Click-click-click.
The magnets engage and the weight settles and I sag forward with an exhale that feels like it's been trapped in my lungs for a decade.
My legs give out.
It's a slow, stupid folding, my knees buckling, my body sliding down the wall with my palm scraping against the brick with Bells still wrapped around me. She yelps as my knot pulls inside her but adjusts, her arms finding my neck as we sink together to the rooftop.
I end up on my back, somehow.
Bells ends up on top of me.
Still locked together.
The fog rolls over us in slow, cold waves. The tar paper is damp and gritty beneath my shoulder blades. Above us, Seattle's light pollution turns the mist an otherworldly amber.
I'm shaking.
Full-body tremors running through my muscles like aftershocks from an earthquake I didn't realize I was having. My hands are on her back—when the fuck didthathappen?—fingers splayed wide, pressing her against my chest like she's the only thing keeping me from flying apart.
She is, probably.
Bells shifts, settling her weight more comfortably on top of me, her elbows bracing on either side of my head. Her white hair falls forward, long enough now to curtain us in.
"Hey," she says.
I stare up at her.
Her face is flushed. Her lips are swollen. There's a smudge of brick dust on her cheek and her honey-gold eyes are soft and warm in a way I've never seen on her before, none of the usual sharp edges or wicked grins.
"You did good," she says quietly.
I don't respond. Don't trust my voice. Don't trust anything right now except the weight of her on my chest and the steady thrum of her heartbeat against mine.
She cups the unmasked side of my face. Her thumb traces my cheekbone, feather-light, and I turn into her palm without meaning to. Her skin is warm and slightly rough from callouses from instruments and she doesn't pull away.
She leans down and kisses me.
Soft.
Not the desperate, teeth-and-tongue aggression from before. This is gentle. Careful. Her lips press against mine and hold there, and I feel something crack and settle inside my ribcage that I don't understand, let alone have fucking words for.
I kiss her back.
My hand finds the back of her head. Fingers threading through damp white hair, cradling her skull, holding her mouth against mine. She tastes like that radioactive energy drink and something sweeter underneath that I've been trying to pretend isn't the most perfect scent I've ever encountered.
We break apart by millimeters.
Her forehead rests against mine. Our breath mingles in the cold air, visible in small clouds that dissipate into fog.
Her eyes search mine. Back and forth, back and forth, like she's reading something written in a language she's still learning.
"Rex," she murmurs. "There's something I?—"
I kiss her again.
Because I know what she's about to say.
I've known for weeks, probably.