My ability to project with Sean and Garrett disappears like footsteps on the beach. Their voices fade and then they're gone and I feel strangely alone in my head. At least I have Garrett's hand in mine and it makes me feel safe, even though I'm absolutely sure we're not. And I'm a little guilty at how easy his touch makes it for me not to care.
The bindings happen as planned.
Sean slips the loops over Trig and Masha's outstretched hands. Neither of them exchange a glance from their hollow eyes.
When it is Mark and Lenta's turn, Lenta never stops crying. She's very elegant about it, keeping her head sunk in her hands; her sniffling is delicate and hushed. Mark tries awkwardly to comfort her, reaching out to pat her back or touch her arm, but he fails every time. He finally settles on spitting on Sean's shoes, as his oldest brother pronounces them bound, so I have no idea if Mark has a clue about anything else that is going on. Or if he is as spectacular an actor as his brothers.
Van touches Mrs. Reese's face as Sean does a lightening fast run down of the binding rules. Mark and Garrett grit their teeth once the loop is secured on their mother's wrist. Van pulls Mrs. Reese to him and dips her, planting a deep kiss on her mouth that makes Garrett and I both look away. Mark seethes. Sean gives Van such a congratulatory slap on the back, that Van could've coughed out teeth. But when Van wheels around to scour Sean's expression for signs of malice, there is nothing on Sean's face but a wide, goofy smile. Van's shoulders roll back before they relax.
Milo and Deeta are last to be bound. I want to kick Milo when he slings his arm around Deeta's shoulders and jostles her as if this whole thing is some big joke. Deeta loses it, catching a sob in her hands, but when I make a move to go to her, Garrett pulls me back.
"No, no," he whispers. "Let Milo handle it. They're being bound. They've got to figure it out for themselves."
I know he's right, but it doesn't make me feel any better that we can't all lean on each other. It's every couple for themselves right now. We're not competing against each other, but we are competing with The Fury--trying to keep ourselves focused so we can all make it through this Cusp with our Addo and the Ianua still intact and able to function.
Sean slips the first loop on Milo's wrist easily, but when it comes to Deeta, she yanks her hand away before Sean can grab it.
"Why me?" she asks. I'm not sure if it is a question for Milo or for Sean, since she's staring at her own feet, but when Sean remains silent, Milo answers her.
"I chose you," he says.
Deeta grips her unbound wrist with her other hand. "You never even wanted to date me."
"Yes I did." It's obviously not the truth and the shame is that even Deeta knows it.
"Why are you even getting bound at all?" she says. "You're not a threat to anything. You're Alo. They could stick you in a cell with anybody and they'd kick your butt."
Milo snorts. "Thanks."
"You know what I mean."
"He's the last of his Cura," Tuco says from across the room. The grimy film of his smile still makes me question what Sean said about Tuco being on our side. "His Cura needs to be repopulated before it dissolves."
"I'm not repopulating anything!" Deeta squeals and Milo lifts his hand to her like it's a stop sign.
"The truth is, they don't trust me and they know you play by the rules. They want to bind us, so they can keep an eye on me."
"They want me to keep an eye on you."
"Well, yeah."
"So you didn't pick me."
"Yes, I did." Milo's voice drops down deep. Deeta rises up a little on the balls of her feet. "They gave me two Vieos to choose from and I..."
"Never mind," Deeta cuts him off. She gets it. She wasn't exactly chosen, she was the least of the evils that he could choose from. Her eyes trip around the circle of newly-bound couples. Lenta hasn't stopped crying. Masha and Trig's hands dangle by their sides, without touching. Van is rubbing Mrs. Reese's arm, but Mrs. Reese aims her warm smile right at Deeta. It's a motherly smile, one that says its going to be okay, even if it's not. Deeta frowns like she just sucked down a glass of motor oil, but she circles back to Sean and raises her wrist.
"I choose him too," she says. Milo reaches out his hand to her, after Sean's bound them with the loops. Deeta takes his hand with a polite grin, but she doesn't turn to him for a kiss.
There is no celebrating. After everyone is bound, we're all shoved back into our cells. Garrett bobs along beside me and as the door shuts us into what was my cell, the guilt spills all over me. I'm ashamed that I'm so happy. Garrett and I are finally together, finally alone, and it's the safest I've felt since before the ambush. Garrett squeezes my hand. He hasn't let go of it since we were bound.
"What're you thinking?" he asks. His voice has that deep sexy beat; music without a particular tune. It makes my bones vibrate beneath the skin.
"I feel guilty, for being happy that we're together," I say and he murmurs an understanding sound. His eyes move over the twisted blanket on the bed. He combs over the spit balls that pimple the ceiling, noticing the one still lodged in the nosy cone. Last, his gaze sweeps down to the tray Heema brought me, still sitting on the table with a couple hardened bites of food cemented to it.
"So this is your place," he says.
"Yeah, I'm kind of a slob." Garrett's laugh releases my pressure valves. I laugh too, probably too much, but he doesn't seem to care. He lifts my bound hand with his and drops them.
"Forgot," he grins, jiggling the binding box by shaking out his hand. "It's a little tougher to get my arms around you now."
"Yeah," I frown.
"Unless..." He twists his hand around mine, so the back of my hand rests on his chest and the back of his rests between my collarbones. He loops his free arm under mine and pulls me close. "Much better."
I drop my forehead on his chest and feel his mouth settle on the top of my head. His breath stirs my hair and I close my eyes. I breathe in the comforting citrus smell of him, as if this is all there is and ever will be: us, together.
We stand so long, my legs start to ache. The only thing better than standing here the rest of my life, would be lying on my bed together for the rest of my life. I flip up the index finger of my bound hand and jab it toward the bed, although I never let go of Garrett.
Looking down at me, he spikes his eyebrows. He flicks his chin toward the bed, following the tiny movement with a tiny jerk of his body in that direction.
I dip my chin a millimeter to let him know that he has it right.
Mmm, he gives me an approving hum, as we unwrap from one another. He leads the way to the bed, but we only sit down on the edge, side by side.
"Do you want to..." I begin, but he swipes a light finger over my lips. He wags his eyebrows and I grin at the game. Talk without talking.
When his eyes are on mine, I sweep mine over his body and then over the length of the bed.
Mmm hmm, he hums, but I shush him by dusting a finger over his throat and shaking my head. No noise, is what I want. He grins and hints a nod as he swings his legs around me, to lay back on the bed. The cable zigs with a sharp hiss from the box dangling between us, as Garrett moves against the wall. It retracts less sharply as I lie down beside him, our arms stretched down between us, as we lie facing one another.
Garrett's eyes are on my lips as his own mouth opens slightly. I crush together my brows, pretending I don't understand his request for a kiss. He grins, knowing that I know exactly what he wants. He lifts his hand from the horizon of his hip and taps his mouth with one finger. I tease him even more, cocking my head with another scrunch of my brows. He answers by pressing his lips flat as a duck bill and shaking his head. It's a definite, oh come on answer, but I grin and shrug, as if I still don't understand what he wants.
He groans and I decide to ask him to kiss me. It's so simple, I can do it with no hands and he's going to wish he'd thought of it first. I reach out my tongue and tap my upper lip with it. Then I squint and pucker.
Garrett throws himself at me. I squeal out loud as he knocks me onto my back and his lips come down on mine. His bound hand drags mine upward, as he tries to lift his fingers to my hair. The cable gets tangled and he grunts, frustrated by the restriction, but he doesn't let it interrupt our kiss. When we come up for air, I tug the cable free and it retracts into the box with a breathless little zip.
The crush of his body on mine is perfect. The full citrus scent of him fills my nose and his breath fills my lungs. He rests his weight on his elbows, but it means he can't really move his hands. It gives me the chance to explore, since I still have one that is free.
I run my fingers up the sides of his ribs. The fabric of his shirt bunches up and then falls back in place against his ribs. My fingers take a detour under his arm, follow the crest of his chest to his shoulder and trace his collar bone across to his neck. He laughs into my mouth as my nails tickle up his neck. His hairline isn't hidden by his long hair anymore. I trace the shell of his exposed ear and into the thick, shortened twine of his hair, pulling him into another kiss.
A swell of feelings builds up inside me, maybe because I'm finally relaxing after the whole binding. Maybe it's because I've just missed Garrett's touch so much. Maybe it's because I love him so completely that I want to tell him enough times that he won't ever forget it, even after I've left him to find the Core.
But we're not using words. Words wouldn't be enough anyway.
Instead, I try to pour myself into our kiss. Mold myself to his body.
His response is more than I expect.
The entire bed starts to rumble and quiver beneath us.
"Don't move," Garrett breathes in my ear. He lifts his head and keeps his ear parallel to the wall. His eyes grow distant as he throws his entire truckload of focus into listening for what's happening beyond the plaster. I lie beneath him, forgetting the weight of his muscles on top of me and the tremble of the mattress below, as I focus my hearing just as hard.
At first, the sound is small and only the sharpest pieces of it jut up to be heard easily. Like crinkling cellophane in my fist. But it ramps up quickly, the cellophane morphing to panes of glass, falling from a cliff. The noise builds so fast it's deafening. Garrett and I both wince, but we know better than to cover our ears or show any other signs of what's happening, in case anyone who's watching doesn't already know. The sounds pile on, an iceberg being pulverized in a metal avalanche; Godzilla's tow truck pulling down the Great Wall of China. Garrett strokes a hand up as if he's playing with my hair, but gently impresses the lip of my ear with his thumb. He tugs my bound hand to my other ear, folding my hand to my other ear. I return the favor, cupping my hands over his ears as I rub my thumbs over the smooth bones of his cheeks. Even muffled, the noise is overwhelming as it swings up to an explosive crescendo. The bed rattles against the floor like a four legged thing and then, just as suddenly, it returns to just a rigid bed. It's hardly a relief when the sound slides back down in pieces, a heavy cloud of drizzling ruin.
And all we know is that it is somewhere in the building...but where?
I hop off the bed, but Garrett doesn't follow so quick and I'm jerked backward by the chain of our binding. Well, by the ball of my chain actually, which is Garrett. I glance down at the binding box, feeling a spurt of what's that doing there and then...duh.
"Where you going, Rebel?" he asks softly. That pulls any last, remaining bits of momentum right out of me. I stall for an answer, but eventually, the binding box whispers a sad ziiiggg as my hand drops to my side. There's nothing I can do.
"Something happened..." I say. His grin understands me.
"I know."
"How are we going to..."
"We're not."
His eyes are as smooth and blue as settled water. I feel a little dumber for having jumped up. He pats the bed beside him. I drift to the edge and sink down, my back to him. Still lying on his side, he scoots up flat against my back. Propped on his elbow, his bound arm stretches around my other side, down my thigh. He tucks his thumb in my fist.
"It's going to be okay," he says, his lips warm on the back of my arm. I sit there, thinking of what that means. Pre-Garrett-Nalena would've broken down and bawled. Pre-Impressioned-Nalena would've jittered through and Pre-Jamb-Nalena would've tried, but still failed, to see how things could end up okay. But me, the Nalena I am now, sits on the bed beside him and realizes he is misinterpreting my worry. It's not for us. I'm not worried for us, I'm worried that maybe Nok has left and triggered the explosion of the tunnel out. He hasn't told me where to find the Core yet and if he's gone, I don't know what I'm supposed to do next. I don't know if the Addo will expect me to follow through on an impossible mission that might've just gotten a zillion times more impossible.
How could he not? If mankind's only got one chance, then it's still on me to do everything I can to make it count.
My stomach lurches.
I am worried for us after all.
There's no way that I'm going to spend my time with Garrett worrying. I can't. But it's not like there's a movie to go to or friends to visit to get my mind off everything either. There isn't anything to do in our cell, except talk to each other. It would be a whole lot more fun if we weren't concerned about the explosion. We keep waiting for news, but when Wojtek comes in, he just brings us trays of food and a pair of weird looking scissors that he balances across the top edge of one tray. No cookies.
"Wedding presents," he says with a wry smile. Then he walks out without any word of the explosion at all. We go to the table.
"What are these for?" I ask, nudging the heavy set of shears. I pick them up and inspect them. They're as heavy as they look, a deep bronze color with ornately decorated handles that remind me of wedding cakes and Victorian details. Garrett just shrugs, taking them from me and setting them aside.
"I'll tell you later," he says, like they're no big deal. They seem like a huge deal, since we're eating with plastic silverware and these things look like we could jab them through a wall. Garrett doesn't seem too interested in them. "Are you hungry?"
"Yeah."
We eat, which turns out to be harder for Garrett since his right hand is bound to my left. The constant hiss of the binding box has him switching his fork to his other hand with a groan. It's not a great solution. He's clumsy, trying to feed himself with his left hand, and the rice keeps falling off his fork.
"Let me," I say. I scoop up his food with my fork and take it to his mouth. I smile. "Open up."
He smirks. "You're not feeding me."
"No, I'm helping you." I point to the rice that he's spilled all over the table and at his chest. "Look at your shirt. You look like the Addo."
He looks down with a frown and brushes it off with a whirring swipe of his bound hand.
"So...open up," I say, wobbling my fork full of rice in front of his mouth. He smiles at my amusement and opens his mouth, but his eyes stay rooted on mine as I guide the food in over his tongue. He closes his lips slowly on the fork. I don't know why it's so hot, but it is. My eyes flick to his mouth and I can't look away, even as I slide the fork out from between his lips. He chews and I watch the small muscles in his jaw contract and relax. I'm so fixed on his mouth it's like I've just applied Crazy Glue eye drops. He swallows.
"Are you going to feed me the whole time we're bound?" he asks. I snap out of it and scoop up another forkful for him.
"You're going to be a mess if I don't," I say. I pause the fork midway between us as I think that through. "How does this work? How do we change our clothes?"
"They'll bring us special binding clothes. The shirts have Velcro seams," he says lightly. His eyes move off the stalled forkful of rice and he clears his throat. "Or you might get one of those tops that ties around your neck." He waves a finger around his chest and up the sides of his neck to explain what he means.
"A halter top?"
"Yeah, that."
I'm already thinking beyond the seams. I'm thinking of how the clothes come off.
"So we use these to cut off what we're wearing now?" I motion to the antique hedge clippers.
"Well, kind of. They are used in a ritual of the binding. These are called Cisora," he says, putting a finger on the edge of one handle.
Gulp. I think I already know what he's going to say, but ask anyway. "What is the ritual?"
"Couples use the cisora to cut off one another's clothing." He takes a breath, watching intently, as if I'm going to hop up and try to chew through the cable around my wrist. It's not like the thought doesn't occur to me. He starts again, his voice gentle and patient. "It's symbolic, to show that we accept the help of our Vieo in separating from our past life. The idea is that we are entering a new life together, like we are beginning again."
"Naked. Beginning naked."
"Yes. It is supposed to signify that we are willing to be naked and vulnerable to each other."
I gape at him. He's crazy if he thinks I've actually processed a single word after he said we cut off one another's clothing. I knew at some point that we'd end up seeing each other if we were bound, but I'd been able to shove it into a tight little box, nail it shut, and chuck it into the very back of my mind. It was even easier to ignore when Addo assigned my mission, because I never thought we'd get this far. I figured I'd be gone before the binding. But I hadn't considered what would happen if there was a delay. Until now. Since there is one. My concerns are blasting open in my head like spring-loaded, snakes-in-a-can. Mostly, that Garrett's going to be in charge of making me naked. Soon.
"It's not a big deal, I promise. It's just me." His grin is meant to be reassuring, but the only thing that could reassure me right now is him saying there will be a lead curtain hanging between us while he figures out a way to break the scissors.
"It is a huge deal." My throat goes dry. I finally put down the fork, since my quivering hand has dumped more rice than he did. I'm being a huge baby. I think any other girl that would get a chance to be naked with Garrett would probably be like, cool, let's do it, and jump into it, but that's just not me. What's going to happen once we're naked? Even if I could call up the toughest warrior part of me to take such a huge leap, especially when we haven't really landed fully on second base yet, there's still no way I'm doing it in a cell that has a window wall the size of one of those old drive-in movie screens.
This is nuts. It's so off-the-rails that when I look at the scissors, something more reasonable occurs to me. Maybe they weren't delivered for cutting clothes this time. They're huge and heavy and were probably made to hack through leather belts and corsets and chain mail. Maybe they're not here for slicing through our cotton blends, but they're here for sawing through the binding cable. Maybe this is it.
The trouble is, it's not like anyone's left a note to tell me if I'm on the right track. And there hasn't been any sign or signal of how I'm supposed to get out of the cell. The Addo's got to know there's no way I'm chopping myself free from Garrett unless I have to.
This has got to be from our allies. I can't imagine our captors just handing over these friggin' bolt cutters and not thinking that we are going to get busy thinking of all the very best ways to use them to our advantage. It only makes sense that since they handed us what could easily be used as a weapon, they'd be keeping an extra close eye on it. Or maybe they're thinking like Rolan--that Garrett and I are going to be so ready to fall into bed together, that we won't be thinking of escaping or revolting or busying ourselves with foiling any of their plans. But I just don't believe The Fury would hand over a weapon like this, no matter how deeply insane they are.
So that only leaves the two theories: either I'm supposed to use these things to cut myself free, or everyone thinks we're going to be too caught up in doing it to bother with anything else.
"When is that ritual supposed to happen?" I ask. Garrett swallows, like he doesn't want to say.
"The first night of the binding."
"But this is the first night."
"We're supposed to do it after the first meal we eat together," he says. I look down at our trays. Our first meals are only half eaten, the fork I'd used to feed him is still resting on the edge of his small pile of rice and beans.
So, either I'll be leaving once we're done eating or...
My hands begin to sweat as I lift the fork again. My eyes sting at the thought of leaving and I glance around the room for a clue of my impending exit.
Nothing. Yet.
Garrett's forehead wrinkles with worry. He leans forward, placing his bound hand on mine. I bet he still thinks I'm freaking out about him hacking off my clothes. But that's not all of it. I grin as if his reassurance is working and hold the fork to his mouth. My voice cracks when I speak to him.
"Eat slow," I say.
The eating takes hours, I think. Garrett does what I ask, chewing every bite I give him so thoroughly that I'm sure it is liquid before he swallows it down. I feed him all of his dinner, the rest of mine, and every grain we spilled on the table. When I've delivered the very last bite past Garrett's lips, I glance at the Cisoras before setting the fork down.
Like eerie clockwork, the door handle rattles. I expect a group of our allies to burst in, shouting at me like they're rescuing a hostage. Shouting that it's time to go. My hand is already on the Cisoras.
But only one person comes in. Hyo. He glances up at us, but I think it is an accident. He does a double-take of my face. I'm sure I look as freaked out on the outside as I feel on the inside. He drops his eyes and crosses to the table, collecting my tray and then stacking it with Garrett's. I stare up at him from my seat, waiting for him to tell me it's time to go.
Instead, through an unmoving slit in his lips he whispers, "Our Addo has gone to a secure location. The Fury searches for the Veritas among us. Remain to plan."
Plan? What plan? There wasn't any plan about the Addo being taken or The Fury doing bed checks for Veritas. And which Addo is he talking about? Sean or Addo or Milo? I don't know what to ask and Garrett doesn't say anything, so we sit there as Hyo takes our trays and scoots out the door. Once he's gone, I look back at Garrett. His one eyebrow raises.
"Plan?" he asks.
"I don't know what he's talking about."
"Really?"
I am sure I should know, but I don't have a clue. "Really."
"Then I think I do," he says. I lean toward him, so we can lower our voices to something that sounds more like a stomach rumble than speech.
"What is it?" I ask. He speaks slowly, his gaze pouring through my retinas like morning sun.
"We remove ourselves as a threat. We act believably...passionately, desperately, obsessively...bound."
He pushes aside my hand and lifts the Cisoras in his.
My shame and fear and nervousness and total embarrassment barrel down on me like a load of bricks dumped from a rooftop. I scramble to my feet and scurry backward, the zipline between us straining. When I get to the end of it, Garrett walks toward me, loosening the tension in the cable. We do this until he backs me against the hard wall of the shower. I hit it with a thunk and I actually consider biting him, I'm so flipped out.
The binding box hisses as Garrett puts his hands on the wall beside my head. The cisoras, still in his grasp, clap against the tile beside the shower. I think I need a brown paper bag to help me breathe again. Garrett lowers his lips to mine as if he's volunteering resuscitation, but then he whispers into the side of my mouth.
"It's hitting the fan hard," he murmurs. "We can't be any kind of threat. We need to do exactly what they wanted us to do."
My brain is free falling, its parachute tangled.
What they wanted was for us to get it on like bunnies.
There's a wall window, for crap's sake.
The violation of being forced to publicly share my intimacy with Garrett, especially our first time...no way. Just no way. My stomach rolls. I try to turn to the side to get away from Garrett, but he doesn't move fast enough. My whole dinner races out of me, right over the side of his forearm. I double over, heaving into the shower drain. He puts a hand on my back, rubbing soft, slow circles as I retch again and again, until there's nothing left in me to escape.
"Let me turn on the shower, okay?" he says. His voice is high and tight, probably trying not to breath it in.
I nod and the shower head blasts to life, raining down cold needles on the back of my head. The stream saturates my hair as it washes everything away. I chant over and over in my head how I won't cry, I won't cry, I won't, but then I see the cisoras dangling in Garrett's hand near his knee and the nerves start wiggling around in my stomach again.
"Put up a fight, Nalena. It's going to be okay," Garrett murmurs over the beating stream of water. I know what he's telling me. He's not asking me to fight him. He's asking me to fight the fear that just evicted my dinner.
The cable tugs as he bends to lay the cisoras on the floor. It zigs a little more as he crouches down to my level. When I don't straighten out of my bent crouch, Garrett's voice gets firmer.
"You're going to have to trust me," he says. I watch as he reaches down and peels away his socks. The teeth of his jeans zipper rip apart. Veins of water run over my face as he steps out of his jeans and kicks them into the soggy pile with his socks. I wipe my face clear.
I've got to get a grip. What if the door flies open and I'm sent out on my mission right now? How do I expect to survive and find the elusive Core when I can hardly survive a little embarrassment? I push myself up off the slippery tile.
Garrett's beneath half of the shower stream. He slicks back his hair with his free hand and runs his hand down his face, flicking the water away. He smiles at me, droplets glistening in his eyelashes like itty bitty, iridescent crystal balls. The only clothing he still has on, his t-shirt and boxers, are five shades darker from being soaked through.
"It's okay," he says as I hook my fingers into the very front of my jeans. The hesitation doesn't last long. I unbutton them and slide down the zipper. Garrett's eyes never leave mine as I push the pants off my legs. The material drops to my ankles with a soggy splash. He holds me steady with his gaze as I reach down and peel away my socks. All that is left is my shirt, bra and panties. He leaves the water running, probably to block as much of our whispering as possible.
"You ready, Rebel?" he asks.
"Yeah." I exhale.
"I have an idea," he says and he takes my hand, guiding me out of the shower. The water dribbles off us, leaving a thin river across the floor as we move toward the bed. He reaches out, grabbing my blanket by the edge and snatches it off the mattress. Turning back, he dumps it over my head with a laugh and turns me back toward the shower. He stops me once more and I know by the tug and whir of the cable that he's retrieved the cisoras. He peels back the blanket and I shiver, pretending it's the air on my wet skin instead of the fear that tugs at the bottom of my belly. Tossing the blanket over his shoulder, he pushes me backward, under the warm stream. He waits until my limbs stop quivering, before handing the cisoras to me.
Then he step back and spreads his arms wide, holding the edges of the blanket in his hands so it drapes from the back of his shoulders to the floor. It blocks us both from the enormous window of our cell. My heart expands in a different direction than usual as Garrett loves me with this gift of dignity.
"Me first," he says. I almost drop the cisoras and sever a toe when he flicks his chin down toward his own body. He smiles. "Go for it."
The cisoras tremble in my grip, partly because they're so heavy and partly because I'm about to see Garrett. Like really see him. All of him. I'm frozen and staring at his chest, the water beating on my back. I can't get my stupid arms to work.
I stare at the rivulets of water clinging to the edge of his chin. I find the river they've made and visually trace them upward, over the rough landscape of his jaw. I outline his lips twice, nearly falling forward the second time, to feel them with my own. I follow the little ridge resting between the tip of his lips to the tip of his nose, then trace the smooth center line of his nose up until I run into his eyes.
"That's right," Garrett says and my eyes flick from his chest to his face. "Stay right here with me."
It is a free fall into his irises, but this time, I go willingly, with the target being the very bottom of his beautiful soul.
I raise the cisoras again, my hands steady as a surgeon this time. Although I never even chance a blink away from Garrett's weightless gaze, I lift the edge of his shirt and slide it between the blades. Open, close, open, close, I feed the fabric to the cisoras hungry jaws. Over his collar bones, across his shoulders, down the sleeves of his shirt. The binding box whirs, but I never once look away from his eyes, even when the tattered fabric falls away.
"Do the rest," he says. I know he could just pull them off, but he's holding up the blanket. I slip my fingertips between the waistband of his boxers and his skin. I move the cold teeth of the cisoras down the outer edge of his hip, my eyes locked on his the whole time, even though part of me wants to look. I want to know what his body looks like, how his muscles curve. I want to know what no one else knows about him. But I don't have the kind of guts it takes to look, so I keep my eyes steady on his as I repeat the procedure on the opposite leg. The fabric falls away. Garrett smiles.
"You did it," he says. I still don't look down. He doesn't break eye contact. But he keeps his smile encouraging as he says, "Your turn."
He hums as he tries to figure out the best way to switch positions while still holding up the blanket. He turns off the shower and we make the awkward exchange of the blanket. He doesn't seem to care if anyone sees him naked, but I don't want anyone to see. We keep the blanket stretched out wide for privacy and try to swap spots while tangling with the binding cable.
"It's like half-naked Twister," Garrett laughs, but he never looks anywhere besides my eyes.
Once I'm holding up the blanket, my arms spread open in front of him, he doesn't drag out my agony. His head tips only to maintain our gaze and no lower. I suck in a breath as Garrett guides the cold edge of the cisoras beneath the edge of my collar.
"You alright?"
"Mmm hmm." I say, but I gasp when I feel the metal sliding down the edge of my ribs, cutting open my bra, on the way to my waist. In two clean swipes, my shirt and bra fall on the shower floor, but his eyes never once leave mine.
"Almost there," he says and he positions the blade so that with two quick cuts, I am naked too. He draws the blanket around us both.
"Easier than you thought it would be, right?" he says. I would answer, but his naked body is pressed against mine. I kind of shape-shift and become an upright balance beam, going stiff the moment I feel the long, firm muscles of his thighs, and, of course, the uneven spot between the two.
It's just bodies, that's it, I growl in my head. Just bodies, but I can't stop freaking out about what those bodies can do together that I've never done before. Half of me is intrigued and the other half terrified and each time the two emotions crash into each other, my whole body shakes. I can't stop my stomach from trampolining and busting through with quivers that spill out across my skin. I hold my breath, trying to force the tremors down. I'll go blue before he feels it, I swear.
"You okay?" Garrett asks as another shiver rolls over me. Ugh.
"Cold," I lie, and that just makes things worse. He snuggles closer, and against his heat, my body does a total impression of the word rigid. I'm planking. "When are they going to bring us clothes?"
"I don't know," his voice is thick. Part of me is thinking, yeah right, you thought they'd bring us clothes, but mostly I'm grateful that he doesn't ask me why I've turned into a two-by-four. "I figured they'd bring them once they saw we'd used the cisoras. How about we lay down and wait? I have an idea."
Thinking of what his idea might be just ratchets up the rigid and I think I might pass out before he tells me. I'm kind of hoping for that.