My eyes shift to her, scanning her in the darkness. "I'm admiring the view."
"Oh." She glances behind her. "Am I blocking it?"
"No," I say. "You are it."
She rolls her eyes and starts to step aside when I grab ahold of her, catching her off guard. Her reflexes are stunted, her strength diminished from the alcohol sloshing through her veins. I pull her down onto the blanket with me, and she lets out a startled squeal before laughing when she loses her balance, falling right into me. I grunt when her knee grazes my crotch, just barely missing landing right on my cock. My side stings, but she's giggling… fucking giggling. I can't be mad. "You're drunk, jailbird."
"Just a little," she says, holding up her fingers half an inch apart, nearly pinching me in the fucking nose with them.
"You should've eaten something earlier."
"Yeah, right," she slurs. "I wouldn't eat anything that guy touched."
"Who?"
"Paul."
Huh.
Strike three.
"I could've bought you something. It's not good to drink on an empty stomach."
She blows out a dismissive breath. "Puh-lease. What's good anymore?"
"You," I say, brushing her wild hair from her face. It came down sometime after swimming, now a tangled mess, waves falling everywhere. "You're still good."
She laughs again, laughs like that's the funniest thing she's ever heard. I expect her to try to get to her feet, to stagger away, but instead she shifts around in front of me, settling between my legs. She leans against me, her back flush against my chest, her head coming to rest just below my chin. She smells like chlorine and sweat, her skin slick and glowing, more freckles dotting her shoulders and her cheeks.
The sun did a number on her today.
Even her nose is pink.
"Tell me something," she says. "Would somebody good love somebody like you?"
It's a valid question, maybe a bit spiteful, but it's the closest she's coming to admitting she loves me in a while. I rest my cheek against the top of her head as I consider it. "Probably not."
She's quiet for a bit, just lounging there. I snake my arms around her, feeling her warmth as I hold her close. It isn't until the fireworks start up, blasting off from the bridge and filling the night sky, that Karissa finally speaks again.
"Beautiful," she whispers as her friends loudly cheer, raising a ruckus nearby. I smile at the amazement in her voice, listening to the bangs as they detonate back to back, watching as the blasts bathe her skin in flashes of different colors.
"I've always liked fireworks," I say. "The gunpowder, the chemicals and fuel carefully calibrated, making something so powerful, something so deadly, seem so harmless. Knowing how much control, how much heat, how much energy it takes to set off the explosions at the perfect time... fascinating."
She tilts her head, shifting slightly and sitting up more to look back at me. Sensing her gaze, I meet her eyes. They look black in the night.
"You light up when you talk like that," she says.
I shrug a shoulder as I study her face, light igniting parts of it, casting the rest in shadows. "You make something beautiful enough and people forget just how much it can hurt you."
She stares at me again.
That stare.
The one that makes it feel like she's clawing at my skin, ripping apart my outsides to find her way deeper in. I think I get it now, what she was saying earlier.
Because nobody looks at me like she does.
I stare back, holding my ground, waiting for her to turn around. Waiting for her to back down, to be the first to look away, but I don't intimidate her, not the way I intimidate everyone else. I never have.
I don't know if she was born this goddamn fearless, if it's encoded in her DNA, gifted to her by her flawed bloodline, or if it's something life taught her, something molded into her all those years she was unknowingly on the run. I wonder if she got that from her father, or if it was me who caused her bravery.
She inches forward ever so slightly and hesitates, contemplating, her eyes flickering to my mouth so faintly I almost don't catch it. She takes a deep breath, exhaling with resolve, before closing her eyes and coming the rest of the way.
My brave, brave woman kisses me.
It's soft. Tentative. Sweet. Her breath is shaky and her lips barely part, but it's a kiss, none-the-less, and I fucking savor it. It's not the first time we've kissed since everything turned ugly, not even the first time she's initiated it, but this kiss is different. This kiss feels less like hunger and more like heartache, like she's quenching a thirst by trying to remember how to drink.
Tiny sips.
That's all she takes.
Little pecks against my lips before she pulls back away.
She stares at me again.
Five… ten… fifteen seconds.
And then she turns around.
She settles back into my arms, lounging on the blanket between my legs as she stares up at the sky in silence, watching the fireworks with the same fearlessness she looked at me with.
I'm not the only one of us who knows how to play with fire, I think… and I'm not the only one who enjoys it, either.
"You want to know what I think about when I look at you, Karissa?"
"What?"
"I think there's nobody else like you in the world."
The fireworks seem to go on forever.
Karissa says nothing else to me.
Not at the park, not on the walk to the car, and not on the way home.
The silence isn't strained like it usually is when she doesn't talk. She's right here beside me, completely at ease. I don't know if it's because she's too damn drunk to remember or if she just finally forgot she hates me.
I lead Karissa to the front door of the house when we get there, my hand pressed against the small of her back. She steps up onto the small porch, waiting, as I dig for the right key. It takes a moment as I fumble with the new locks, a strange sensation creeping up my back, prickling my spine.
The hair at the nape of my neck stands on end.
Key halfway into the lock, I freeze as the feeling consumes me, my muscles taut as I strain my ears. There's somebody there. Carefully, I turn my head, slowly surveying the dark neighborhood around us, looking and listening, but I see nothing.
Nothing but blackness.
I'm not a fool, though. The darkness can't trick me. Just because I don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. I sense it, feel it crawling across my skin.
Somebody's watching us.
Somebody's watching me.
Somebody's watching her.
I scan the area again, waiting for something to happen, for someone to appear out of the shadows, and damn near jump when someone touches me. My eyes dart to the hand on my arm before I look at Karissa, seeing her eyeing me peculiarly. "Is something wrong, Naz?"