Page 73 of Heartbeat

“Come here,” I said, also laughing.

He leaned in on the table, and I cupped his face, then rubbed the chocolate from the corners of his lips with both my thumbs.

“There.” I licked the chocolate off my fingers.

He shook his head and said, defeated, “I’m such a child.”

“What were you like as a kid?”

Did I just say that out loud?

“Oh, you know.” He ate another spoonful of profiterole with the utmost care and still managed to get some chocolate on his chin. “Skinny, always getting into trouble, incredibly good-looking.”

“So you haven’t changed?” I pretended to be unimpressed.

“I don’t get into too much trouble nowadays,” he said, clicking his tongue.

I bit my lip, deciding whether or not I was going to mention the chocolate.

He beat me to it. “I did it again, didn’t I?”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded.

“I’m hopeless. Where is it this time? My forehead?”

“Chin.” I laughed.

“Here I was, trying to be all cute,” he said, wiping his chin clean.

“Don’t worry. It’s working.”

He tilted his head. “How about you? What was Thomas Hart like as a kid?”

“I, uh, I fell down a lot,” I said, making him choke on his water.

“How do you mean?” he asked, coughing.

“Literally…all the time. And it wasn’t a simple, ’oh, look, he tripped’ sort of thing. It was almost always bad.”

“How bad?”

“For instance, once I was playing hide and seek, and I rolled down the stairs because my shoe got caught on a fold in a rug.”

“What the hell? How big a fall?” he asked, widening his eyes.

“Can’t remember,” I deadpanned.

He broke out laughing.

“No, it was high. Like a whole flight of stairs. I swear, if you look at pictures of me as a kid, you’d think there was the need for some sort of social services involvement. Casts everywhere.”

“Jesus,” he said, still laughing.

“See, here?” I touched my left hand to my forehead, an inch above my eye.

“I don’t know…” He squinted and leaned forward.

“Here, give me your hand.” I took his right hand in mine and brought it to my forehead. “Feel that?”

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