Page 89 of The Nightmare Before Kissmas
I spin on my heels and am halfway to hurling myself out the door when Hex grabs my wrist.
I stop.
There’s no other response than to go pliant when he’s touching me.
“I’m glad you told me,” he whispers.
I throw a disbelieving stare at him. In the low glow from the lamp, I can see the way his eyes are waiting to snag mine, his face falling open in a rare look of complete, utter vulnerability.
“I was going to keep my head down and get through this charade,” he tells me. “Halloween wears a mask better than anyone, or so we like to believe. It was only a few weeks. I had all theseplans.And then you storm upon me, and—and you’ve been nothing at all that I’ve expected. Not from the very start.”
“You were expecting a hot mess, and I’m really a supernova mess?”
His smile is dazed. “In an endearing way. You’ve been… honorable.”
“Honorable? Ha. Sure.”
“You are. Like some kind of red and green Captain America.”
That joke only lands because I am so obviouslynotanything remotely superhero worthy.
Breath returns to me. One sip, another, until a thought rattles free. “How are yougladI told you? I’ve put you in danger by letting you know this.”
God, I’m so fucking terrified of messing anything up, it’s a wonder I can walk a straight line.
“There’s that honor,” he says, taking in the change of my expression and so easily reading the thoughts that race through my head.
My brows go up in mixed surprise that I’m so transparent to him and panic about what else he might see. What unworthy, disastrous parts of me might creep across my face and make him withdraw instead of looking at me like he’s in awe? Which that look just—just isn’t possible to begin with. There’s nothing at all in me deserving of that look, especially from him.
“I’m glad you told me,” he continues, “because I do want to help you. However I can. I have prepared, Halloween has prepared, to endure backlash from your father already. I don’t know that I should announce my involvement with any plans of yours to the world quite yet, but I’ll be fine. You don’t need to protect me.”
“I can’t help myself.” Then, since I have no shame left, “There’s a lot I can’t help myself with around you.”
It’s another instance where something’s changed in his posture but I can’t figure out what, all I know is the energy plummets to an aching severity.
And he’s still holding on to my arm.
“What else can you not help yourself with around me?” he asks.
I’m half certain it’s a hallucination. No way in any reality would someone like him let me be here; fumbling, unsteady, desperatemenext to confident, controlled, assuredhim.
“I can’t help,” I hardly hear myself, “this insufferable need to find out what it’s like to witness every shade of joy on your face.”
Right now, his face shows only shock. Breathless, disoriented shock identical to the emotion batting around in my head, and it’s bewitching, because I feel like this is an expression he shows less willingly than awe.
“What about—” He stops himself. Bites his lips together and winces in self-deprecation.
“What?”
“I have no right to ask this of you. But I… I think I have to. You said neither of you wants your engagement, but I’ve come to like Iris, and I don’t wish to hurt her with any of—” He stops again. His hand pulses on my wrist, filling in the unspoken words.
A smile sweeps across me. “Youwerejealous.”
His wide eyes hold on mine, jaw bunching in refusal to show embarrassment, and he doesn’t pick up on any of my teasing.
“Honestly,” I whisper, smile dimming. “I was too. Watching you give her flowers. Every time my dad forces you two together. And Iris is fully aware that I feel this way—that I’m jealous ofher,not of you. I’m jealous that she gets to be the object of your attention. This whole thing I have with her is unbearable, for both her and me, and it’s something I’m still figuring out how to undo. But god no, there’s nothing real between us. She relentlessly mocks me for the way I trip over myself around you.”
Hex exhales, but something remains in his eyes, shifting back and forth as he studies me. “Perhaps it is a bit mockable. The allure is merely because I am still that mystery guy who threw himself at you in an alley.”
