His lips are cold when they first brush mine, a jolt running through my limbs at the sensation. They warm quickly, however, under my own, his muscles languidly keeping time with mine. He raises his hand to my cheek, frozen fingers stinging my flesh as I push in on him, our lips moving faster, straining against the fog of too much beer. He lightly brushes his tongue against my pursed lips and I unravel, flinging my arms around his neck as if I can pull him even further into my embrace.
This isn't how I thought it would be. I knew there would be heat, and I knew there would be something carnal, but I never even considered the desperation of it. As if we know this will be the first and also the last. Through the fog, fragments of thoughts echo through my brain. Whether he feels this need within him as much as I do. Whether he can taste my fear- both of breaking off the kiss and the very man with whom I am kissing. Whether he's kissing me or letting out something which has nothing to do with me.
I press on past the muddled musings and let my body take over, lips parting to deepen the kiss. He pulls my body against his own and I take the time to appreciate the way his arms feel wrapped around my waist, how delicious it feels to be flush against his chest.
The sound of tires crunching to a stop against the snow of the parking lot seems to snap us back to reality, Lex breaking from the embrace and raising his head to look at the car now in front of us. His cheeks are a blistering red as he smiles at the driver, loosening his grip but keeping his arm around my waist all the same. "I think our carriage is here."
"Oh, good sir!" I dramatically lean my head against his chest and he knocks me upright, guiding me into the backseat of the cab.
Lex keeps our hands intertwined, but makes no effort to kiss me again, keeping his head turned away from me, his fingers twisting around my knuckles. He seems to consider something of the utmost importance, his brows furrowed in concentration as he looks out of the window at the passing banks of smog infected snow, made a muddy slush at the side of the road.
"I would like for you to come to my room tonight." Something about his tone, so brazen and clean in his articulation, cuts through my stomach. I wonder where he learned to speak about matters of love, whether they be the deep enthralls of emotion or cursory activities played for the benefit of momentary pleasure, with such diplomacy and detachment. He looks at me and I search his eyes for the boy at the bar, only met with the man in the magazines, a powerhouse of business and cold hearted stratagem.
"If you'd like." He nods and turns his attention back to the roadside. "Hey, Lex?"
"Yes?"
"Can you tell me something?" He laughs a little but turns his attention back to me. "No, I mean; tell me something. Something that no one else knows." He looks at me quizzically and a bit annoyed, his fingers loosening around my own. I don't let him off that easy, though, and grasp his hand tightly in mine. "You can tell me, you know." And it is then that I know what I want him to tell me. "You can tell me if you're the blur, I won't be mad." He looks genuinely shocked now, eyes wide and brows inching towards what would be his hairline.
"The blur?" He seems struck and then, before I can explain, he begins to laugh. Hard. "What in God's name are you talking about?"
"I mean that I know you're the blur, Lex." He laughs more and I'm surrounded by his voice, usually so beautifully low and rich, now filled with mockery, making me prickle at the sound. "Stop it, Lex."
"I'm not the blur, Sarah. What even made you think that?" I blink slowly, finally starting to register that this idea which had so completely dictated my view of Lex was wrong.
"I just thought… you disappeared at the gala. You have all these dealings with the meteor rocks. And, well…when someone asks me to think of someone saving me, I think of you." He doesn't respond for a moment, but he does successfully slip his hand out of mine.
"I disappeared at the gala because I was trying to help control the situation. What's more, I've been looking into the actual blur, trying to figure out his identity."
"Do you have any idea who the blur is, then?" He doesn't answer, his eyes burning a hole in the vinyl seat in front of him.
"I'm not a savior, Sarah."
"But you are. Even if you're not the blur, you're the one who saved me from that crazy guy with the vines."
"I'm also the reason that guy existed in the first place. I'm not a knight in shining armor, Sarah. I'm just a fuck up." He slumps against the door of the car and I want to reach out again, to soothe every bruise his father has inflicted on this poor boy's psyche. But I can't. To do so seems disingenuous.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe you're a fuck up. But it's not because of the things you think. You keep trying to be enough for him, even though you're smart enough to know you never will be. You can't even see that you're better than him, just by being you." The tires squeal as we come to a stop in front of a glittering tower I had never noticed before today. Such opulence has always been so beyond my reach. I suppose I had conditioned my eyes to skim past in a form of self preservation every time I passed.
"Do you want me to send the car by your home?"
He's trying to turn away, to shut me out. I know it will be better for me if I let him.
"No," I say, unbuckling my seatbelt and swaggering into the hotel lobby. Lex eventually falls in step with me, hand resting at the small of my back as he leads me to an elevator at the end of the lobby. Every move exists in a liminal space between speech and unraveling. I can't feign ignorance about what is about to happen, feel no compulsion to turn around, and yet feel such a monumental action requires immediacy. To walk within a space without reaching for him after the decision has been made fills me with a calm sort of panic. My body craves the promised thrill, yet there is no impulse to appease.
When the elevator door shuts us in, I consider being rash, of pressing Lex against the wall and feeling his lips against my own, but resist when I look at him, his head trained forward, his own willpower filling me with shame.
"I don't know if this is a good idea," he says.
"It's not." The elevator slows at the top most floor and I thread my fingers through Lex's, pulling im through the open doors.