Page 84 of Even After Sunset

He must have just walked up behind me.

“Here,” he says, holding out a cotton candy almost twice the size of my head. “Made it special for you… Last one of the night.”

“It’s huge!” I laugh, taking it from him.

“That’s what they all say.” He grins, that same cocky smirk, and I roll my eyes.

I tear off a piece and pop it in my mouth. It melts almost immediately, and it’s… heaven. I forgot how much I love cotton candy. And now I get why we had so much business tonight.

“Wow,” I say, tearing off an even bigger piece. “Maybe youshouldbecome a cotton candy chef.”

“Already am.” He leans in and bites into the cloud of sugar. “Best in the country.”

After that, it’s quiet for a bit while we both stuff our faces with cotton candy. The high chatter of voices wafts in through the screen windows as the last of the concert-goers holler and laugh and call out their goodbyes to each other, still high on the lingering notes of the band’s upbeat encore.

“Hold on…” Silas lifts his hand to my face. “You got some of it in your hair.”

He tries to tuck it behind my ear, but now the strand is stuck to his fingers. He leans in closer, using his other hand to free it, but of course the fingers onthathand are sticky, too.

“Crap,” he chuckles. “Made it worse.”

He’s so close I can feel his breath against my forehead. His eyes lower and they collide with mine.

He looks…nervous.

“It’s fine, just yank if you need to,” I tell him.

“I don’t want to have to… shit. Yeah, I’m gonna have to—”

“Ow!”

“Crap.” He winces. “Sorry.”

His hand is on my shoulder now. It might get stuck there; I don’t care - all I’m aware of right now is the fact that his face is just a couple of inches away from mine.

He doesn’t step back.

“You okay?”

I try to answer, but my mouth is suddenly dry. Also, really sticky. So I nod instead.

Silas tears a piece of cotton candy off and holds it up to my mouth.

“Here. Peace offering.”

“Mmmpf…” I bite it from between his thumb and forefinger, laughing, and he brings his thumb up to his own mouth and licks it. Now my eyes are glued to his lips and I’m sure my heart must be doing a hundred beats a minute. His eyes still haven’t left mine and I wish I knew what he was thinking right now.

I watch as his gaze lowers, his long lashes hooding his eyes as they sweep across my face, like he’s taking in every little detail.

“You turned out real pretty, Jackie Delaney,” he says, in a jagged voice I could listen to all night.

“You didn’t turn out so bad yourself, Silas Carmichael,” I grin. And I swear he blushes.

“Not sure about that, but… I’ll take it.”

There’s an intense look in his eyes. He’s on the edge of something, but I’m not sure what. I wantto know though, because I want to be on the edge of it with him.

“There’s something I want to do,” he says in that same voice that sounds like he just woke up. “But you’ll probably say no.”

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