"Find out what?"
"What I really am. Hey, I just thought, if I hadn't let you know I was okay at the moment I did ---"
"I would have gone on panicking and wondering what the hell to do."
"Just shut up and answer my question before those idiots come along and disturb us; they're still arguing about the damned torch, but---"
"How do you know?"
"How do I know what? That they're arguing about the torch? I can hear them from here. Now listen."
Only Adam Locke could sound so commanding while lying flat on his back --- Careful, Stephenson. Careful where your thoughts lead you---in the middle of the road.
"If I hadn't spoken when I did..."
I leaned in closer. All the better to hear you with.
"...would you have given me the kiss of life?"
Breath trapped in my throat, and it felt like an eternity before I was able to exhale again. And it was only then, in the near-silence of that darkened street, that I realised he still wasn't breathing.
Idiot, I told myself. He's probably just holding his breath, waiting for you to answer.
"Hel l o? Hello?" In the distance, watery yellow light arced from left to right, alerting us to the driver's advances.
"Shit; he's coming back." Adam grabbed me and hauled us both to our feet. One would have thought I'd have helped him, but he was more in control than I. As if he'd been in this situation countless times before, running away from trouble.
Or knowing him, more than likely causing it.
We tripped to the opposite side of the street, only just dodging that arcing beam of light, and I was too out of breath with panic and adrenaline to ask Adam why we were running away; he was the one who'd been run over, and it was me who was slower, thanks to the ache in my thigh playing up again. Me, out of breath and him pulling me along behind him like he did this every day. Maybe he did.
"You didn't answer my question." Not panting or out of breath at all, Adam steadied me against a random wall; I wasn't sure where we were but trusted my sense of direction to come back to me along with my senses. Soon.
"What question?"
"Would you have given me the kiss of life?"
He leaned in so close, I could have breathed him in.
"I..." I gulped. I'd waited for this sort of conversation for weeks, and now that it was here, I didn't know how to cope with it. "Why did you pull us away from..." I looked in the general direction of where I thought we'd come from.
"From all that? You were the one who was injured, after all."
"Was I injured?"
"You know what I mean."
"Didn't want to hang around. And yes, yes, I know the driver could have stopped immediately and got out, and I would have been discovered then, but they never do. Speeding cars, right round a corner, bump, they panic, the realisation doesn't hit them until they're miles away. Okay, yards. Then you've got the braking distance. They always end up a hundred yards away before you even hit the ground again."
"You've done this before?" He's asking me about the kiss of life, and he's exercised his death wish before. Good God; this is one hell of an evening you're having, Stephenson.
"Many a time."
"But why?"
He shrugged; the fabric of his coat rustled against itself. "For fun."
"You have got a very unusual sense of fun; I can tell you that."
"Ah." He leaned in closer, and my breath caught. "But don't you, too?"
"What? What do you mean?"
"Young man like you. What are you? Late twenties? Early thirties?"
"Something like that."
"Handsome. A sergeant, no less, even if you do have that dodgy leg. You could have any woman you wanted."
"Maybe I don't want any woman---" Shit. I would have snatched those words back immediately if I could have unsaid them. "I mean, not like...Who just goes out and grabs a woman, any woman?"
"Plenty of people do. There's a war on, you know. Got to enjoy life while it lasts, correct? Instead, here you are. With me."
I couldn't work out if his words were a threat, mockery, or simple observation. "What did you do all that for anyway?" I asked. Anything to get the focus of his attention off me and back onto...well, just about any other thing would suit me.
Another shrug, and fabric rustling against itself. He stepped closer, and I edged into the wall, or tried to.
"Felt like it. Honestly, Nathan. Or do you prefer Sergeant Stephenson, under the circumstances, I wonder? Create a little distance?"
Distance, was it? There was barely any air between us. So much for distance. If he inched any nearer, my feelings would become all too obvious.
I kept praying for nerves to stop me growing hard in Adam's presence, but adrenaline sometimes had a strange effect on the human body.
"So formal, after the time we've spent toge the r ? " Good Lord, Nathan; have you suddenly developed a sense of humour? Are you teasing him?
"First name terms it is, then. Nathan, sometimes I get so bored. Don't you? Don't you ever just want to...oh, how can I put this...do something you shouldn't?"
"I'd hardly call getting yourself run over 'doing something you shouldn't.' That is, it's not exactly a bundle of fun. Wait, you seem to enjoy it, but you're an unusual character. Not like the chaps I usually meet from work, and come to think of it, where do you---"
He kissed me.
It took me a split second to realise what the hell was going on :the slight oof of breath out of me as he pressed me up against the wall with his own body weight; the feeling of being held---no, grabbed---as he clutched my lapels; and the breathless, mindless "oh my God; he's doing it. He's finally doing it," as his lips met mine.
The night air had chilled his mouth to such a degree, there was a strange mixture of cool and warm in his
