Free Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey Page B

vaults forward, landing on his knees in front of me, and lays his head in my lap. “You weren’t here. You weren’t here for so long.”
    I touch his head, spreading my fingers in his hair. It’s so dry, so cool, dark straw now. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, and my voice shakes as I make myself stroke his head. “I couldn’t help it.”
    “I need you here, Wren.” He shrugs away from my hand and lifts his head to look at me. His fingers dig into my thighs, ten distinct points of pressure. “I need you. When you’re not here, I don’t … I can’t think. I don’t know what to do and I can’t … I can’t think , Wren.”
    The hair on the back of my neck prickles, and I shut my eyes again. I can’t look at his face, his mouth twisted and his brow knotted, his cheeks pale, and so, so cold.
    “I didn’t mean to,” I whisper, and try not to flinch when his palm rests against my face, his thumb lightly tracing my cheekbone. “I didn’t mean to.”
    I tell him stories for a while, lying on the mattress with him, his head cradled on my chest. I’ve pulled up the blankets, but it doesn’t matter. The chill is on him, in him, and he’s pressed up against me. My teeth are chattering, but if he notices, he doesn’t say anything.
    He loves this, but I have to be careful. I try to talk only about us, times when we were alone together, because I don’t want to remind him of Ryan or Becker, or his parents and his brother and sister. I can’t answer the questions he asks about them, not honestly anyway.
    He never used to ask. At first, all he wanted was me, as if he’d woken up in some dream where the two of us were all there was, all he needed. Even the loft didn’t confuse him much, as long as I was there.
    But the longer he’s alone, the more the dream fades.
    “Remember the first time we went into the city?”
    He nods, calmer now, and his hand rests easy on my hip. We’ve been at this for an hour, and I dread the thought of my alarm in the morning.
    “God, it was so cold that day, even for February,” I whisper, and shiver a little. It doesn’t feel much warmer right now.
    I describe it all for him, letting my eyes drift shut as I lay my head back and remember it. Bundled together into the seat, sharing earbuds and a coffee while the train rattled along the tracks. Changing at Newark and running down the long ramp to the PATH, which took us into the Village. We’d stopped every two blocks for coffee, it seemed—it was a blue-cold day, the wind biting into our cheeks, and we didn’t have anything specific to do anyway. We were simply roaming, playing, and it became a game to spot another coffee shop first and race toward it on the crowded streets.
    “My favorite was that one on MacDougal,” I say with a smile. “The one with the tin ceiling and all those old pictures of people in furs and weird hats. That place had the best croissants.”
    He makes a vague humming noise, in agreement, I think, and I know he won’t fall asleep, but he’s as relaxed as he ever gets now.
    “And then we went to Bleecker Bob’s and that comic-book store, remember? Oh, and the thrift store where you bought me that necklace, the one with the owl in front of the moon.”
    “I remember the moon.” He sounds faraway, preoccupied, and his body is tense again, solid marble.
    “Yeah, the owl is sitting on a branch with the full moon behind it,” I tell him, and scritch idly through the hair at his nape. “It’s pretty. I’ll wear it tomorrow.”
    “I remember the moon,” he says again, and sits up. The blankets rustle in his wake, and I shiver. “And the candles. There were candles.”
    My stomach turns over in a dizzying swoop. Candles? There are no candles on that necklace, but there were candles and a full moon the night I cast the spell.
    I grab his arm, trying to pull him back to me. The silver light through the window is murky, but his eyes are gleaming.
    Polished stones, I think, remembering my dream, and