Page 13 of Hex Appeal
“Why do you keep fighting this?” His voice was low, steady, but not quite a question.
My spine hit the wall, the wood warm from the afternoon sun seeping through my shirt. All at once, I was aware of everything; his heat soaking into me, the faint ocean scent clinging to his shirt, the way his eyes tracked mine without blinking.
My chest rose on a sharp inhale, and before I even realized it, my back arched slightly. I was leaning toward him instead of away.
“You don’t think I’m like Nate,” he said, closing the gap until his breath brushed my cheek. “You’re wrong. I have his memories... his voice, his touch. Though I know what you’d like, how to make you lose yourself to pleasure, he doesn’t have a clue.”
My mind threw up all the reasons to walk away—Nate’s real smile, the way his sketchbook pages curled at the edges, the soft, careful way he’d touched me under the ticket table. But the reasons tangled with the warmth in my chest, the way his breath hitched when I didn’t move. A single inch, maybe less, and I could find out exactly how his promise tasted. My fingers twitched against the wall, caught between pushing him away and pulling him closer.
The warmth radiating from Etan seeped through the thin barrier of my shirt, curling down my spine like it belonged there. His scent was the same as Nate’s, clean and a little like cedar, but there was something sharper underneath, something that made my pulse skip and my skin prickle in caution.
The warning didn’t stop my knees from going weak, or my breath from catching when his gaze dipped to my mouth. Every nerve felt tuned to him, straining toward that next inch, the one that would erase the space between us.
I told myself to step sideways, to break eye contact, to do anything but lean in and my toes still curled inside my boots, ready to bridge the gap. I hated that part of me, the part that wanted to see if his promise was real, even if it meant betraying the boy I actually wanted.
Heat pooled low in my stomach, and my fingers curled as if bracing for impact.
God, I hated that my body reacted before my brain could shut it down.
For a second, one dangerous, stupid second, I could almost believe I wanted him.
Almost.
I twisted sideways under his arm so fast the plush octopus tumbled to the boardwalk between us. “Not gonna happen,” I said, but my voice was tighter than I wanted. My heartbeat still hadn’t slowed by the time I reached the pier lights.
“I don’t want to go back,” he said suddenly.
I blinked. “To the Mirror Realm?”
He nodded. “Over there, nothing’s real. Nothing feels. Out here…” He sighed. "Everything’s brighter. Louder. I can’t get enough of it.” His eyes stayed on mine as he said it, like the thing he couldn’t get enough of was standing right in front of him.
“That’s not your life,” I said. “It’s Nate’s.”
Something flickered in his expression. Was it guilt? Amusement? Maybe both. “And yet… you’re here with me, not him.”
Ouch.
“I’m here because I’m trying to figure out how to send you back,” I said, forcing my voice steady.
He smiled faintly. “Even if I told you I’m falling for you?”
My pulse jumped and I licked my dry lips. I’d been waiting for years for Nate to say those words to me, but this wasn’t Nate, just a twisted version of him.
“Then I’d say you’re a really good liar.”
For a second, something flickered in his face. Not silver, not smugness, just tired, like he’d been running from something for a long time. Then, it was gone, replaced by that perfect grin.
We walked the rest of the boardwalk in silence, the carnival lights painting him in colors I couldn’t trust. Yet, when we stopped at the end railing, the ocean spread out in front of us, deep and endless, and for just a heartbeat I wanted to see what he saw, even if it meant standing in the dark beside him.
Chapter 9
Etan
The boardwalk still clung to me, the salt in the air, the slow heat of the sun against my skin, and the taste of buttered popcorn that lingered on my tongue. But most of all, the feeling of Jess walking at my side.
I’d spent years looking at these things through warped glass where the colors were pale and the air smelled like nothing. I used to imagine what the ocean might feel like against my hands, or how fried dough would melt on my tongue. Now, I didn’t have to imagine.
The boards beneath my feet had grooves worn smooth by decades of footsteps, and each uneven plank pressed its history into the soles of my shoes. The gulls wheeled overhead, their cries sharp and alive. In the Mirror Realm, bird calls were only echoes, faint and hollow. Here in the real world, every sound was a pulse.
