Allissa

The door clicked, and the world went down to one room.

He didn’t rush at me. He stood there in the lamplight and looked at me like a man checking that a thing was still where he left it, and then he crossed the room and kissed me slow, and it stayed slow.

I pulled back half a breath and tried to hand him my terrible practical gift.

“If a year is what we get,” I said, “then I want to fill it. I want nights stacked so deep that if it comes for me early I’ll have already ...