Page 66 of Heart Over Heels

“He’d better be.”

Mercer bent to set the oven into my lap, and I hugged my arms around it, absorbing it into my ball of misery.

Slowly, Mercer turned and slid down the wall to sit beside me. I rested my chin on the glossy cardboard box and let my gaze return to the stars.

“Are they readying their pitchforks?” I mumbled at last.

“What?”

I puffed out a sigh. “Should we go?”

He grunted then shook his head. “Not unless you want to.”

We fell quiet with no movement or sound except for the desert air weaving around us, until I felt a faint brush near the tip of my tail. Feather-light. Careful, like the way Molly had patted it at the mall. Curious.

I glanced over to watch Mercer’s thumb trail along the scaly skin, reaching the barbed end and testing its sharpness like one might a blade.

“You didn’t want them to know,” he murmured. “Why?”

I looked away, searching the sky until I found the dotted line of the Big Dipper drawn on the blanket of night.

“People need to define things,” I said. “And I don’t always like the way they define me.”

“How would you define yourself?”

The question struck like a match, flooding me with irritable heat as I rounded on him. “Why should I have to?” I demanded. “Can’t I justbe? A person? A body with a heart and a brain?”

Mercer’s thumb kept moving, slow and steady over the length of my tail, coaxing shivers out of me I couldn’t stop.

“I think you’re strong,” he said.

The fire coursing through me surged into my throat, and I squirmed, trying to deflect. “You’re the strong one. You were a soldier. A fighter.”

“You fight too,” he answered simply. “It’s brave just to exist sometimes. Bold to live so… honestly.” His eyes swept over me the same way they had when he’d told me I was pretty—his expression intent like he meant every word.

That shamed me all the more. Because even before I bolted out of the Bingo game, I’d hidden under a stupid disguise, pretending it was a performance when really it was just a lie.

I plucked the wig out from where it had been buried beneath the toaster oven and held it out. The buns were smashed, and the fibers were worried into a frizzy ball.

“This wasn’t very honest,” I admitted. “The boys looked at me like I’d grown a third eye.”

“Even if you did.” Mercer shrugged. “What’s another accessory?”

What was it with people throwing my own lines back at me tonight?

Mercer settled against the outer wall of the VFW building, facing out into the desert.

I searched his profile, his strong jaw shorn of stubble, his high and tight haircut, and his full lips that softened the rest. Hewasgood-looking. Maybe better than average.

Before I could think better of it, I leaned in and brushed a kiss to his cheek.

He went still, visibly stunned. I started to pull back, but his hand caught and held me inches from his face.

My eyes fell to his throat to catch the hitch of his swallow, then traced upward to where his lips fell apart.

They did look nice, didn’t they?

Such a soft place to land.