Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

19

What was Fang going to do, blog about Max throwing herself out into space just so she wouldn't have to kiss him again? No! Instead he smashed his fist against the cave wall, then grimaced with the pain and stupidity, seeing his bloodied knuckles, the almost instant swelling.

He banked the fire, keeping a small pile of embers glowing in case she came back and needed help finding the entrance. Neither was likely.

He kicked most of the rocks off a Fang-sized place and lay down, rubbing his wings against the fine silt because it felt good. He didn't want to check his blog-he'd had almost eight hundred thousand hits earlier-didn't want to do anything except lie still and think.

Max.

God, but she was stubborn. And tough. And closed in. Closed off. Except when she was holding Angel, or ruffling the Gasman's hair, or pushing something closer to Iggy's hand so he could find it easily without knowing anyone had helped him. Or when she was trying to untangle Nudge's mane of hair. Or-sometimes-when she was looking at Fang.

He shifted on the hard ground, a half-dozen flashes of memory cycling through his brain. Max looking at him and laughing. Max leaping off a cliff, snapping out her wings, flying off, so incredibly powerful and graceful that it took his breath away.

Max punching someone's lights out, her face like stone.

Max kissing that weiner Sam on Anne's front porch.

Gritting his teeth, Fang rolled onto his side.

Max kissing him on the beach, after Ari had kicked Fang's butt.

Just now, her mouth soft under his.

He wished she were here, if not next to him, then somewhere in the cave, so he could hear her breathing.

It was going to be hard to sleep without that tonight.