“But even so, I can give you back your money. I have some cash in my bag.”
I do, and I can pay him back.
His folded arms flex as he considers my offer. And they’re so big and sculpted that I can see the hilly contours of them, his biceps, even through his hoodie.
His soft, cozy, warm hoodie.
Finally, he says, “Yeah, money is not what I’m interested in tonight.”
Like always, his tone is what gets me. His tone that sounds all dangerous and villainous.
And something else that I’m trying not to think about, seductive.
I lick my lips. “Are you here for revenge then?”
He glances down at my lips for a second. “I haven’t decided yet.”
I don’t think a threat that sounds like a threat, feels like a threat, should also make things move inside of my stomach.
Innocent things like butterflies and tingles.
Corrupt things like thick, heated desire.
“Before you decide either way,” I begin. “I want to say something.”
He arches an arrogant eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
I want to purse my lips and narrow my eyes at his condescending tone, but I keep my features blank and say, “Even though you deserved it, it wasn’t my intention to do those things. It wasn’t my intention to dump my drink on you or stomp on your foot. Or even attack you like I did back at the bar. I’m not this violent person, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I don’t do these things. I don’t…”
I don’t steal cars…
I don’t say that but it’s right there. On the tip of my tongue.
That and the question, why.
Why did he save me? Why did he have the charges reduced after how I tried to destroy something that he’d built?
As I said, he deserved it, but why?
Reed, on the other hand, has no hesitation in asking me that question.
“Then why did you?” His voice is thick and raspy. “Do those things.”
I know he’s asking me about these recent events and not what I did two years ago. Still, I answer him like he is. “Because… because you make me crazy. You make me angry. You make me do things that I never thought I’d do in a million years. You turn me into this…”
I trail off again and again he picks up the thread. “I turn you into what?”
Those innocent little things inside of me, those corrupt little things, all of them go haywire. They go crazy and chaotic as I whisper, “Bad. You turn me into a bad girl.”
Fae.
Maybe that’s the magic in him. That dark magic that makes girls do things for him.
That makes them go crazy for him, fall in love with him even though they know that he’ll always end up breaking their hearts.
His gorgeous features are blank so I have no clue what he’s thinking right now and it’s not my business to figure it out either and so I keep going. “And that’s why I think it’s better if… if you stay away from me.”
At this, he says something even though his features are still unreadable. “You want me to stay away from you.”
I nod.
It’s more of a jerk than a smooth motion. “Yes, I do. Aside from what I just said, my brothers will lose it. They will kill you for going near me. And —”
“I can handle them,” he says. “Haven’t I told you this before?”
I grit my teeth and purposefully stop my breaths.
I refuse to breathe.
Refuse to take air into my lungs and give life to my body, give beats to my heart.
All these years later, his cavalier attitude still gets me. His reckless, cavalier, daredevil attitude.
God, Callie. You idiot.
“Even so. I don’t think we have anything to say to each other after what happened.”
“You mean how you stupidly fell in love with me and I broke your little heart.”
It shouldn’t hurt this much.
What he just said.
The wound inside my chest shouldn’t flare up and pulsate as if it’s new, freshly inflicted. But it does.
Maybe because he said it without flinching.
Maybe because he can talk about breaking my heart as if it’s so inconsequential that it doesn’t even warrant a change of tone or a ripple in his features.
And maybe that’s why my eyes sting. “Yes. So unless you’re trying to use me again, I suggest you leave.”
“I’m not trying to use you,” he says, studying my face. “You don’t have anything that I need.”
I want to laugh at myself then.
I want to laugh at my own stupid self that his statement made me flinch. That the fact that I’m now useless to him makes something contract in my chest.
“Well then, there you go,” I say with clenched fists. “I’m useless to you. So staying away shouldn’t be so hard, right? I don’t have anything you need and I don’t want you around either. Besides, you don’t even live here anymore, do you? You live in New York and I’ve heard it’s amazing. I mean, my brothers are crazy about that city. I bet you have a wonderful life at college. I bet you have great friends. People must be crazy about your soccer skills and you must be the campus stud and soccer superstar or whatever. So what are you even doing here, wasting your time? Who cares what bus I take or how I get to my studio? I really think you should leave and resume your awesome life and —”
“That’s different,” he says, cutting me off.
“What?”
He motions with his jaw, his gaze dipping down to my lips. “Your lipstick.”
My hand goes up and I touch my lips.
It’s so bizarre that he noticed. So strange and unexpected, his observation and his interruption, that all I can do is say, “Uh, yeah.”
His eyes come up. “So?”
“So what?”
“What’s this one called?”
I lower my hand and automatically reply, as if I’m still in a fog, “Train Wreck Princess.”
It’s blue with subtle notes of green and is overall lighter than Heartbreak Juju, which I wore the night of the bar.
“Why, because you’re a princess?”
“I’m —”
“But you’re not, are you?”
You’re a fairy…
His long-ago words flutter through my mind and probably in his mind too. Because his wolf eyes glint. They sparkle and so does his vampire skin.
And for a second, the studio vanishes, the polished hardwood floors, the barre, the mirrored wall, and all of that gets replaced by those woods.
The woods that we used to go to.
That lonely dark place where I used to dance for him.
Where I danced for him for the first time and he called me a fairy. Where…
“You’re a fairy,” he finishes his earlier spoken statement, his eyes grave and his lips tipping up.
I believed him.
Back then, I believed that I was a fairy.