Tyler offered to let me crash again once I explained the phone call. I readily accepted even though I knew Chris wasn't a problem I could avoid forever. But one more night wouldn't hurt.

We rejoined the party and I enthusiastically situated myself in the middle of it, determined to hang on to this flare of happiness as long as possible. I danced, played beer pong, cremated more people in NHL and let laughter and human presence flood my senses, tinged by only a touch of alcohol.

It was well past midnight when Tyler closed the door on the last stragglers. Zeke and his girlfriend had already disappeared into the bedroom down the hall. I helped Tyler clean up the worst of the mess in the kitchen, leaving the living room for a hungover Zeke to attend to in the morning.

When I walked into Tyler's room after changing in the bathroom, it was to find him turning down the bed. He looked up at my entrance and I didn't miss the way his gaze skimmed my leggings and tank top. There was a pillow and blanket tucked under his arm. Seeing them, I was momentarily confused.

He had obviously not wanted to invite himself to sleep in the bed with me, but it wasn't like we hadn't shared a bed before. I wondered sadly if he had only stayed that night in my room because he felt worse leaving. I realized I still didn't know what we were or where this was going. But before I could dig up the courage to ask, he spoke up.

"I was just grabbing a few things," he said, indicating the objects under his arm. "I hope you sleep well," he added with a smile.

He started moving past me and as he put his hand on the door I heard myself saying, "Wait."

I turned to face him, my eyes flicking over the different angles of his face, down the lines of his body just visible beneath his t-shirt and sweatpants. "Will you stay?" I asked.

I took a step closer to him, my bare feet making a shhh noise on the carpet.  I placed my hands lightly on his sides, like this was a slow dance and I was taking the lead. I leaned up on my toes, a ballerina en pointe, and pressed my lips to his. Electricity, like that of sporadic power surge, crackled up my spine. It zipped down my arms and through my fingers, tingling in my nerves.

I felt him through his lips. I could taste his metallic past, bogged down with all the stones and secrets and what-ifs; his present, a desire for a normal life as potent and heady as cinnamon; and the sharp bite of his future with all that he wanted to become and all that he didn't.

I realized in that kiss that the past holds just as many what-ifs as the future.

And it was the what-ifs that connected us now at each point of contact, our hands on each other's waists, our lips molding together, the tips of our noses brushing. Connections as thin and fine as a spider's web, just as breakable and just as strong.

The blanket and pillow had slipped from the crook of his elbow, forgotten.

Tyler pulled back to look at me. There was a question in his stormy eyes, but it was being overpowered with lightning flashes of desire.

He bent his head to kiss me once again, more insistently this time. My body responded as my stomach dropped away and my heart seemed to be imprinting its shape into my chest. I dug my fingers into his shirt, pulling him closer. There was a sharp intake of breath as his teeth grazed my lower lip but I couldn't tell if it was him or me.

The backs of my legs bumped into the bed frame. I moved my fingers down under the hem of his shirt and pulled it up, exposing his stomach, chest, shoulders until it was over his head and discarded on the floor. I traced the taught lines of his abdomen up to the hollow of his neck. Beneath my fingers, his pulse raced my own. I followed the curves of his collarbones down his arms where the faint cords of tendons stood out, over the black outline of the butterfly in the crook of his left elbow to his rough palms. The right one had a raised line where his white scar split his hand neatly in half.

If people could leave marks, I thought, who would have left these? What kind of mark would my touch leave?

While I had been learning the feel of his body, his fingers had found the bottom of my shirt and slowly slipped it over my head. My hair tumbled back down to my shoulders, pieces feathering across my face. He tucked these behind my ear and tangled his fingers in my hair to pull my face close again.  I ran my tongue along his top lip, breathing him in, intoxicated by his proximity.

He moved his mouth to my jaw and then slowly down my neck, his touch as soft as the breath of the snowflakes outside. It sent shivers down my spine. I parted my lips and closed my eyes, tilting my head back to give him room.

Maybe, I could start over.

Tyler paused again, looking up at me. One hand rested on the bare skin of my lower back, just above the waistband of my leggings; the other was resting on the clasp of my bra.

"Are you sure?" he whispered.

"Yes," I breathed. And I knew that I was.

He moved one hand towards the light on the bedside table, clicking it off as we tumbled backwards onto the bed.

______________________________________

There are feelings you never know you have until you experience them with a certain person, one you never know you needed. There are wounds you never know you had until someone begins to stitch them closed again.

Being with Tyler changed things in such a way that the very night had texture, a kind of satin darkness that wrapped around us and separated us from the rest of the world. I could feel the minutes slip by, brushing against me with cool fingers in stark contrast to the flames crackling through my veins wherever he touched me. I wanted to capture them, hold them close, so that the night would never end.

But nothing that makes you feel like that can last long.

We stayed in bed, awake, for a long time the next morning while the sun rose one panel of blinds at a time. We didn't talk, we didn't need to. Everything that we could have said had been said last night in our body language. Now it was just simply being. Together.

When I could no longer ignore the work I had left unfinished back in my room, I reluctantly gathered my things to leave with the promise of seeing him later tonight. Tyler offered to give me a ride home, but I declined.

Despite the temperature, I wanted to make sure everything I was feeling was real. So I embraced the biting cold as I stepped out his front door, so very different from the first time I had stayed over. Weak winter sunlight struggled to shine through the snow-leaden clouds gathering overhead. A few renegade flakes grazed my cheeks though none stuck to the ground yet.

Lost in thought on the way back, I didn't hear the footsteps behind me as I jogged up the steps to my dorm. It wasn't until someone reached out to grab my arm and I nearly slipped on ice that I realized they had been calling my name.

"Jeez—what the hell!" I snapped, regaining my balance. I looked over my shoulder and received a punch to the gut when I saw Chris. Black circles ringed his eyes. The backpack on his shoulder was dusted with snow. He had clearly been waiting for a while.

"Dash, you need to listen to me. Just for a minute."

"Are you kidding me?" I asked angrily. "This is going too far, Chris—I'm calling campo." I dug in my coat pocket for my cell, fed up and done with empty threats, but before I knew it he had snatched the phone out of my hand.

"Give it back!"

"Listen to me," he insisted. I had never seen him so serious. His hands shook slightly as though he had over-dosed on caffeine and one hand was gripping the strap of his backpack like it was a lifeline. "Tyler is not who you think he is."

"Will you just shut up—"

"His last girlfriend is dead," interrupted Chris.

I rolled my eyes. "I know that," I snapped. "She committed suicide. I can't believe you would try and use that against him."

Chris shook his head vigorously. "That was after."

"After what? Chris, you're insane. I'm done with this conversation."

I made to start walking away when he grabbed my arms, forcing me to look him in the eye.

"Dash, three years ago he went to trial for Emilia Thorne's murder.

----------------------------------------
.....What do you think?