Chapter 10: First Word

Lucy's POV

"That's a word," I said.

I stood up so fast the phone slid off my knees and landed in the grass with a soft green glow.

Reed stood in the lamplight with his hands open at his sides.

He stood there, tense and bracing himself.

"It isn't a rule," I said. "It's a name. It's mine."

"Come with me," Reed said.

It was a whole sentence, short and rough and not a rule at all.

I felt my face split into a grin.

"Rule ten says you owe me one honest answer," I said. "I'm saving it."

"Saving it," he said, and his mouth did the thing from the cafeteria, and this time it stayed.

He took my hand.

It was the first time he had taken my hand with no rule attached, and I held on.

He led me across the quad, up the side steps of the auditorium, and through a door with a keypad.

The AV booth was a narrow room with one window onto the empty stage.

A mixing console glowed under the glass, covered in little blue lights and sliders.

He closed the door.

The lock clicked.

For a second neither of us moved.

"You don't have a rule for this," I whispered.

"No," Reed said.

He said it low.

He crossed the room and put his hands on my face and kissed me, slowly.

My heart went up.

I pulled his shirt over his head, and he let me, and I put my mouth against his chest and felt his breath stutter.

He stripped my hoodie off, and then my T-shirt, and then he stopped and just looked.

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