Page 42 of Powerful

I smile sheepishly. ‘Oh, I left you a message.’

His eyes flick to mine before skimming over the embroidered purple thread. I’ve never been much good with my lettering, but the cursive is clean enough to read, at the very least.

‘See you in the sky,’ he murmurs, running his finger over the sentence and the accompanying stars I stitched beside it. His smile grows as he says, ‘Seems a little ominous, don’t you think?’

‘Not if you think of it fondly,’ I say simply.

‘You are quite the oddity, Dena.’

My smile is achingly large. ‘Why, thank you.’

‘No.’ He’s suddenly stoic. ‘Thank you, honey. I’ll wear it fondly.’

Our eyes lock for several slow seconds before I finally let the question slip out. ‘Why do you call me that?’ At his raised brow, I elaborate with a hurried, ‘Honey?’

‘I thought it was obvious.’ He shrugs, seemingly indifferent. ‘You are what you eat.’

I’m rendered speechless by this, and he takes the opportunity to continue. But only after he’s inched closer, filling me with warmth at the mere press of his body. I think I stop breathing when his hand lifts, slowly making its way towards my face.

I watch his throat bob as he brushes the bangs from my eyes, tickling my skin with the whisper of fingers. His breath stirs my hair, awakening the butterflies in my stomach, slicking the palms in my lap. Knuckles brush down the length of my cheek, and I’m too enthralled to wonder whether he’s left a trail of ash across my skin. When he speaks, I swear it’s to my very soul. ‘You are the sweetest thing I have never tasted.’ Another brush of his knuckles. ‘And I doubt I’ve craved anything more.’

Holy shit.

I’m not one for profanity, but my current situationseems to warrant it. I want to scream it, duck beneath his arm and run until I hit the Scorches. But I’m rooted to the spot, knee-deep in mutual feelings I hadn’t dreamed could be this vast.

And it terrifies me.

I’ve never been someone’s. And I have no idea how to be.

I’m so scared of doing it wrong, that I’m considering not doing it at all.

His feelings for me were reserved for daydreaming and delusional thinking. We were a fantasy I constructed in my head, wondering for weeks if it would ever become reality. And now that it has—

‘Plagues, these bangs!’ I jump away from his tempting touch, laughing nervously. ‘They are just always in my eyes – drives me crazy!’

He blinks at me, trying to interpret my sudden outburst. Fanning my hot face with a hand, I ramble on. ‘Pae usually cuts my bangs for me, which is why they are so crooked. Well, she likes to think it’s because I move around while she’s cutting, but I beg to differ. And she’s been so busy lately, so now they are long enough to continually stab me in the eyes—’

‘I’ll cut them.’

His words startle me into silence for several seconds. ‘You… You would do that?’

He scoffs in the sweetest way possible. ‘I practiced my skipping for you. This is nothing.’

Before I can stammer a response, he stands to dig around in a nearby cabinet. He’s then striding back to me, dusty scissors in hand. Sinking into the mattress beside me, he lifts the blades towards my face.

I lean away, laughing anxiously. ‘Okay, um, have you ever done this before?’

‘Cut hair? No.’ His voice is flat. ‘But I have plenty of experience in cutting things.’

‘Great.’ I squirm when the scissors grow closer.

‘All right, if you keep that up, I’ll stab you in the eye.’ The look of horror on my face must urge him to say, ‘No, not on purpose.’

‘Okay, okay.’ I take a deep breath. ‘I am calm and definitely not scared right now.’

‘That is convincing enough for me,’ he says, sarcastically cheery.

The first snip of hair has me biting my tongue. By the third, I’m giggling.

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