Everything inside me was blown wide open in the most vital way and I wanted to bottle this fun, this silly joy, and press it into the palms of people who couldn't get out of their heads for a minute. I wanted them to know that all the terrible things they'd endured, all the things they'd inflicted upon themselves, could feel like the tiniest pinprick of a memory. I wanted them to know what it was like to go flying backward, ass over ankles in a bubble suit, and laugh so hard their ribs ached. I wanted them to know it got better.
Paxton stepped between us then. "You two are mean," he muttered as he freed me from the suit. "I'm a little concerned about it."
"Not the first time we've heard that," Sebastian said. He watched me flop down to the mat from his overturned turtle position.
I was drenched in sweat and breathing hard. My hair was a wreck from the helmet but also because it was always wrecked. My leggings were up my ass yet also falling down. One boob was achieving above and beyond the bra cup. I smiled up at the sky. Everything felt amazing.
"Nothing to worry about with us," I told Paxton. "We're as right as holes in the ozone."
Paxton yanked the bubble suit off Sebastian and gave us a weary shake of his head. "Have you tried therapy?"
"Yeah," Sebastian said, joining me in collapsing on the mat. "Therapist sent us here."
"Well, shit." Paxton hooked an arm through each suit and trudged off, the air horn hanging out of the back pocket of his jeans.
Sebastian reached over, his palm landing in my hair, his fingers splayed over my forehead. "You're a tiny tornado," he panted. "You leveled me."
"Told you I would."
"Consistent," he said hoarsely. "You're so fucking consistent."
"If you're trying to compliment me, you should try harder."
He rolled, caged me with his hands on either side of my shoulders, a knee between my legs. "How hard do you want me to try?"
I lifted a hand to shield my eyes from the sun. The long-sleeved black t-shirt fit him in a manner I could only describe as inappropriate. Even if I didn't know what I'd find under the stretchy cotton, this shirt left no mysteries. No imagination required.
It was too bright out here. Too warm.
"Depends on what you're expecting to get," I replied.
He shifted to sit on his heels, my leg still trapped between both of his. Reaching back, he grabbed my free ankle. "The last thing I ever do is expect."
"What does that mean?"
He shook his head as he bent my leg, my knee to my torso, before he propped my sneaker on his belly. It was the prime position to knock him on his ass but we both knew I wasn't going to do that.
"It means there's no point in expecting anything." He pressed his thumbs to the back of my calf, rubbed his way to my ankle. "Expectations just fuck you up."
"Anything can fuck you up. Believe me, I could write a book on all the little things that can fuck you up."
"And you could probably distill that book down to a single word. Expectations. Either you expected more or you expected less, and whichever way it went, it fucked you up."
I watched him as he hiked my foot to his shoulder, the sun circling him in a halo of blazing heat that seemed to bounce off the black-clad mountain range of his shoulders and the dark cloud of his hair.
"I don't like that," I said.
He shrugged, dragged his lips to my ankle.
"You should expect things," I continued.
He stared down at me, his lips still fixed to my skin. "Why?"
"Because—" I slapped my hands to the mat. "You should."
He narrowed his eyes. "What would you have me expect?" I didn't have an answer for that. When my only response came in the form of some fast, frustrated blinking, he went on. "What would you like me to expect from you?"
He pressed his teeth to my ankle. His beard tickled enough to send a twitch down my leg. He tightened his hold and everything, everything inside me pulsed with need.
"I don't know."
A ripple passed through his brows, something grumpy to hide his disappointment. Yet there was no hiding that he was disappointed. I'd said the wrong thing though the right thing was a mystery baked into this twisted mess of mutual resentment and hate sex.
Muscle memory instructed me to smooth this over, to ease the disappointment. "You're hugging my leg."
He ran his hand from my ankle to the hinge of my hip, squeezing the thick of my thigh on his way back down. "It's a nice leg."
"Nice?"
"Don't go fishing, Shap. It's not a good look." He scraped his beard along the flash of skin exposed between my leggings and sneakers. "Maybe this guy Erin has lined up for you won't mind such obvious requests for flattery but I do."
I pressed my heel to his chest. "Why do you have to do that?"
"What? I just assumed you were looking forward to meeting him tonight." His brows climbed again. "Erin Acevedo knows her shit. I bet this guy is a perfect match for you, god help him. By my estimation, he's partially to fully deaf to handle all your screeching, has a sky-high tolerance for ambiguity on account of all the natural disasters you create, a very solid sense of self to balance out you needing to be right all the fucking time, thick skin because you insult people without any regard for their feelings, and the palate of a very boring child."
I glared at him. I hadn't thought about that party all week, mostly as a means of keeping myself from obsessing over it. As was my tradition, the obsession was localized to how I'd navigate the food and beverage situation. I'd ignored all parts of this alleged fix-up. "Mmhmm. Sure. That checks out."
"Don't pretend you don't have it all gamed out."
I pushed against his chest. "Gamed out?"
"Yeah, I mean, I know you, Shap. You have a plan of attack lined up. You're going to show him your non-sociopathic, non-feral side. Pretend you don't rip off heads just to remind everyone you can. Before you know it, you'll have him lulled into some nice, hollow complacency. The story writes itself. You'll have matching gold bands and a pair of semi-sociopathic children. Then you can tear his guts right out of his belly and he won't even see it coming. Horror ever after. Just what you've always wanted."
I stomped my foot against his sternum and sent him sprawling backward. "You don't know me," I said, scrambling to my feet. "Whatever the fuck you think you know—you're wrong. You're really fucking wrong."
He rocked to his knees. "What just happened?"
I backed up, crossed my arms over my torso. His expression was flat, almost confused. That made no sense considering he'd obviously spent some time thinking about those comments. "Oh, I don't know. How about you telling me how I intend to trap some guy and how that's my grand plan or something? Where do you get off saying these things to me? Really, Stremmel, where the fuck did you get the right?"
"Tell me I'm wrong," he said, still on his knees. "Tell me you're not hunting for a husband and some kids you'll hand off to a nanny because you'd sooner die than cut your on-call hours."
I took another step and felt the ropes at my back. "I've given you more than enough. I'm finished."