Chapter 8
He heard the babble of the stream in the distance. Leaves rustled overhead. His phone rang again; neither of them moved. He could hear a parallel heartbeat, not his own, also in the distance; he wrapped a sleepy mental hand around it, holding on, and closed his eyes.
“Peaches,” Jake nudged eventually, not disrupting the peacefulness but adding to it, “and don’t take this the wrong way, I’m just asking, I’m not angry about it, but…is that your heartbeat I can feel? Alongside mine.”
“Oh. Um. Yes?” He opened eyes. Saw Jake’s, when they met his, become horrified pools of blue. He dove for words. “No, no, it’s not a proper tether, your life’s not—tied to mine, or—I don’t think so, anyway, you’re free to leave if—it’s only a sort of awareness, that binding, just a sense of—”