Part 5 (1/2)
She stood up and brushed off her b.u.t.t. He got up, too, and he was standing so close to her that they b.u.mped a few times as they got cleaned off.
”So, wait, which way are you facing?” she asked.
His hand collided with her hip, a solid weight. ”This way.” The other hand landed, and there went that heat between her thighs again. That single, intense pulse that flung her whole body headlong into l.u.s.t.
He could kiss her, if he wanted to. He was breathing hard. Maybe he did want to.
Here, in the dark, where she was safe, she could even kiss him. She wondered how far away his face was. If he was staring over the top of her head or looking to the side. How difficult it would be to seek his mouth with her own and to find out whether his lips were soft or firm.
”I need to get out of here,” he said.
Right. She had s.e.x on the brain, and he was in fight-or-flight mode.
”Okay. Let's go over to the side wall so I can turn the light switches off, just in case the power comes back on tonight.”
She pried one of his hands off her hip and held it, pulling him along behind her as she took tentative steps into the blackness. She realized too late that she should have followed the back wall instead of walking in the open, because every step she took, she became a little more uncertain, a little more worried she'd drop into an abyss or trip over something. Get eaten by a lion. Whatever primitive fears her brain unleashed upon her at moments like this one.
Tony was breathing as though he'd just finished running a marathon.
”You never told me what your worst fear is,” she said, hoping to distract him.
”This. This is it.”
”No way. This is just a phobia. I mean something bigger than that. Like what mistake would you most regret making? What's the one thing you could never get over?”
He didn't answer for so long that her stomach started to hurt, and she wanted to retract the question. She shouldn't be prying, not when she knew there was something he didn't want to tell.
His reply came as a relief. ”You have a gift for asking weird questions, you know that?”
”Sorry. I-ow! Son of a biscuit!” Her s.h.i.+n had slammed into something.
”What?”
Amber felt around with her free hand until she could make sense of it. One of those rolling racks of basketb.a.l.l.s. If she remembered correctly where it was, that made the wall ten or twelve feet farther ahead. ”I ran into some b.a.l.l.s.”
Great. Now even normal conversation sounded dirty.
”You bleeding?”
”No, I'm fine.” She started walking again, Tony in tow. ”My worst fear is that I'll get to my deathbed and realize I've never done anything with my life.”
”You're not even twenty-five yet.”
”So?”
”So that's a stupid thing to be afraid of.”
She forgave him the insult, since his palm was sweaty, and it was hard to be kind while freaking out, and clearly her question had punched a b.u.t.ton she needed to learn to avoid if she was ever going to talk to Tony again. ”It doesn't seem stupid to me. You know, I have a younger brother in the army, and he's living in Germany. My baby sister, Katie, wants to move to Paris-or she used to anyway. Lately she keeps talking about Alaska, which is where her boyfriend wants to go after graduation. And I'm just ... here.”
”You finished college. You have a job. It's not like you have to leave town to prove yourself.”
”I know.”
”Family's important, too.”
”I know, I'm just ... I don't know who I am yet. I feel like I'm still living the wrong life.”
She reached the wall and pulled his hand forward until his fingertips touched it. ”Here. We made it. Now we just have to keep moving forward, and we'll reach the stairs in no time.”
”Thanks.” He exhaled, a ragged sound. ”You want to get married, have kids, the whole nine yards?”
Yes.
The thought seemed to come from some part of her other than her brain. It leapt out from the cellular level, straight to the tip of her tongue.
Then she realized he was asking if she wanted to get married someday, to someone. Not to him, immediately.
Amber swallowed. ”Sure. You?”
”I don't know.”
”You ready to start walking?”
”Yeah.”
”Do you need to hold my hand, or ...”
”No, I can just use the wall.”
”Okay. Keep up.”
They started walking toward the front of the bas.e.m.e.nt, moving faster now. Even at a more rapid pace, the room felt four hundred times as large as it had when the lights were on.
”So how can you not know if you want to get married?” she asked. ”You're almost thirty. It seems like you would have figured it out by now.”
”You sound like my sister.”
”Oh, don't turn this into a woman thing. It's a human thing. Do you want to find someone to marry? Do you want to reproduce? These are not complicated questions.” She reached the light switches and flicked them all off.
”Well, I'm not going to say No, not ever,' because I try not to do that these days.”
”Why's that?”
”You never know what's gonna happen in life. Sometimes you win the lottery. Sometimes tragedy knocks you on your a.s.s with no warning.”
A raw note in his voice.