Page 23 of The Other Side of Together

“Didn’t think about how awkward this could get. Never had this issue in kindergarten.”

“What issue?”

He straightens and steps back, smiles at the floor, taps the chalk against his thigh. “Girl in my room. Close proximity. All the…” His face flushes. “Hormones.”

My twisting stomach wrings a nervous whisper-laugh out of me when he steps closer, his eyes mock serious. “Don’t laugh,” he whispers down to me, the air warming. “95 percent of guys twelve through twenty-one wrestle with them every second.”

I smile and roll my eyes while he continues tracing.

“Is this too weird for a first date?” he asks the chalkboard under my elbow.

I press my lips together to keep my somersaulting insides inside. “No.”

“If this is considered a date, I mean.”He takes a step back and jerks into motion, continuing his outline.

I squeeze my eyes shut to trap the thought. “Depends on your definition, I guess?”

He rounds my shoulder and traces my neck, his face so close, the heat of it washes over my cheek, and I swallow, pressing my lips together as he responds. “Don’t have a definition, but…” He stops, erases with his fingertip, then continues. “If we’re voting,” I say definitely. As long as you’re down.”

My chest tightens to stifle an inner squeal and I nod. “I’m down.”

“Yesssssss,” he says through a smile, then moves my hair and goosebumps play tag across my skin.

I drag in a breath through my nose and wiggle my toes against his rug when the line he’s drawing swerves outward.

“I don’t think my leg bends like that,” I whisper to the ceiling.

He snatches the eraser from his nightstand. “Got distracted.”

“By…?”

“Thought about kissing you.” He tosses the eraser to the floor and focuses on his drawing again. “But I won’t. Promise.”

A swallow lodges in the middle of my tight throat. This is only a daydream or I’m unconscious. I’m actually in math class right now, wishing I was here, that’s all. If he really tries to kiss me, it’s only me hallucinating.

Marcus speed-draws the rest of me then steps away, holding his hands up. “Done.”

I meet his eyes but am too afraid of what mine might say so I step away from the chalkboard and turn around, hand circling my neck as I nod. “An excellent, 2-D me,” I whisper, smiling at my waving outline on his wall. In his room. Drawn by him. I’m still passed out.

“Whoa.” Marcus hovers behind me and I glance over myshoulder at him. “The tat on your neck wasn’t there the other night.”

Feeling plummets from my face, pools in my toes, and I turn back to the chalkboard because I don’t want to talk about the reason behind the tattoo. But Marcus’s fingers smooth my hair over my shoulder and all feeling that left me five seconds ago surges back into me, hot and tingly.

“What’s it say?”

I press my lips together and close my eyes, breathing in heat. “My name.”

A moment of silence throbs before he speaks again. “So…” He steps around me to the chalkboard and draws a heart in the middle of my chalk chest. “It’s kinda stating the obvious, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know…meaning of your name.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Beautiful. Obvious.” He focuses on the chalkboard and swallows. “Did it hurt?”

I smile at my feet, wiggling my toes to distribute the heat from his comment, then look at him and shrug. “Kind of.”

He sections my chalk heart into two halves, the veins in his forearm shifting beneath his skin as he writes50% Buddhain one half and50% Face Eaterin the other.

My stomach lurches and I grab the chalk from his hand, erasingFace Eaterwith my palm before drawing a question mark. Then I turn to him and shove the chalk against his chest, patting my hand over it, my fingertips flexing to get closer to him.

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