Chapter 164
Summer's POV
The fluorescent lights of the 7-Eleven were too bright after the darkness of the street, harsh and unforgiving as they illuminated every cut and bruise on Kieran's face in stark detail. I blinked against the sudden brightness, my eyes adjusting slowly, and grabbed a basket from the stack by the door. I moved through the aisles quickly, efficiently, my hands steady now that I had a task to focus on—antiseptic wipes, gauze pads, medical tape, a bottle of water, a pack of ibuprofen. The cashier barely glanced at us as I paid, probably used to late-night customers with stories they didn't want to hear, with blood on their clothes and exhaustion in their eyes.
We sat on the curb outside, under the glow of the store's neon sign, and I opened the package of wipes with fingers that only trembled a little. "This is going to sting," I warned, then pressed the cloth gently to the cut on his lip.
He hissed through his teeth but didn't pull away, his eyes fixed on my face as I worked, watching me with an intensity that made my hands shake slightly. I cleaned away the dried blood carefully, methodically, dabbing at the swelling around his eye with gentle touches, my movements becoming more confident as I went. The intimacy of it made my heart race—the way he let me touch him, the way he trusted me with this, the way his breath hitched every time the antiseptic bit into a fresh wound.
Up close, I could see details I'd missed before. The way his eyelashes were longer than I'd realized, dark and thick, casting shadows on his cheeks. The sharp line of his jaw, the hollow beneath his cheekbone, the way his lips pressed together when I touched a particularly tender spot.
He was beautiful. Even beaten up, even bloody and bruised, he was beautiful in a way that made my chest tight, that made me want to memorize every line and angle of his face.
"The cake's probably ruined," I said after a while, trying to fill the silence with something, anything, that wasn't the sound of my pulse thundering in my ears, trying to distract myself from the dangerous direction my thoughts were taking.
"Probably," he agreed, his voice rough but lighter than before, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. But he reached for the box anyway, prying open the lid with his left hand to reveal the mess inside—frosting smeared across the cardboard in abstract patterns, the decorative icing words completely illegible now, the whole thing tilted at an angle that suggested it had been through a war zone.
Which, I supposed, it had.
"Still edible though," I said, pulling a plastic spoon from my bag—I always kept a few in there, a habit from too many impromptu ice cream runs with Mia. I scooped up a chunk of cake and frosting, the spoon cutting through the layers easily, and held it out to him.
He took it, his lips closing around the spoon, and I watched his throat move as he swallowed, watched his expression shift from pain to something else, something almost like contentment. Then he scooped up his own bite with his left hand, the movement slightly awkward but determined, and held it out to me.
I took it, the sweetness of the frosting exploding on my tongue, and we fell into an easy rhythm—taking turns, sharing the ruined cake like it was the most natural thing in the world, like we'd been doing this for years instead of just tonight. He made some dry observation about how the cake actually tasted better after being dropped, and I laughed, the sound surprising me with its genuineness, and for a moment it felt like we were just two normal teenagers sharing dessert on a curb, not two people who'd just witnessed domestic violence and called the police.
I was reaching for another bite when I felt the frosting on my upper lip, sticky and sweet. I started to wipe it away with the back of my hand, but Kieran's hand got there first, his thumb brushing across my skin with a touch so light it sent shivers down my spine, so gentle it made me forget how to breathe.
He froze, his hand staying there, cupping my jaw, his thumb still resting on my lip. His eyes widened slightly, like he'd surprised himself, like he hadn't meant to touch me but now that he had he couldn't quite bring himself to stop. I could feel his breath on my face, could smell the faint scent of mint that always clung to him—toothpaste, maybe, or gum, something clean and sharp that cut through the smell of antiseptic and blood and the sweet residue of cake frosting.
The world narrowed down to the point where his skin met mine, to the warmth of his palm against my cheek, to the way his thumb moved slightly, almost imperceptibly, tracing the curve of my lower lip. My heart was hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it, sure he could feel it through my skin, through the minimal space between us that suddenly felt both infinite and non-existent.
I held my breath, afraid that any movement might break whatever spell had fallen over us, might remind him of all the reasons this was a bad idea. Slowly, so slowly I wasn't sure at first if I was imagining it, I let my eyes drift closed, surrendering to the moment, to the possibility hovering in the air between us like a question waiting to be answered.