“Are you asking me to keep a secret, Fae?” he asks, his voice low.
The next breath that I take comes out broken.
It comes out like a hiccup.
Like my breaths are all tangled up in him, in this villain who somehow has come back into my life like he never left.
“Don’t you dare, Reed.”
His eyes drop to my bright green ballet flats. “You know my price, don’t you?”
Tingles rush up and down my legs and I curse them. I curse my limbs for getting excited.
For getting restless as if they’re still sixteen and stupid.
“Again, you’re insane. Because I’m never doing that. Never ever. I’ll die before I dance for you.”
The slant of his jaw becomes more pronounced, more angular, as he stares at me with a look that I don’t understand.
But still makes me shiver.
“You’re not sneaking out again,” he commands.
“Excuse me?”
“You want me to keep it a secret, you’re going to stay put. In your dorm room. Where you should be right now. But I’m going to let this slide.” He gulps my whiskey again. “You promise me that and I’ll take your secret to the grave.”
I look at him, standing here in his dark clothes.
That leather jacket that I hate but that makes him look so beautiful, so tempting.
Such a heartbreaker.
A villain I should stay away from.
But I don’t.
I walk toward him.
And I don’t stop until I’m so close to him that I have to crane my neck to look into his treacherous eyes. “You think that I’m going to get scared like I did two years ago, don’t you? You think I’m going to do your bidding. So I’m here to tell you something: I’m not. I’m not the same girl anymore. I’m not naïve or innocent or stupid. You know why? Because when I was almost sixteen, I met a villain in the woods. He was beautiful and gorgeous and like an idiot, I fell in love with him. I believed every word he said to me. I believed every touch and every smile and every look. Until I realized that everything out of his mouth was a lie and his hands were dirty. So I escaped. I got out of his evil clutches. Unscathed. And I can do it again. So you should really rethink your strategy about blackmailing me. Because I’m not afraid of cigar-smoking villains from a bad fifties movie, or even assholes like you.”
With that, I make a move to leave.
But I don’t get to go too far.
He grabs my arm and stops me. His fingers dig into my bare flesh, setting my entire body on fire, and I can’t help but struggle against him again. But he tightens his grip as he sweeps his eyes all over my face. “You still dance like a fairy.”
“Reed —”
“And you look like one too,” he continues, his wolf eyes dropping to my lips. “A pretty blonde fairy with dark lipstick lips.”
Lipstick lips.
I wear lipstick now.
I forgot about that too.
I forgot that I’m wearing one right now and now that he’s staring at them, my lips, with so much intensity and focus, I can’t think of anything else.
I can’t help but say, “Heartbreak Juju.”
His eyes lift. “What?”
“The lipstick. That’s what it’s called.”
It’s dark blue with very subtle shades of green.
When I found it at a store a year ago, I knew I had to have it.
I knew it was for me.
For the brokenhearted girl that I am now.
Something flashes in his eyes, something heavy and grave, and before he can say anything, I continue, “It’s my favorite lipstick. It suits me. Don’t you think?”
I’m not sure what I expected him to say to that.
But he does say something and he says it with that same heavy look in his pretty eyes that gets my heart racing. “It does.”
The first time I saw Calliope Juliet Thorne was when she was six and I was nine.
Until then I’d only heard rumors.
I knew that people called her the Thorne Princess.
The little sister of the four Thorne brothers.
People said that she could melt the snow with her sweet smiles. She could melt people with her shining blue eyes. Especially her brothers.
Whose hearts she held in the palms of her hands.
When she danced, people watched. When she spun, people stopped moving. They said no one danced like her.
The first time I saw her, that’s what she was doing.
Dancing on the playground, by the rusted swing set.
I don’t remember a lot about that day but I do remember watching her. No one had to tell me who she was. I already knew.
Because I couldn’t stop. Watching her, I mean.
I couldn’t look anywhere else when she leapt and jumped and spun on her toes.
And then I remember walking toward her.
I don’t know what made me do that but one second I was standing still and the next, I’d started moving.
It was as if she was gravity.
A blue-eyed, blonde-haired force of nature.
And good thing too because somewhere in her spinning and leaping, she lost her balance. But I got there just in time to catch her.
I grabbed her arm, and this part I distinctly remember.
I distinctly remember leaving muddy fingerprints on her skin, on her dress.
I remember dirtying her up because I guess before I saw her, I was playing ball or something and my hands were all messed up. I remember wanting to snatch them away, to keep her all clean, and yet all I did was hold her harder.
And when she stared up at me with her big blue eyes and said ‘thank you’ in a voice that reminded me of the cotton candy that my sister liked, there was no chance that I was letting her go.
But I had to.
Because her brothers descended on me.
By then I was familiar with them. With Ledger Thorne specifically.
We went to different schools but I’d heard about him. I’d heard about his older brothers too, soccer legends all and so he had to be one as well.
I fucking hated them for it.
I fucking hated them for their glory, their talent.
For the fact that I’d always seen them together around town, with their oldest brother Conrad leading the charge. Watching out for his siblings.
I fucking hated that they had each other when my sister and I had no one, not even decent parents.
And strangely in that moment, I hated them for leaving their sister alone and unattended.
For not watching over her, for almost letting her fall so that I had to swoop in and save her.
But whatever.
They were all there now and they’d pushed me away so they could take care of her and they could all go fuck themselves.
I didn’t even know why I’d saved her in the first place.
Why I cared enough to save her.
Their sister was their responsibility, not mine.
Angry at myself, I walked away and I kept walking even when I heard her say in that sweet, cotton candy voice, But he saved me…