chest a moment before his lips seized him and he said in a tormented whisper, "I didn't kill anyone, I swear it." The pleading and desperation he'd heard in his voice were eloquently alive in this kiss, and it accomplished what his threats and anger could not: It made Harry hesitate and waver; it made him believe that what he heard in his voice was truth.