Page 32 of The Beautiful Collision
She’s holding her ground, verbally, but she hasn’t moved away from the touch of thigh-on-thigh or hand-on-hair. Nor has she evacuated to her room like she does most of the time when she’s had enough of my shit. Instead, her foot’s gone completely still now, and there’s tension in her posture.
It’s like a player waiting for the puck drop.
“See, that’s your problem right there.” I gesture at her textbook fortress, injecting confidence like it’s a performance-enhancing drug. “You’re overthinking the heart. Sometimesyou’ve got to trust the rhythm… feel the flow… get in the zone a little.”
Her laugh explodes out of her—half snort, half cackle—and it’s music.
When she really laughs, not the calculated version she deploys at parties, but the real deal, her whole face transforms. Her eyes squeeze into crescents, her nose scrunches up, and there’s this tiny wheeze at the end that she’d probably hate knowing about.
“Did you just use cardiac physiology as foreplay?” she says. “In all the bullshit I’ve heard from all the guys, that’s a first.”
Fuck, do I have a shot here? Already?
Suddenly, the fear of paying out money I don’t have is replaced by the excitement of winning money I could really use. And, you know, the idea of sleeping with Maya, which wouldn’t be bad either. It’d be like a cash bonus for fucking out the tension that’s existed in our living arrangement for weeks now.
“I’m first for a lot of things,” I say, trying on the line.
“Oh, honey.” She pivots fully toward me, knee pressing mine with intent that feels deliberate as a hip check, her eyes sparking with something that makes my mouth go dry. “You’re going to have to bring way better game than that. This isn’t some puck bunny at an afterparty.”
A moment crackles between us like lightning, because in the last ten seconds we’ve both declared game on for the attraction between us. It’s been unspoken for weeks, flirting and sideways glances, but now it’s on the table. And it’s not just words, either. It’s the way she’s angled toward me, head tilted, full lips parted…
Interest. Genuine, holy-shit-is-this-happening interest.
Challenge accepted.
My pulse kicks into overtime like I’m in sudden death.
This is it, score the goal or eat ice.
“I could help you study.” I reach for her textbook, deliberately clumsy so our hands collide over the anatomical diagrams. “Uh, sorry, I?—“
Her fingers slide between mine like water finding cracks, skin fever-warm and soft. “Are you having a stroke? Should I check your pupils?”
Her hand stays tangled with mine, her thumb’s drawing tiny circles now, each rotation sending signals straight to the southern parts of my anatomy her textbook probably has clinical names for, but most of my hockey buddies have far cruder names for.
Except Kellerman. Fucking nerd.
She continues, looking into my eyes. “Pupils normal, although patient has chronic foot-in-mouth disease. Old enough to know better, young enough to?—“
Three rapid knocks.
Pause.
Two more.
Every muscle in my body locks up like I’ve been checked into next week.
Not now. Not when I might actually be getting somewhere.
That knock’s been branded into my brain since I was fifteen—Mom’s special code from when she’d check if I was asleep before they’d leave for another hospital run with Chloe. Except I’m not fifteen anymore, and they never just “stop by.” Gas costs money they don’t have, so if they drove here…
Something’s wrong.
“Expecting someone?” Maya asks, still a little flirty, not detecting the changing mood.
But I’m already moving, legs on autopilot like muscle memory from a play I never wanted to learn, and when I open the door I find the full Hamilton family disaster variety hour.I blink at them a few times, not quite knowing what to say to them.
Mom clutches her purse—the same cracking Target clearance special she’s been nursing for five years with superglue and prayer. Dad checks the time on the cheap-as-fuck Timex I bought him years ago. And Chloe, my baby sister who stopped being a baby the first time she asked if she was going to die, well…
