“Doctor Who had a police box.” He kept his gaze level. “But I’m glad to hear it’s not a foreign concept.”
“Holy crap. You really expect me to just buy this?” I leaned over to put my head between my knees, shaking so hard my chair rattled. I vaguely wondered if I saved any of my medication or if I’d flushed it all. Michael could put it to good use.
“You asked me the question—”
“I know!” I sat up, closing my eyes. Before I spoke again, I lowered my voice. “Can you do me a favor and lay all the information on me now? I don’t need any bonus material to throw me over the edge later.”
Or down a flight of stairs, under a bus, and straight back to the mental ward.
“Okay. I know it sounds impossible—” he began.
My eyes flew open. “Time travel? Yes, it does! How? Why me?”
Michael frowned. “It’s kind of … genetic.”
“Like a disease?”
I could tell he didn’t like the analogy. “If you want to go the disease route, you could compare it to addiction. Addiction is genetic. What each person is addicted to might be different, kind of like one son is an alcoholic, the next son is a drug addict, the next is addicted to gambling, and so on.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead. “None of that sounds good.”
“Nope.”
“Look at it this way. You have a special ability. Seeing ripples is like a symptom.” He growled in frustration. “I mean, an indicator. The fact that you’ve only seen people from the past so far indicates you’re able to travel to the past.”
“Mmm-hmm. So if I want to go somewhere in the past, I can? What do I have to do? Close my eyes and picture where I want to go? Click my heels together three times and say, ‘Neolithic Age’?”
“It’s a little more—”
“If you say ‘a little more complicated than that,’ I will scream. What about you? Can you go to the past?” Was I having this conversation? I pinched my thigh, really hard. I was having this conversation. “Or can you go to the future because you can see people from the future?”
“I can go to the future on my own and travel back to the present. You can go to the past on your own and travel back to the present. But if we travel together, we can go anywhere on the timeline. We’re sort of … two halves of one whole.”
“Two halves of one whole?” I blinked slowly, twice, and then leaned in close to examine his face. “Do you do drugs? Pot? Acid? What? I asked my brother if he got you fresh from rehab, but I really didn’t think it was a possibility until now.”
“I don’t do drugs, and you aren’t crazy.” He leaned toward me now, placing his hands palm down on the table. “Considering all the other things you’ve experienced, is it really so impossible to believe?”
I stared at his fingers, watching the heat from his hands fog the glass. Was it? Almost four years ago I started seeing people from different time periods who disappeared when I tried to touch them. So, no, time travel wasn’t impossible to believe. That didn’t mean I wanted to believe it.
Except for the connected-to-Michael thing. That part still appealed to me.
“The connection,” I said, looking up at him. “Is that why we practically short out when we touch each other?”
“Our abilities complement each other. It can create a deep bond. That’s why there’s so much … chemistry between us.” He shifted in his chair, staring at the stained concrete patio floor.
A welcome wave of relief flooded over me. I was grateful I could attach my feelings for him to something, even a scientific connection. Chemistry. I thought about the amount of energy we produced when we accidentally touched and had a brief vision of what it would be like if our lips met. Would the world explode around us?
When he started speaking, I made myself focus on what he was saying, pushing away thoughts of fireworks and detonation.
Michael continued, his embarrassment either overcome or well hidden. “The man I told you about, my mentor from the Hourglass, he and his wife had the same abilities we do, the same connections.”
Tucking the word wife away to think about later, I asked, “What are the other connections, besides the physical one?”
“Strong emotional ties, a visceral pull toward each other.”
I didn’t have any trouble believing that. I was more drawn to him every time I saw him. More than I was willing to admit, even to myself. “What does all this have to do with the Hourglass? Why won’t you tell me anything about it?”
“I have my reasons,” he said. “There are things you can’t know yet—”
“You said you’d tell me everything,” I accused. “I need to know everything.”
“I did tell you everything. About you.” He stood abruptly, staring over the edge of the patio down onto the street. “You’ve seen time-travel movies. Parts of them are true. Events can be manipulated, but usually not without consequences.”
Michael turned back and crouched down, balancing on the balls of his feet at my eye level. “I’m not just here to help you understand what you see and why. I’m here to watch out for you and to …”
He broke off. I got the feeling he almost revealed something he didn’t want to share.
“Don’t stop now,” I said.
“This is where the visceral thing comes in.” He took my hands in his. “Either you trust me or you don’t.”
I didn’t know about trusting him. I did know I didn’t want him to stop touching me. I was getting used to the intensity. He leaned closer. I lost myself in the depths of his warm brown eyes, wondering if his lips would be warm, too …
Michael slowly inched forward before losing his balance and tipping to one side. He uttered a low curse under his breath and stepped away.
“You … You rule breaker!” My mouth dropped open, and I propelled myself up and out of the chair, poking him in the chest. “You almost kissed me!”
Michael backed up into the wrought-iron fence. “No, I didn’t.”
He didn’t mean it. I took a step closer and spoke in a whisper. “Liar.”
Running his hand over his face, he groaned in defeat. In one movement he turned so I was the one with my back pressed against the cold metal. The benefit was that my front was pressed against Michael.
He bent down, burying his face in my neck. I reached back to grab onto the iron bars behind me to hold myself up. My jacket slipped off my shoulders. I was pretty sure I was on fire, and at that moment I would have sworn that bursting into flame was a glorious way to go.
I’d never touched alcohol—doesn’t mix too well with crazy pills—but I knew at that moment what it must feel like to be drunk. Everything in my world shifted, and I knew I would trade every breath I’d ever taken for more of him. In a heartbeat.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a red blinking light.
Security camera.
Chapter 15
I don’t think it will make a difference if you destroy it.”
I’d pulled a table umbrella from its stand and was using it, rather ineffectively, to knock the camera off the side of the building.