Just like that hug can’t be counted as a hug. Here I am, though, wandering through the half-dark with my hands shaking and an entire nest of bats fluttering through my chest cavity, feeling like they might burst out into the night.
Maybe he’s seeing someone now. Maybe if he’s not seeing someone — and Seth is never really seeing someone — he’s already got some other girl tonight.
Maybe I’m going to go up to him only to realize that he’s got his arm around her, and I’m going to feel like an idiot. Maybe last time was really the last time, like we always swear it is.
Finally, I spot him. My heart leaps.
My stupid heart always leaps.
He’s standing there, holding a beer, talking to someone. A man. It’s hard to tell in the firelight, but it looks like his older brother’s best friend whose name I don’t remember right now, but who used to be around the Loveless house sometimes.
Steve? Simon? Skip?
And then Seth looks over at me, and in the dark his face is exactly like I remember it.
I stop wondering if he’s with someone else.
“Delilah,” Seth says as I walk up. “You remember Silas? Levi’s friend.”
“Hi,” I say, and we shake hands. “You look familiar.”
“Likewise,” he says, smiling at me.
It’s a nice smile. I vaguely remember a lot of girls talking about this smile when we were in high school.
“Delilah just moved back to open a tattoo shop,” Seth tells him.
Something touches my jacket, moves it against my back. Presses in right against the base of my spine.
Seth’s hand. I breathe, focus on the inhale, the exhale.
“Where from?” Silas asks. If he sees what Seth’s doing, he says nothing.
“Leesburg, up north,” I say. “I just got back a few weeks ago.”
“Weeks?” Seth says, a frown in his voice.
“Well, welcome home,” Silas says. “I, for one, am glad you’re here because the only place to get inked up now is Deadbeat Tattoos over in Grotonsville, and from what I hear you’re better off with a ballpoint pen and a needle.”
Seth glances at me, an odd look in his eyes. He presses his palm against my back and even through a jacket and my shirt, heat flares.
Silas seems nice and all, but we have to wrap this conversation up.
“Well, if you ever need anything, look me up,” I tell Silas. “Southern Star Tattoos. Grand opening in a few more weeks. Tell all your friends!”
“Tempting,” he says. “I’ve been considering getting the text of the Fifth Amendment somewhere so I can quit repeating myself to rich idiots who don’t know the law. On my ass, maybe.”
I laugh, starting to remember Silas a little better.
Seth’s thumb strokes my spine. I stand a little straighter, concentrate a little harder.
“That’s a good place for text, actually,” I say. “Plenty of space, and since they don’t tend to be exposed to much sunlight, the art is less likely to fade and blur.”
“Huh,” he says, thoughtfully. “Interesting.”
I glance at Seth again. His eyes meet mine, indigo in the dark. On my back his hand lifts briefly, then slides under my jacket. Skin on skin.
My hands have stopped shaking.
“I actually just came by to say goodnight,” I tell the two of them, a lifetime of politeness training taking over. “It was good seeing you today.”
“Likewise,” says Silas, waving his beer in the air.
Seth’s still looking at me, that expression on his face, and it feels like the firelight is his gaze: rushing, flickering, heated, relentless.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” he says after a moment, one side of his mouth lifting into a small smile. His thumb strokes my back again, dips into the valley of my spine.
“Thanks,” I say, softly. “You never know what’ll happen between here and the parking lot.”
“No, but you can make an educated guess,” he says.
His thumb strokes my back one more time. It’s not a gentle stroke. It’s firm, like he’s trying to find the notches in my spine. Like he’s testing me.
I don’t budge.
“I’ll see you later,” he says to Silas, turning his head.
“Later,” Silas says, holding up his beer, and we walk into the dark.Chapter SevenSethStill Two Years and Three Months AgoThe three hundred feet between the bonfire and the parking lot is the longest walk I’ve ever taken. It’s long because the whole way, I can feel my brothers watching from where they’re standing by the bonfires, and I know what they’re thinking. After all, they did their best to keep me away from her earlier.
It’s long because there are still people here, at Fall Fest, waving and saying hello.
But mostly it’s long because she came over to say goodnight. It’s long because she didn’t move away from my hand on her back, because she sank into me. It’s long because when I touched her she gave me a look that made me feel like I could throw lightning bolts and make it rain.