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than we had ever been. I could see each eyelash.
     
    “Want me to take those?” I reached for the pile in his arms and for a moment he considered.
     
    “Sure, just put them on the floor by the door.”
     
    “So you’re making a garbage pile?” I headed out the tiny room with my arms full.
     
    “They’ll make a nice bonfire. Kids around here do that?”
     
    “Some…druggies mostly. They hang on the beach below the cliffs.” I met him back inside the office ready to take another stack.
     
    “Jocks and preps had the bonfires at South,” he said, placing another pile in my outstretched arms. His hands brushed my forearms and rivulets of warmth shot up my skin.
     
    “Which group were you in?” I asked.
     
    He climbed back up on the stepstool, scanning the upper shelves. “I was the lonely artsy type.”
     
    “I can see that about you.”
     
    He chuckled. “That obvious, huh?”
     
    “I don’t know about the lonely,” I began, my gaze steady on his, “but most definitely artsy.”
     
    He looked at me long enough that my breathing stopped. But I didn’t take my gaze away. I held his, in a silent game of who-can-look-longest. Finally, I said, “What’s all this stuff going to be? More bonfire fuel? Or are these masterpieces keepers?”
     
    “Not keepers. Wallpaper. Toilet paper. Puppy paper. You have any suggestions?”
     
    I kneeled down next to the piles, flushing with heat because of the intense way he’d looked at me. “Oh, my…”I said with plenty of sarcasm. I held up, My Heart Will Go On from Titanic . Out the corner of my eye I saw him draw near, baggy beige pants and scruffy topsiders.
     
    He squatted next to me. “The bane of high school choral groups.” Our arms almost brushed. I felt warmth from him.
     
    “You mean every choral group sings it?”
     
    “At least once. Overdone saccharine from the first note. Turns the audience into anesthetized zombies. We sang it every year when I was at South. I think Mrs. Roberts had a thing for that movie.” He picked up a piece of the sheet music and looked it over.
     
    “I like the song,” I said.
     
    He seemed to consider my answer and time stretched taut as a wire between us. “Tell me what you like about it.”
     
    “I don’t know.” But I did. “Who wouldn’t want to find love like that?”
     
    His head tilted a little. Because he was so close and his eyes seemed to deepen in color, I picked up one of the pieces of sheet music. It trembled in my hand.
     
    Suddenly he stood, and I was left to look at his shoes.
     
    Warily my gaze crept up his legs, his body and to his face.
     
    The corner of his jaw was in a hard knot.
     
    I set the sheet music down and stood, afraid I had somehow turned him off. Boys could be disgusted by honesty. But then I realized he wasn’t a boy. He was a man.
     
    Were men disgusted by honesty?
     
    He said nothing. The air around us hung with uncertainty. An empty hollowness I was too familiar with opened up inside of me and I wondered if I had just lost something I’d been reaching out for.
     
    “I’ll take this saccharinely sweet stuff to the garbage bins.” I started to pick up a stack but his hand wrapped around my wrist. I froze. Delicious fire shot through my body where his skin met mine.
     
    “Don’t.” His voice was coarse. “We’ll keep them after all.” He let go of me and I looked at where he’d touched me.
     
    He stepped back. “I need to get back to work.” He inched backward toward the open door of the office. I didn’t move. Then he turned and went inside.
     
    For hours after he’d touched me, I felt his fingers around my wrist. As if I’d been infused or burned. Or branded. I kept putting my hand over the area. Though I wanted more than anything to go to his classroom after my last period, that would look ridiculous. I didn’t want to come off as some obsessed groupie.
     
    My schedule was short because I was a senior, and had worked my butt off the