Page 71 of Ladybirds

She wants it gone.

She isn’t thinking, obviously she isn’t. He’s just so close and her heart is still high on adrenaline—his touch so reverent. She leans towards him, her lips a gentle press against the hollow of his cheek. His sharp intake of breath—nearly inaudible—rings, echoes, in her ear. Somehow, Sara knows the sound will haunt her later, when things are quiet and the room is dark.

Pulling away is harder than it should be, but meeting his eyes is harder. There are questions there, as plain as the flecks of amber in his irises and the surprise parting his mouth. She doesn’t make him ask. “Thank you.”

She can feel his exhale, a brush of warmth against her lips, before he leans away—shaking his head. A muscle in his jaw jumps, brow drawn and lips pulling in a sneer. “Don’t,” he says, the word a hiss between his teeth. “There is literally nothing for you to be appreciative over.”

He settles into his seat, staring at the road ahead of them instead of meeting her eyes. “Take your shoe and sock off that foot before the swelling gets worse. I hear St. Mary’s has a passable Urgent Care clinic.”

She glances down at her left foot, cringing. It’s definitely swollen, her sock visibly indenting her skin, but as bad as it looks, there isn’t nearly as much pain as she expected. In fact, it’s strangely numb. Maybe Seth was right about taking the shoe off now instead of later. Carefully, she reaches down to undo the laces, wincing. “I’ll be fine,” she tells him, working out the last of the lacing before gingerly removing her heel from the sneaker. “It really doesn’t hurt that much.”

“Because you bloody well broke it,” he snaps, before looking away. “Sprained at best.”

“How—”

He sends her a pointed look. “I’ve spent a lot of time in Emergency. Shadowing the residents was far more preferable than boredom.”

Sara winces as she removes her sock, eyeing the shadow of bruising. “It really doesn’t—”

“Sara.” Her name is a command on his lips; no room for arguments. She wonders how he gets away with sounding like he has any say in the matter. He must notice her skepticism, because his eyes narrow in warning. “I will pester you every waking moment and, might I remind you, I don’t sleep.”

She grumbles complaints under her breath, lips pressed into a thin line as she puts the car back into drive. The air coming from the vents starts to feel a little bit cooler.

It’s late when they finally get home—half past ten—and Sara is so bone weary she could fall into bed without even bothering to take her shoe off. Ansel weaves between her feet, meowing so obnoxiously loud that she feels like she’s being scolded. “I know, I know,” she grumbles, fumbling with locking the door behind her. The crutch under her left arm digs uncomfortably into her armpit. “I’m not happy about it either.”

Seth appears in the living room behind her and, not for the first time (but perhaps the most fervently) Sara wishes she could move from one place to another in the span of a blink. Particularly now that she’s stuck with this stupid, clunky walking boot for the next few weeks. With a grumbled curse, she readjusts the crutch.

The glare she sends him must give her away, because his answering smile would be appeasing if not for the guilt behind it. “Be grateful it’s merely a sprain.” Ansel abandons her to rub, mewling, against his ankles in a demand for attention. Seth concedes with a scratch behind the ears and a fond, “Yes, yes, I see you. No need to have a fit.”

Suddenly, it dawns on her with enough force to make her stagger—her crutch falling to the ground with a metallic clang. “Oh.”

Seth steps toward her, hands hovering at her elbows as if preparing to catch her if she falls. “What’s wrong? You didn’t use—”

“You could have been hurt,” she breathes, the realization a weight on her chest. “That moose. It—it saw you. Like Ansel sees you. It wanted to hurt you.”

The breath he releases is small. Relieved. It only makes her heart twist more. “Yes.”

“But you taunted it, anyway.”

“Also yes.” He says it like it’s obvious; like it’s as inevitable and mundane as gravity. Like it’s something that just is.

“It could have hurt you.”

His hands twitch towards her before he catches himself. She wonders, if he knew he could, where he would have reached—her hands, her face? He ducks his head, meeting her eyes. “It didn’t.”

“But—”

“Sara,” he says, a soft demand. “The only injury of any consequence here is your ridiculous ankle. Come sit.”

She doesn’t want to sit. There’s too much unsaid dancing in the space between them. He risked himself for her. Even if he can’t die, she knows he feels pain. He has to know. She needs him to know—

She kisses him.

Soft. Sweet and chaste—the innocent pressing of lips worthy of childhood fantasies. Her fingers grip the lapels of his coat as she leans into him for balance—stretching up to meet him as best she can. When she pulls away, he follows—lips hovering so close she can feel his every breath.

“Sara...” Her name is a prayer; wine and chocolate off his tongue. Goosebumps dot her flesh. His lips graze the corner of her mouth and his hands—trembling—slide along her jaw with a reverence that makes her weak. When she dares to look, his eyes are dark. Hooded and drunk. “Please, I beg you, don’t tease. Not with this.”

He towers over her, his body curling around her, and yet—somehow—he feels small beneath her palms. Vulnerable. The way he watches her... as if every shift in her expression holds the power to either save or condemn him. In some ways, Sara knows she could.

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