That damn question again. “I’m fine,” I replied, turning back to the cabinet. “Just a little lit.”
“Yeah. I can tell.”
I could hear the amusement in his voice, heat prickling under my skin. It made me want to throw the tea box at him just to break the tension, but instead I shoved it back on the shelf and slammed the cabinet, the bang echoing the storm in my chest.
The rain was still coming down in sheets, hammering the roof, punctuated by cracks of thunder that made the whole cabin shudder. The wind howled through the trees, and every so often something would scrape against the side of the house–a branch, probably–and it sounded like the storm was trying to claw its way inside. I walked back to the living room, but I didn’t sit down. I couldn’t. Sitting meant being still, and being still meant thinking, and thinking was dangerous right now.
“You’re gonna wear a hole in the floor,” Kade said.
“No, I’m not.”
“You are, though. Relax.”
I stopped, crossing my arms. “What do you want me to do? We’ve played cards. We ate some bullshit. There’s no TV, no WiFi, no cell service. We’re literally trapped here withnothingto do.”
“We could talk.”
“We’vebeentalking.”
“Nah, niggas been making small talk. That’s different.” I looked at him, and he was leaning back on the couch, one arm stretched along the back, his legs spread in that way guys sit when they’re comfortable. He looked so at ease, so unbothered, and it made me irrationally annoyed.
“Okay. Talk about what?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Real shit.”
“We talk about real shit all the time.”
“Do we, though?”
The question hung between us, heavy and electric, and I realized he was right. We talked about everything–work, family, friends, stupid stuff that made us laugh–but never aboutthis. About the way the air seemed charged when we were alone. About his hand on my knee in the car, how my skin burned under his touch. About the fact that I’d loved him for years, afraid to let the truth slip out.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I said finally.
“How about tell a nigga why you’ve been acting weird all night.”
My stomach dropped. “I haven’t been acting weird.”
“Storm.”
“Kade.”
He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his shirt pulling tight across his chest. I forced myself to look up at his face, hoping it would be easier, but my breath caught. His eyes were locked on mine, dark and intense in the candlelight, and I felt pinned, unable to move. My hand fidgeted on my knee, betraying my nerves.
“You’ve been jumpy as hell since we got here,” he said quietly. “You can’t sit still. You keep looking at me like–” He paused, jaw clenched, then shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Like what?”
“Forget it.”
“No. Like what?”
He just looked at me, silent but intense, the weight of it pressing down so hard it felt like my insides were shaking. Iwanted to run, joke, do anything but sit here and face it. It was too much-the pretending, the holding back, the wanting. All of it boiling up inside me, right there in the charged quiet.
I watched his jaw tighten. “Come sit down.”
It wasn’t a command, exactly. But it wasn’t a request either. It was something in between, and my body moved before my brain could catch up. I walked over to the couch and sat down, leaving a careful foot of space between us. Of course, he noticed and laughed, echoing through the cabin.
“You ain’t gotta sit all the way over there,” he said.