He’s here.
I can’t see him, but I know straight down to the marrow of my bones that Theo is somewhere nearby.
I’m struck with a wild elation that makes me feel as light as a feather, as if I might at any moment shirk the bounds of gravity and float up to the ceiling like a balloon.
Some part of me was expecting this. I summoned him, after all. I cast a spell with my letter, one I knew would work its magic and bring him to me in the night, my midnight valentine who stalks the darkness outside my house and inside my heart.
With shaking hands, I push aside the covers and slip out of bed. I walk barefoot from the room and down the twist of stairs, my nerves screaming, a roar like thunder inside my head. At the foot of the stairs, I pause with one hand on the banister. I close my eyes and open my mind, waiting until I feel it again.
I open my eyes and look at the front door.
And it strikes me, the sight of that closed door. For all our cryptic back and forth about the damn things, there was one thing Theo and I both missed.
Some doors have to be opened from the inside.
I cross the foyer, open the lock, turn the handle, and pull—
And there he is.
Soaking wet and shivering, standing with his head bowed and his arms braced on either side of the frame, rain dripping from the tip of his nose. His wet hair is plastered against his skull. A puddle of water shimmers around his feet.
He raises his head and looks into my eyes. His face is wet from more than just the rain.
He’s crying.
Without a word, I take hold of his jacket and pull him into my arms.
He collapses against me with a groan, shuddering violently. He hugs me so tight, I’m breathless. His clothing is freezing cold, but his skin is hot. His face pressed to my neck feels feverish.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, holding him. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I’m not sure which of us I’m reassuring.
“Come inside. Come in out of the rain, Theo. You’re wet. Let me help you. Let me help you.”
He reluctantly allows me to coax him through the door, though he refuses to release me. He’s like a terrified animal, starving and afraid to be caged, but desperate for the food inside. I kick the door shut, and we stand in the shadowed foyer, clutching each other, shivering and breathing erratically, the rain growing louder until it sounds like a hail of bullets on the roof.
His hands are in my hair. He takes big fistfuls of it, buries his face in it, breathes it in. When he makes an inarticulate sound of anguish, I gently shush him again.
Calm descends over me, a serenity so powerful, it disorients me for a moment, but then I realize it’s the same thing I felt upstairs in bed. That feeling like my soul is filling with air and I’m rising.
That feeling of finally being able to breathe after spending so long suffocating on hopelessness.
“We need to get you dry. Okay? Can you stay here for a minute?”
He drags in a breath and nods, though his hands stay in my hair and he makes no move to step away. I have to gently peel myself out of his arms. I leave him standing there like a statue, staring at the floor, and hurry upstairs to find some thick bath towels. When I come back down, he hasn’t moved from the spot I left him.
I ease off his soaked jacket and let it fall to the floor. Then I drape one of the towels around his shoulders. When I put another over his head and start to gently rub his hair, he closes his eyes and sighs.
The weight of the world is in that sigh. I can tell by how his shoulders sag after he releases it that he’s feeling what I’m feeling too. That strange unburdening of spirit. The aching bliss of finally letting go.
We’re quiet as I blot the water from his face and hair, my hands as reverent and tender with him as if he were a baby. His fragility is so unexpected, his vulnerability so raw, I’m moved almost to tears. He could crush me with those big hands of his, all those powerful muscles, but instead stands emotionally naked and allows me to care for him.
His trust is devastating.
“You have a fever,” I whisper, my brow crinkled with worry as I touch his forehead. “Theo, you’re burning up.”
He tilts his head into my palm and presses his hand against it. It’s such a sweet gesture, and so intimate. I can’t stop myself: I rise up on tiptoe and softly press a kiss to his lips.
He takes my face in his hands. Cupping my jaw, he touches his forehead to mine. He’s trembling all over, his hands as feverish as the rest of him.
I kiss him again. I have to. There is no choice. His mouth is the oxygen I need to survive, and I no longer care about anything else but this:
His soft, trembling lips.
His low, sweet groan.
His heat and his taste and the astonishing intensity of how much I like all that, how quickly addicted I become to the feel of his mouth against mine.