Silver Stilettos

12 | kisses always mean something

That first kiss sparked something, the lighting of a match against emotional gasoline. It warmed the top of my head, crept between my toes, burned my fingertips like a match that hadn't been blown out in time and had licked flesh.

We ate our lunch, eyes never straying from the other, locked in a heated contest. Neither of us wanted to be the first to look away. If I'd first thought of his blue eyes like ice chips, now I knew how much ice could burn. It hurt to look at him. It hurt to look away. I had to do one or the other, and the choosing was another contest, wasn't it? There was a right choice. There was a wrong choice.

In the end, he looked away first.

I didn't protest when Reed paid for both of us, even though my hand was already going to my purse. I didn't know what it meant when it felt natural to be taken care of by him - by any boy.

His hand lightly touched my wrist. "Let's go, Mayuri," he said, stuffing his receipt in the back pocket of his jeans.

His touch was electric, zapping my mouth dry, and my neck sweaty. I trailed after him, catching up only when he stopped and waited for me at the entrance of the restaurant. The girls were nowhere in sight. A family of seven, with a set of twins in the double stroller, walked past us, all of them talking at the top of their lungs. Reed's eyes followed them, eyebrows drawn together in silent judgment.

"What now?" I asked, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my hoodie so he wouldn't see them tremble.

"We walk around. Be seen. Give the lemmings something to look at."

The way he said it, so matter of fact, made my jelly legs turn to lead. "When you kissed me, were you—" I couldn't say the word. Couldn't or wouldn't. Did it really matter?

"Pretending?" Reed says the word for me, brandishing it with such casual disregard that it almost makes me wince. His next words soothe my open wound. "No. No, Mayuri, I wasn't acting. It was real."

The mall was busier than normal, both ends teeming with high school girls and their boyfriends, middle school girls crowding in front of glitzy stores selling trendy, cheap-quality clothing, and older couples and families strolling hand in hand, not really looking for anything in particular, just walking.

As we walked by a perfumed, dimly-lit store with monogrammed letters on the hoodies, I felt his hand slip into mine. I wasn't expecting it, but my fingers tightened around his. I felt the silver bands on his fingers under the pads of my fingertips, rubbing against my knuckles. The metal was warm from his skin.

"Thank you," I said, breaking the silence. "For doing all this. For me."

"You don't have to thank me." He stared straight ahead, seeming uncomfortable with my gratitude. His hand squeezed mine.

I found myself staring at him, wondering how Reed Norcross could be so calm, how he seemed, instinctively, to fit in with this dangerous world. He turned and caught me staring at him. The briefest of smiles flitted across his face. In those seconds I stared into his eyes, I had my answer. Reed was dangerous, too.

"Yo, Reed!"

The spell was broken. Reed's eyes went from cornered, caged animal to flippant frat boy in an instant. "Hey, Baron," he greeted, jutting his chin in the ever-eloquent dude nod. "What are you doing here?"

The white-haired boy towered over both of us. He held up a plastic bag that had what looked like a slanted check mark across the front. "I needed new kicks." Baron eyed me curiously. "Hey, I know you, don't I?" He tilted his head, revealing a long, swan neck and ghostly ivory skin. "Mayuri, right?" His eyes flicked to Reed's for confirmation.