“Shower all that off of you.” He gestures to the blood, and I can only manage to stare at him as I get out. “Someone will be back for the shirt. Make sure you wrap it in a plastic bag, don’t leave it anywhere it will mark.”
Turning to close the door, I look down at him. “Why did you kiss me?” I ask, wanting to know if he will answer me.
At first, I think he’s going to shut the door and leave me with no explanation, like he does best, but instead he looks at me. “Because you are kissable.” He smirks, then shuts the door.
Kissable? What the ever-loving fuck does that mean.
Walking up the steps, I go to open the door, but before I do, it’s pulled open, and Tina is standing there. She stares down at my legs and back up, her eyes go wide as she looks behind me to Atlas who’s sitting in the car watching us.
“Don’t scream. Don’t say a word,” I tell her.
She listens and steps back, so I follow her. I turn around to angry eyes as the heavens above rain down a torrential storm, then I shut the front door.
“I need to shower,” I say, locking it behind me.
That damn man probably has a key for all I know. He seems to know and have access to things he shouldn’t.
“I’m coming.” I don’t protest, I’m too tired to do so.
Tina follows me in as I turn on the water, stripping off the shirt and placing it in a bag as requested, then get in.
“Just say it,” I call out while washing my hair.
I can feel her staring at me.
“Who is he? And what the fuck are you covered in?” She looks me up and down, and I look at her. “Paint…” She pauses, and I can see her thinking. “Is that… blood?” She shoots her eyebrows up.
“No. He’s involved with Lucy. We went to an art studio, and this is the outcome.” I tell her an utter lie. It hurts to do so because I don’t lie to Tina. Finishing up, I get out, and she hands me a towel. “You would tell me, right. If it was something else?”
“Yes, you know I would.” She nods, but I get the feeling she doesn’t believe me.
“So, he’s with Lucy. I had such high hopes with the way he looks at you.”
“How does he look at me?” I question. To me, he stares as if I’m a nuisance. Which baffles me, because I never asked him to be in my life.
“Like he’s hungry,” she says, turning and walking into my bedroom.
My hand touches my lips from when he kissed me, and I have to try to remember how he looked at me. Anger. Anger is all I seem to remember. How can Tina see that, and all I see is hatred?
“I know you’re thinking about it. But it is hunger. That man wants you as much as he doesn’t,” she calls out to me.
I take a look in the mirror at my bruised lips and shake my head at thoughts of him entering my mind.
He isn’t welcome.
And I hope all thoughts of him go away forever.
Chapter Fourteen
Atlas
Killing her friend is playing on my mind right now. Will Theadora tell her? She had to have noticed she was covered in blood.
Did Theadora tell her?
That bastard deserved to die. And anyone who looks for things that are mine will meet the same fate. This isn’t an option, and he knew this, and still he went looking for her. I can’t fix stupid, and that’s exactly what he was. Stupid.
His body will be found as a suicide, and no trace will come back to me. Luckily for me, the people who he hired to find Theadora work for me. So the first thing they did was tell me.
News articles will read, ‘Beloved Politician Commits Suicide.’ Let’s hope for Theodora’s sake the same thing won’t be said for her friend.
Theadora runs on Sundays like clockwork, but she hasn’t been doing that for quite some time.
I’m waiting out the front of her house where she would normally come out dressed in her sweats because the temperature is dropping, but after thirty minutes tick by and there’s no sign of her, I walk up to her door and knock. At first, she doesn’t answer, but then I hear her footsteps as I give it another firm knock. She pauses, there are no words or movement beyond the door in front of me.
“I should warn you, I have very low patience,” I say, knowing she’s on the other side.
“I could be sleeping.”
“You aren’t, so open the door.”
She goes silent, but I don’t hear her walking away. “Theadora,” I say, my patience growing thinner with each passing second.
Finally, she pulls open the door with a scowl sitting on her pretty pink lips. “What is it you do exactly that gives you so much free time to annoy me?” Her eyes pin me with a glare. “Seriously, what do you do?”
“I dabble in a lot of things, but my first love is my casino. I grew it from backyard gambling, and now I am the richest person in this town thanks to it.”
“So, you’re a dirty casino owner?” she says with venom.
“It didn’t start off that way, but yes. How I make a lot of my money is dirty, and Theadora…” I step up closer to her, “… I will do anything to keep my business safe and operating.”
“So, why are you here? Why are you annoying me?”
“What did you tell her?” I ask, and her eyes go wide. She shakes her head slowly from side to side.
“Don’t you dare threaten Tina. Don’t you dare.” Her bottom lip quivers.
“What. Did. You. Tell. Her?”
“That we went painting. She thinks it’s paint.”
“Good.” I believe her. She’s proving to be nothing like her sister, Lucy.
It’s then she looks me up and down and squints. “Why are you dressed like that?” She’s staring at my gray track pants and black shirt. She’s dressed in a shirt that comes down to her knees, and she has fuzzy socks covering her feet.
I look back outside, then turn to face her. “You run. I run. We are going to run together. Now.”
Her face is shocked as she stares at me. “You want to run with me?” she asks in disbelief.
“Did I stutter and not make sense?”
She bites her lip and looks down. “You don’t even like me. Why would you want to run with me?”
“We are going to get to know one another. So that starts with me running with you today.” My eyes scan her body. “Now, hurry up and get dressed.” I turn and start my stretching routine. When I don’t hear her move, I turn around, and she’s still standing there staring at me as if I have grown a second head. “Theadora.” My voice seems to snap her out of her trance, and she turns, running to her room. She doesn’t keep me waiting too long, and soon she’s out, dressed in tights and a long-sleeved shirt and joggers. Her hair is up in a messy ponytail with AirPods in her ears.
“I don’t talk when I run, so keep up and shut up,” she tells me. I smirk at her as she starts to stretch. She bends over in front of me, and it takes everything in me not to reach out and touch her ass. When she stands, she stretches one arm and looks behind her, at me.
“Can you keep up?” she asks.
“The question is… can you?” I take off, and it doesn’t take her long to catch up. Theadora runs next to me, never once slowing her pace. She’s fast. I knew she liked to run, but I didn’t expect her to be this quick. When we get to a crossing, I come to a stop, but she stays jogging on the spot, and before I can say a word, the light changes, and she’s off again. I never expected I would have to keep up with her, but somehow, I do. When we reach the end of her trail, she slows down and jogs on the spot while removing one AirPod, and she isn’t even out of breath.