My gaze dropped to his hands. The brief moments that his skin had touched mine were too easy to recall, and now, his hands were so close to my bare wrists. “How so?”

“My gift will knock you off your feet, but I don’t see you running for the door.” His hands moved to cup my elbows. “You’re not afraid of me.”

“But… you wouldn’t do that to me.”

A small grin tugged his lips. “Ember, you don’t know me as well as I know you.” His hands drifted up to my shoulders before sliding back down to the cuffs of my sweater, as if he was trying to warm me up.

He was.

His touch, even though it wasn’t against my skin, was doing strange things to me—affecting me in a way that created a warm flush all over my body. I struggled to find something intelligent to say. I came up with zilch. So I settled on a question that had been bugging me. “Why did you keep coming back to see me, Hayden?”

“You interested me.”

“That’s all? You traveled how many hours because I interested you?”

His lips pursed. “Because I knew what it’s like to be an outcast. There was a long time when I was… alone. So I know how it feels.”

To be lonely, I guessed. Something we had in common.

“And it was more than that.” He paused, looking uncomfortable. “And I know it sounds creepy—”

“Yeah, total creeper.”

He frowned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They seemed to dance. “You’re not helping. I’m trying to admit something embarrassing here.”

“All right, go ahead,” I said, fighting a smile.

“Well, I was worried about you. I… wanted to make sure you were okay. There was just so much you were dealing with. I wanted to help.”

Impulsively, I closed my eyes while he talked and allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of his hands running over my arms. There was no harm with this. A sweater separated our skin and I wasn’t breaking my no-touch policy.

“Looking back, I’m sure there was something I could have done. Money or…”

“Or what?”

Hayden was quiet for what seemed like an eternity. “Find a way to make those kids pay for being so mean to you.”

I shivered. Not because of what he said, but because, well, I was pretty sure there was something he’d wanted to do. Like, say, blow up their houses—or them. “Why did you finally talk to me the day in the library?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “You just looked so sad each time I saw you. And I knew you’d seen me in the school. I just wanted to talk to you after that.”

“You quoted Oscar Wilde.” I smiled.

Hayden laughed. “Yeah, that was, like, the height of geekdom.”

“No. It was kind of cool.”

We lapsed into silence. He kept up the thing with his hands, repeatedly coming dangerously close to my skin. After a while, my arms tingled, kind of like when our skin had touched before, but not as overwhelming. When I finally reopened my eyes, Hayden had this serious look on his face. “What?” I murmured.