“I don’t care. I just want something to do with my hands.” She smiled at me.

Frankie Lynde smiled at me.

I felt like someone had just unzipped the front of my chest.

A rush of icy December air slid through my rib cage. My heart shivered and thumped harder. Frankie Lynde, smiling, looking straight at me with those deep brown eyes. I didn’t know that actual human beings could have eyelashes so thick and dark and long.

I grabbed a can of Coke.

“Thanks.” She took it. Her fingers brushed my skin.

“Whoa.” I gave a little jerk backward. “Your hand is colder than the can.”

She laughed. “I know. My hands are always cold.” She leaned a little closer. “But that doesn’t mean I’m a dead girl. I swear.”

Jesus. She was quoting my song to me. The most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in real life knew the words to one of my songs.

“Oh,” I said, like the giant idiot I was. And am. “That’s good.”

“They say, ‘Cold hands, warm heart,’ right? I guess the moral is: Don’t trust anyone with warm hands.” Before I knew what was going on, she grabbed my right hand, pressing her smaller, softer palm to mine. “Hmm. Warmish. But not coldheartedly warm.” She turned my hand toward the dusty ceiling lights, staring down at my palm like she was reading the lines. “Wow. Do you have any actual skin, or are your hands just one big callus?”

“Yeah. The guitar will do that to you.”

“That seems mean,” she said. “That something you love would hurt you.”

“I don’t know. Isn’t that just how it works?” The words came out before I could even think about them. They made me sound way deeper and darker than I deserved.

Frankie gave a little laugh. Music. Sound perfectly arranged in time. “Maybe. I guess.” She still hadn’t let go of my hand. Now she turned it over and touched her fingertips to mine. “Can you even feel anything with those?”

“Yes.” There was a little rasp in my voice now. “I can feel that.”

She looked up at me. Smiled again.

I don’t even know how it happened, but next we were in the three-season porch at the back of Blake Skoglund’s house, on a low, afghan-covered couch that smelled like bonfires, and my lips were on hers, and hers were on mine, and her cold, soft hands were sliding up under my shirt, and even in the freezing air, even with my unzipped rib cage, my skin was burning, and I couldn’t feel the cold even when the shirt was on the floor, because Frankie’s fingers were in my hair, and my fingers were everywhere, everywhere—

And then it was late, and cars were crunching down the gravel driveway, and Frankie was smoothing her hair, tugging her jacket back on, and giving me one last small, soft, teasing kiss. And then she slipped off into the house, and a few minutes later, I’d collected enough strength in my burning, shaking body to get up and drag myself home.