“I know that you and I belong together. And I know that it’s too late for that to matter.”
My heart cracked open, and pain leaked out. “That’s the problem, Tod. It’s too late for anything to matter. That’s why I kissed you,” I admitted, challenging myself to hold his gaze during my own confession.
“You kissed me because it wouldn’t matter?” A flicker of hurt swirled in his eyes. “You really think it doesn’t matter?”
“That’s not what I meant.” That kiss had meant a lot to several different people. To Nash. To Tod. Hell, even to Sabine. And I wasn’t going to deny what it changed for me. “I meant…I’m going to die in less than two days, and you should know better than anyone what that means. It’s scary, and surreal, but in a way, it’s also like the ultimate freedom. Does that make any sense?”
“Yeah.” Tod brushed a pale curl from his forehead. “You can do whatever you want, because you’re not going to be here to suffer the consequences. Right?”
“Right.”
His brows rose over a new shine in his eyes. “So what you’re really saying is that kissing me is one of those things a girl shouldn’t die without experiencing, right?”
“Wow, you have a healthy ego.”
He shrugged. “Helps make up for the pallor of death. But you’re avoiding the question.”
“I didn’t think you were serious.”
“Dead serious.” The reaper grinned over his own joke, and I groaned. “Humor me, Kaylee. Dead guys don’t get much action—I’m gonna have to make this memory last a loooong time,” he said, and it felt like someone had sucked all the air out of the room and left me gasping. He was going to make the memory last? The memory of me kissing him?
“Make it last, like, forever?” I whispered, and immediately wished I’d kept that question to myself.
“Yeah. Like mental movie footage.” His mouth was grinning, but his eyes were serious. “Now I’m compiling the bonus features, including an interview with the kissee herself. So tell me, Ms. Cavanaugh, how long have you been dying to kiss me?”
I groaned. “More death humor?”
Another shrug. “It’s kind of my shtick. Answer the question.”
“I don’t know.” I sat up and played along, surprised to realize that for the first time in days, I wasn’t tense and on alert, waiting for the proverbial scythe to swing—ironic, considering I was sitting next to a Grim Reaper. “It’s not like I planned it, but I will admit that the prospect hasn’t been especially distasteful lately.”
“Not especially distasteful?” He pretended to think it over. “That ought to keep my ego in check.”
I laughed. “Is that even possible?”
“Probably not. But I wouldn’t put anything past you, Kaylee,” Tod said, looking straight into my eyes. I looked back until the connection between us started to feel raw, and taut, and vital, in no way I could explain. I’d never felt so exposed and vulnerable, yet confident of my own safety. I felt like he could see past my eyes into parts of me no one had ever seen before. And he deserved the truth.
“Fine.” I crossed my legs yoga style and picked at a bit of fuzz on my comforter. “I admit it. I didn’t want to die without knowing what it was like to kiss you.” I might have been thinking about that on occasion recently, since we’d been spending so much time together….
I don’t know how I thought he’d react to that tender bit of truth, but his wary frown definitely wasn’t what I’d expected.
Tod leaned back in my desk chair, putting a frustrating distance between us. “Like you didn’t want to die without knowing what it was like to sleep with my brother?”
And that’s when I understood my mistake—and damn, I’d made a lot of them.
“I didn’t sleep with him, Tod. Thanks to you, ironically enough.” Because he’d interrupted us with the news that Thane had been assigned as my reaper.
“That’s not irony, Kaylee,” he said, and his gaze never wavered. “It was careful timing.”
I blinked, gaping at him in disbelief. “You knew…?”
“That you were about to have sex with Nash? Yeah.” He shrugged, like that was no big deal, but my irritation had just flared into a brutal emotional heartburn.
“You were here? Watching?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. There was nothing to stop a reaper from being wherever he wanted, unseen by all. But knowing my privacy had been violated during one of the most intimate moments of my life sickened me like little I’d ever felt.
“Hell no, I wasn’t here. I can’t even stand to see Nash kiss you, much less…anything more. But here’s what you really want to know—I don’t spy on you, Kaylee. Not anymore.” Tod was careful to let me see the cobalt twist of sincerity in his eyes.
“But you used to?” I refused to be placated by the past tense nature of the offense.
“Yeah, but it was nothing personal.” He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “I have a lot of hours to kill and nowhere to be when I’m not working. So I watch people. Most reapers do it out of boredom, but I’ve been hanging out at my mom’s house ever since I died, because I don’t know where else to go. It’s not my home, because I never lived there, but it’s always been like home, because my family’s there.”
I couldn’t quite interpret the ache in my chest, but it tempered my anger, whether or not it should have. “When did you start watching me?”
“After what happened with your aunt.” The week I’d found out I was a bean sidhe and started going out with Nash. “You were the only one other than my family who knew I existed, so I’d tag along when Nash came over and watch whatever you guys were watching on TV.”
“Were we really that boring?” It was weird to see me and Nash through someone else’s eyes.
Tod laughed. “Yeah. Thank goodness. But then you helped me with Addy, for no reason except that I asked you to, and I started to come over here on my own, just to see you.”
I was half creeped out, half fascinated, and all ears. “When did you stop?”
“When I realized I hated seeing you make out with my brother.”
“I don’t understand.” But maybe I was beginning to, and that ache in my chest deepened.
Tod glanced at my comforter, then met my gaze again. “Okay, I’m starting to realize how creepy this whole thing makes me sound, but try to remember that until you, my whole afterlife was like a one-way mirror. I saw people, but they never saw me. There was no interaction. No involvement. No malice or creepy intent. I’m not like Thane—I never stalked people I was scheduled to reap. I was just…watching. Living vicariously, which is the only way I can live now.”
“I’m with you so far…” And sympathy was starting to win out over the creepy factor. He must have been so lonely.…
“Good.” The tension in his frame started to ease. “Anyway, I stopped watching you when we started hanging out together for real.”
“After Nash started using?” I asked, and Tod nodded. I couldn’t be around Nash while he was going through with drawal. The wounds were still too raw, and the thought of seeing him hurt. But Tod had come over a couple of times during my otherwise lonely winter break, and we’d done…nothing. We’d just hung out, watching stupid YouTube videos and listening to music, openly avoiding the subject of Nash and his frost addiction.
Maybe that should have been my first clue….
“Once I realized I wanted more than friendship from you, it didn’t seem fair for me to see you when you didn’t know I was there.”
My relief was almost enough to mitigate my irritation at having been watched in the first place. “So…if you weren’t spying, how did you know…what Nash and I were about to do the other day?”
“Sabine called me.”
I closed my eyes, resisting the urge to slap my own forehead. How had I not figured that out? I’d called Sabine for advice, then hung up when Nash arrived, and she’d probably had Tod on the phone before my voice even faded from her ear. Damn Sabine! But she wasn’t working alone….