These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

Only he’s not here.

His office is empty and the door is ajar. I think he’s still on the field, finishing up practice, and so I’m waiting outside.

I’m also staring at that door and thinking…

Of doing something silly and inappropriate. Like I did last night when I wrote his name on my thighs.

I’m thinking of going inside his office and taking a look around. A really quick look around.

Just because the hallway is deserted and he’s not here and I just…

Maybe this is my goodbye. To my obsession.

Maybe this is my way of cutting all ties with him.

From the man that I’ve only known as a mystery or as a big brother to my best friend. Although I didn’t know about the latter up until yesterday, but still.

This is my last chance to see his space, to be in his space, even for a few minutes.

So without wasting any further time, I walk to the door, push it open and step inside.

Into his space.

And then I take everything in, slowly, bit by bit. Although there’s not much to see.

The desk that sits in the center of his room doesn’t hold anything except for a clipboard with the sophomore year’s roster and a St. Mary’s mustard-colored brochure. And the bookcase by the wall is more or less empty, filled up with old files and books and all that. It’s also very dusty, meaning no one has touched it recently, not even the cleaning crew that comes in after the school building has emptied out.

And the walls, as beige-y and dull as the door, are bare.

So bare that my artistic heart and restless fingers want to fill them.

They want to fill his bare walls with colors.

With pretty things, quirky things, things that he can look at while he sits in that boring chair of his.

But of course I can’t, so I turn away from it with a sigh, disappointed.

There’s nothing here, not a single clue about him.

About who he might be as a man.

I run my finger over his bookcase, drawing a wavy line and a little flower in the dust. I touch his chair, his desk, even open his drawer really quickly and…

Completely and utterly come to a halt.

Because there’s something in it.

A piece of paper that I know right away is not a receipt or some forgotten trash. It can’t be.

Because look at how neatly it’s been folded. There’s just one sharp crease in the middle and even the edges of it are so crisp and cared for.

Whatever it is, it’s personal.

Extremely personal.

Out of bounds personal. Even more out of bounds than checking out his office.

But it doesn’t seem to matter right now.

I’m so desperate for any connection with him, so pathetically desperate, that I don’t even take a breath before I reach out and grab it like a shameless, reckless thief. And my criminal eyes eat up the words on the page.

Thanks for seeing me. I know it was hard for you, Con. I know that. You’re a good man and maybe that’s why I can’t stay away - H

As soon as I finish, a strong shiver overcomes my body and I drop the note.

Like it has burned me.

Or pricked my skin like a thorn.

But I don’t have the time to think about that. I have to pick up the note, which has thankfully only floated down to the bed of the drawer, and put it back.

So I do that, my mind deliberately blank.

I can’t stay away…

No, no, no. I’m not thinking about that. I don’t want to think about that.

I refuse to think about who’s written it — even though it’s clear from the delicate handwriting that it can only be a woman — and what it means. I just want to get out of here, go back to standing in the hallway like I should’ve been doing in the first place.

You’re a good man…

Damn it, Wyn. Stop thinking about it.

I dash to the door, grab the handle to pull it open, but as soon as my trembling fingers touch the cold metal, the door opens on its own. And then I don’t think that I’m going anywhere.

Because there’s a man standing at the threshold.

A man I met eighteen months ago on a random summer night. Whose name is written high up on my thighs.

And whose personal space I’ve just invaded.

Conrad.

He thinks so too, actually. That I’ve invaded his personal space.

Because I can see he’s upset. Angry even.

It’s in the way his chest expands on a breath, filling, spanning the doorway, as if blocking out all escape, and in the way his muscular arms go taut and immobile, one of them in the midst of pushing the door open. Not to mention, his jaw that’s already so sharply sculpted has clasped so tightly that I think he’s grinding his teeth to dust as he stares down at my own startled self.