His hand flexes in mine, locking us together a little tighter.
“We could,” he says. “Or not. Either way, so long as they’re with you.”
It’s so simple but it’s sweet, and true, and maybe that’s what I’ve been missing. Maybe not a lot else matters when things are sweet and true like this, when we’re holding hands on a roof where we’re not really supposed to be, when the sunlight is a dusky gold, when everything feels beautiful and perfect even though I know it’s not.
Even though I know there’s no perfect when it comes to people, only endless irregularities: gaps and holes and sharp edges and broken pieces, but it all works anyway. Sometimes in the strangest, most beautiful ways.
“We should go get dinner if we’re gonna,” he says after a bit.
I exhale, tilting my head back against the wall, the sun right below the tree line.
“Yeah,” I say. “Eventually.”
“It’s Sunday night, so everything around here closes at about eight,” Silas says. “Small town charm.”
I turn my head toward him, and after a moment, he turns toward me. Silas is ten thousand things all at once, and right now, I feel like I can see them all: faint freckles and messy hair, laugh lines and stubble. Scars and gray hairs and old injuries that hurt when it rains, all earned and precious in their own odd way.
His eyes that make me feel like I could float forever in them; that maybe I belong there with my teeth and claws, happily swimming through the depths.
“Kiss me first,” I say, and he smiles like he’s surprised and excited, cups my face in his hand, strokes my cheekbone with his thumb.
And then he does.