Bad Boy Blues, page 4
That’s all I can think about. In combination with his rougher voice and his bigger body, his tanned skin makes him look ruthless.
More ruthless than before.
More ruthless than what he used to look like, standing in front of his locker, or at the school gates, or sitting at the largest and loudest table at the cafeteria. Or riding his bike down the highway.
I’m not sure I like that. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I don’t like it. As if he wasn’t intimidating enough. As if my palms didn’t itch enough to slap the arrogant look off his face.
Damn it.
Why did he come back?
Everything was fine. Everything was normal. I’d gotten used to not hiding or looking over my shoulder and being mellow all the time and not plotting mayhem and murder. I’d gotten used to my curvy body and how my thighs jiggle when I walk.
The only reason I took this job was because I thought he wasn’t coming back.
I know people said that he went to go to Oxford University like every other Prince in their family. But I never believed it.
Zach hated school. He was so much of a rulebreaker and a rebel that it’s laughable to even think that he’d walk in his ancestors’ footsteps.
Not to mention the way he left. So abruptly. Kind of like in the dead of night. He didn’t even graduate high school.
I knew that when he left, he didn’t go to Oxford and he wasn’t planning on coming back.
But I guess I was wrong about one of those things.
He is back.
After the dramatic fiasco in the ballroom, a couple of staff members escorted me out. Tina helped me clean up the wound and told me to take it easy. I’d been rattled all day and something was bound to happen. I don’t think Mrs. S would be as forgiving, though.
But I can’t think of that right now. I can’t think of what tomorrow will bring now that Zach knows I’m here, at The Pleiades.
They put me on kitchen duty after I so thoroughly embarrassed myself. It’s hot and sticky in there – I don’t know how Maggie does it – and I need a little break.
So I step outside through the service entrance and try to just breathe.
The night air isn’t much better and my uniform for the event, white blouse and tight black skirt, clings to my sweaty body but I don’t care. Anything is better than being cooped up in that kitchen.
I toe off my two-inch-heeled Mary Janes and unravel my braid, followed by the top two buttons of my blouse. I fan the fabric, trying to get some air going, and lean against the wall, closing my eyes.
“Are you okay?”
The rumbly voice makes me jump.
“Jesus. Fuck,” I almost shriek.
At first, I don’t see anything other than the dark outline of bushes and trees in the distance. But then I notice a cloud of smoke and whip myself in the direction it’s coming from.
Him.
Zach is leaning against the brick wall, his foot propped up. A cigarette hangs from his lips and he doesn’t have his jacket on, leaving him in his dark t-shirt that shows off his bulging biceps.
Oh jeez.
He isn’t even flexing them and they look menacing.
“You scared the fuck out of me,” I accuse.
An intricate-looking Victorian lantern lends enough light that I can see him. His face is turned toward me and I can’t escape the sheer grandness of his features. Sharp and cutting with a square jaw and high cheekbones, complete with dark velvet hair.
“I can see that,” he comments.
Then his corded chest swells out like a giant wave as he takes in a drag before sending the smoke out in the night.
“So are you?” he asks, looking at me again.
I creep closer to the wall and take a small step back, away from him. “Am I what?”
My only concern is to get out of here. I’d be turning back and running. But experience has taught me to never leave my back exposed and open. So I keep walking backward, slowly.
“Are you okay?”
My bare feet get caught up in my abandoned Mary Janes but I catch myself from stumbling. “What?”
In typical fashion, he remains silent and smoking. And staring.
That’s what Zach does: he stares. Like his eyes are a microscope and I’m a bug or an interesting specimen that he wants to study. That he’s been wanting to study for years or squash under his boots.
“Did you just…” I squint at him. “Ask me if I’m okay?”
“Sounds like it.”
Three years.
I’m seeing him after three fucking years and this is what he asks me.
After everything, after all the pranks and the things he’s put me through, is he really asking me that? Like I’m some kind of a stranger that he happened to find on the street, and now he’s enquiring about the fucking weather.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you asking?”
His eyes go to where my injured hand is, fisted against the wall. My cut starts to throb. I feel the gash heating up, as if all my blood is rushing to it just because he mentioned it.
That’s when I remember that he touched me.
I can’t believe he touched me.
At that moment, I was so shocked that I couldn’t register anything about the touch. But now I remember that his skin was warm – somehow, warmer than anyone else’s. And it was rough and scrape-y, his palm. As if he has more fate lines than anyone else I know.
He motions with his chin. “That needs a bandage.”
I open my sweaty, heated fist. “It’s fine.”
“It was a deep cut.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d like what?”
“For it to be a deep cut.”
Again, he doesn’t say anything to that, simply keeps his eyes on me.
Over the years, I’ve learned that this is his intimidation tactic. Going all quiet and intense so the other person is forced to fill the silence.
I’m not falling for it.
I’m not falling for anything he’s planned. I would think that even this meeting was a set-up, if I hadn’t spontaneously thought of stepping out.
He’s done this before, actually. His minions locked me inside Mr. Philips’, our history teacher, office after giving me a fake message that he was waiting for me. I was stuck inside that room for two whole hours until the cleaning crew came in and unlocked the door.
Asshole.
“Are you aware that you’re walking backward?” he asks at last, turning toward me, propped against the wall on his arm.
I realize that he’s right. I have been walking backward. “What’s it to you?”
“You can’t do that.”
I scoff. “Yeah? Why? Are you going to stop me?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, but if you keep going then the potted plant behind you will.”
My eyes go wide, and I come to a jerky halt.
He’s right.
There are potted plants flanking both sides of the service entrance and I feel the brush of the leaves against my back. If I’d kept going, I would’ve stumbled into them or maybe even fallen.
“I knew that,” I lie.
“Sure,” he says with an amused voice that gets my back up; it’s an old reflex.
There’s something about him, you know. Some quality, some kind of provocation that lights my skin on fire.
“I didn’t need you to tell me that,” I insist.
“Got it,” he replies flippantly.
Even though I take offense at his tone, I decide to stay quiet. I promise myself that I won’t say anything.
I don’t. For about six seconds. Then, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Back in this town. Back in my life. Back in my fucking head.
“Getting fresh air.”
“Right. And you had to pick this spot?”
“Yes.”
Then he has the nerve to twitch those cancer-breathing lips before taking another drag and tilting his face up. A growl surges up in my throat but it’s cut short by what he says next.
“I forgot that you could see the stars up here,” he murmurs.
His voice almost sounds like a low, satisfied sigh. Like the sight of stars is something he hasn’t had in a long time.
While he seems at peace, his words are playing havoc on my body.
They halt my breath and make my heart race. They awaken the butterflies.
I remember the falling star from last night. I remember the wish I made, and now, he’s here. A potential danger to everything I’ve been working toward for the past few months.
“And you couldn’t see the stars where you came from?” I ask.
Zach looks away from the sky and at me. “No.”
Monosyllabic answers.
Great.
They’re designed to stoke curiosity. Rationally, I’m aware of that. Irrationally, I’m wondering about his whereabouts for the past three years.
“Ooo-kay.” I nod, hardly believing him. “Where did you go off to again?”
Silently, he studies me. “Why? Did you miss me?”
“Oh yeah, definitely. Like I miss getting shot in the head.”
Zach smirks, his black eyes glittering. “You know, I wasn’t real sure about coming back. But if it makes you happy, then I’m all for it.”
“Sarcasm.” I raise my eyebrows. “Gotta love it.”
“I aim to please,” he says, making the goose bumps wake up on my flesh.
I ignore that and get to the real question that’s been nagging me all day. I don’t care where he went, all I care about is why he came back and when he’s going to go away again.
“Why did you come back?”
I’d think my question got lost in the wind with the way he remains silent. But that’s another special thing about our town with a line. Even the air is dead. Nothing moves, just like him. His face is blank. Expressionless. But there’s something in his eyes, his stare.
It’s burning, like that cigarette trapped between his lips.
Then, that stare moves. His lashes flicker as he takes in the loose curls of my hair. I have an urge to reach up and touch them, but I resist it. I fist the fabric of my skirt to keep my hands occupied.
“Still blue, huh?”
I raise my chin. “Always.”
His lips twitch as he repeats on a whisper, “Always.”
I don’t know why he’s looking at my hair like that, with such intensity. Maybe he’s thinking up something mean to say. Whatever the reason, he doesn’t stop and when his lashes dip, I forget about the question I asked him.
What were we even talking about?
“Do you still use blue glitter pens?”
I used to, back in school. I was the poster child for the color blue. Blue backpack, blue clothes, blue glitter pens, and, when I grew up, blue hair.
I nod. “Yes.”
He nods back, looking… nostalgic. “Of course you do.”
I should say something. I really should. But I’m in a trance. I think this is what being hypnotized feels like.
Right now, all I can do is track his stare as it slides down the line of my throat, which feels jam-packed with rocks, making it difficult to swallow. When he comes down to my chest, I realize that the last time he saw me, I was a C cup. I’m a D now.
I have every intention to tell him to stop ogling. Asshole pervert. I don’t want him to stare at me. I don’t want him to make my skin shiver.
But my words won’t come out. They are stuck to the back of my mouth and my teeth are gritted.
God, make him stop.
But he keeps taking me in. My tucked-in waist, rounded hips and thighs, my bare toes. My curvy body that has only grown in his absence.
“Why did you come back?” I ask again. This time with a desperation that wasn’t there before.
He brings his gaze back to mine, and through the cigarette in his mouth, says, “Maybe I missed you.”
Forcing myself to break his stare, I look down. My Mary Janes are lying on the ground, one on its side and the other some distance away from it. Abandoned. Marooned and astray. Kind of like me, right now.
I need to get away.
Shaking my head, I bend down and pick up my shoes. “I’m leaving.”
“Nice uniform, by the way.”
I stop.
Hugging my shoes to my chest, I return his stare. His jaw is clamped. I can see the tic in his facial muscles.
Is he pissed off that I work for his family now?
Tough luck.
As if I like this arrangement. As if I’d ever set foot inside the house where he grew up.
“Thank you,” I say, smiling falsely and smoothing a hand down my skirt. “I think so, too.”
Zach looks away from me as he lets his finished blunt fall to the ground and crushes it under his boots.
“Never thought doing dishes and mopping floors were part of your life goals.”
I knew he was going to say something insulting. He’s Zach.
But still, I flinch.
Life goals.
What does he know about goals and ambitions? What does he know about what happens when they’re snatched away from you in one blink?
Even though it stings, I keep my voice calm and casual. “Well, you don’t know everything about me now, do you? And it’s called a job. That’s how responsible people buy stuff.”
“Responsible, huh?”
“Yes.”
Straightening up and away from the wall, Zach comes to his full height. Cocking his head to the side, he asks as if he’s so curious, “What else do responsible people do? Besides changing bedsheets for a job and breaking and entering into their place of work.”
My eyes widen. “It was… you.”
Oh God.
So, he is an asshole pervert. He was watching me last night.
“It was. You were cute in your little black outfit. Stupid but cute. Did you really think no one would recognize you?” He chuckles. “As cute as you were, I hate to break it to you though. You’ve got no future in espionage. You’re a little too…” He looks me up and down. “Visible for that. So maybe it’s good that you get to change sheets and mop floors. Gotta keep your options open.”
And there it is. A little dig at my body along with other insults.
Nothing has changed, has it? He’s still the same. Only now, I’m more vulnerable. I have more to lose. Like my job and eventually, my house.
“Thanks for your concern about my career choices.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Right. I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” I say, because I really can’t stop myself. “I wouldn’t expect someone like you, who’s gone through life riding on his daddy’s shoulders, completely wasted and high, to understand what it’s like for the rest of us.”
I stand tall under his scrutiny. I stand tall and firm, even though I’m quaking inside when he takes a step toward me. Then another and another. Until he’s so close to me that I can smell him.
Cigarette and blueberry pie, like the ones Maggie bakes.
Two things I never thought would go together but somehow do and I don’t like that. Not one bit.
Zach’s face is in the shadows now. But the sky and the stars provide enough light that I can see his eyes and his mouth when he says, “Yeah, maybe not. But I do understand one thing.”
Clutching my shoes tightly to my chest, I go for bravado. “What’s that?”
“If you want to keep this job, you’re gonna have to keep me happy,” he drawls.
His threat lingers between us, heavy and dark, just like him.
The soft leaves brushing against the nape of my neck suddenly start to feel sharp-edged and dangerous.
“I’m not your personal slave, if that’s what you think my job is,” I tell him, trying to hold on to the last remnants of my courage.
He leans down and his scent becomes so thick, so pervasive that my lips part. His stare falls to them before he looks me in the eyes. “I think your job is whatever I want it to be.”
Zach fills my entire vision. His dark t-shirt, his broad shoulders. I can’t see anything beyond him. It makes my heart pound faster. With fear. With hate.
So much so that I can’t stop myself from sneering, “You haven’t changed a bit, have you? I bet you still think you own the world.”
He shakes his head, slowly, dangerously. Hypnotically. “I don’t give a fuck about the world. But I do own you.”
Fully knowing that it might make my situation worse, I scoff. “You’ll never own me. Not now. Not ever.”
“Is that a challenge, Blue?”
Blue.
How can one word have such a drastic effect? It makes my inside tumble. My chest quivers as Blue slides down my throat as if I’ve inhaled it like a drug.
“It’s a promise.”
Zach scans my face, as if he’s memorizing my features. As if he plans to dream of me tonight.
I let him.
I let him memorize it, soak it in, so when he sees me behind his closed eyelids, he understands that I’m not kidding. That no matter what I’m not going to play his games. That somehow, I’m going to find a way to put this all to an end.
Getting my house back is too important to me.
“If we’re making promises, then let me tell you one thing,” he whispers, low and rough. “If I want you to be my slave, you’ll be falling to the ground so fast that your knees will bleed along with your palm. So don’t tempt me. I’m very easily tempted.”
Night sky.
I have a thing for it. A blue so deep that it’s almost black and the cluster of stars, trying to light it up.
It’s impossible, but I do appreciate their determination and that they come out night after night only to fail.
The first few months away from this town were hard because I couldn’t see the night sky. It’s practically impossible to see it in the city. Probably that’s why no one sleeps in New York. They don’t have a sky to call their own.
But even then, the lack of sleep, the fact that the world was an unknown void for me, I never thought of coming back.
Because nothing’s worth coming back here. Not then and not even now.
More ruthless than before.
More ruthless than what he used to look like, standing in front of his locker, or at the school gates, or sitting at the largest and loudest table at the cafeteria. Or riding his bike down the highway.
I’m not sure I like that. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I don’t like it. As if he wasn’t intimidating enough. As if my palms didn’t itch enough to slap the arrogant look off his face.
Damn it.
Why did he come back?
Everything was fine. Everything was normal. I’d gotten used to not hiding or looking over my shoulder and being mellow all the time and not plotting mayhem and murder. I’d gotten used to my curvy body and how my thighs jiggle when I walk.
The only reason I took this job was because I thought he wasn’t coming back.
I know people said that he went to go to Oxford University like every other Prince in their family. But I never believed it.
Zach hated school. He was so much of a rulebreaker and a rebel that it’s laughable to even think that he’d walk in his ancestors’ footsteps.
Not to mention the way he left. So abruptly. Kind of like in the dead of night. He didn’t even graduate high school.
I knew that when he left, he didn’t go to Oxford and he wasn’t planning on coming back.
But I guess I was wrong about one of those things.
He is back.
After the dramatic fiasco in the ballroom, a couple of staff members escorted me out. Tina helped me clean up the wound and told me to take it easy. I’d been rattled all day and something was bound to happen. I don’t think Mrs. S would be as forgiving, though.
But I can’t think of that right now. I can’t think of what tomorrow will bring now that Zach knows I’m here, at The Pleiades.
They put me on kitchen duty after I so thoroughly embarrassed myself. It’s hot and sticky in there – I don’t know how Maggie does it – and I need a little break.
So I step outside through the service entrance and try to just breathe.
The night air isn’t much better and my uniform for the event, white blouse and tight black skirt, clings to my sweaty body but I don’t care. Anything is better than being cooped up in that kitchen.
I toe off my two-inch-heeled Mary Janes and unravel my braid, followed by the top two buttons of my blouse. I fan the fabric, trying to get some air going, and lean against the wall, closing my eyes.
“Are you okay?”
The rumbly voice makes me jump.
“Jesus. Fuck,” I almost shriek.
At first, I don’t see anything other than the dark outline of bushes and trees in the distance. But then I notice a cloud of smoke and whip myself in the direction it’s coming from.
Him.
Zach is leaning against the brick wall, his foot propped up. A cigarette hangs from his lips and he doesn’t have his jacket on, leaving him in his dark t-shirt that shows off his bulging biceps.
Oh jeez.
He isn’t even flexing them and they look menacing.
“You scared the fuck out of me,” I accuse.
An intricate-looking Victorian lantern lends enough light that I can see him. His face is turned toward me and I can’t escape the sheer grandness of his features. Sharp and cutting with a square jaw and high cheekbones, complete with dark velvet hair.
“I can see that,” he comments.
Then his corded chest swells out like a giant wave as he takes in a drag before sending the smoke out in the night.
“So are you?” he asks, looking at me again.
I creep closer to the wall and take a small step back, away from him. “Am I what?”
My only concern is to get out of here. I’d be turning back and running. But experience has taught me to never leave my back exposed and open. So I keep walking backward, slowly.
“Are you okay?”
My bare feet get caught up in my abandoned Mary Janes but I catch myself from stumbling. “What?”
In typical fashion, he remains silent and smoking. And staring.
That’s what Zach does: he stares. Like his eyes are a microscope and I’m a bug or an interesting specimen that he wants to study. That he’s been wanting to study for years or squash under his boots.
“Did you just…” I squint at him. “Ask me if I’m okay?”
“Sounds like it.”
Three years.
I’m seeing him after three fucking years and this is what he asks me.
After everything, after all the pranks and the things he’s put me through, is he really asking me that? Like I’m some kind of a stranger that he happened to find on the street, and now he’s enquiring about the fucking weather.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you asking?”
His eyes go to where my injured hand is, fisted against the wall. My cut starts to throb. I feel the gash heating up, as if all my blood is rushing to it just because he mentioned it.
That’s when I remember that he touched me.
I can’t believe he touched me.
At that moment, I was so shocked that I couldn’t register anything about the touch. But now I remember that his skin was warm – somehow, warmer than anyone else’s. And it was rough and scrape-y, his palm. As if he has more fate lines than anyone else I know.
He motions with his chin. “That needs a bandage.”
I open my sweaty, heated fist. “It’s fine.”
“It was a deep cut.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d like what?”
“For it to be a deep cut.”
Again, he doesn’t say anything to that, simply keeps his eyes on me.
Over the years, I’ve learned that this is his intimidation tactic. Going all quiet and intense so the other person is forced to fill the silence.
I’m not falling for it.
I’m not falling for anything he’s planned. I would think that even this meeting was a set-up, if I hadn’t spontaneously thought of stepping out.
He’s done this before, actually. His minions locked me inside Mr. Philips’, our history teacher, office after giving me a fake message that he was waiting for me. I was stuck inside that room for two whole hours until the cleaning crew came in and unlocked the door.
Asshole.
“Are you aware that you’re walking backward?” he asks at last, turning toward me, propped against the wall on his arm.
I realize that he’s right. I have been walking backward. “What’s it to you?”
“You can’t do that.”
I scoff. “Yeah? Why? Are you going to stop me?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No, but if you keep going then the potted plant behind you will.”
My eyes go wide, and I come to a jerky halt.
He’s right.
There are potted plants flanking both sides of the service entrance and I feel the brush of the leaves against my back. If I’d kept going, I would’ve stumbled into them or maybe even fallen.
“I knew that,” I lie.
“Sure,” he says with an amused voice that gets my back up; it’s an old reflex.
There’s something about him, you know. Some quality, some kind of provocation that lights my skin on fire.
“I didn’t need you to tell me that,” I insist.
“Got it,” he replies flippantly.
Even though I take offense at his tone, I decide to stay quiet. I promise myself that I won’t say anything.
I don’t. For about six seconds. Then, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Back in this town. Back in my life. Back in my fucking head.
“Getting fresh air.”
“Right. And you had to pick this spot?”
“Yes.”
Then he has the nerve to twitch those cancer-breathing lips before taking another drag and tilting his face up. A growl surges up in my throat but it’s cut short by what he says next.
“I forgot that you could see the stars up here,” he murmurs.
His voice almost sounds like a low, satisfied sigh. Like the sight of stars is something he hasn’t had in a long time.
While he seems at peace, his words are playing havoc on my body.
They halt my breath and make my heart race. They awaken the butterflies.
I remember the falling star from last night. I remember the wish I made, and now, he’s here. A potential danger to everything I’ve been working toward for the past few months.
“And you couldn’t see the stars where you came from?” I ask.
Zach looks away from the sky and at me. “No.”
Monosyllabic answers.
Great.
They’re designed to stoke curiosity. Rationally, I’m aware of that. Irrationally, I’m wondering about his whereabouts for the past three years.
“Ooo-kay.” I nod, hardly believing him. “Where did you go off to again?”
Silently, he studies me. “Why? Did you miss me?”
“Oh yeah, definitely. Like I miss getting shot in the head.”
Zach smirks, his black eyes glittering. “You know, I wasn’t real sure about coming back. But if it makes you happy, then I’m all for it.”
“Sarcasm.” I raise my eyebrows. “Gotta love it.”
“I aim to please,” he says, making the goose bumps wake up on my flesh.
I ignore that and get to the real question that’s been nagging me all day. I don’t care where he went, all I care about is why he came back and when he’s going to go away again.
“Why did you come back?”
I’d think my question got lost in the wind with the way he remains silent. But that’s another special thing about our town with a line. Even the air is dead. Nothing moves, just like him. His face is blank. Expressionless. But there’s something in his eyes, his stare.
It’s burning, like that cigarette trapped between his lips.
Then, that stare moves. His lashes flicker as he takes in the loose curls of my hair. I have an urge to reach up and touch them, but I resist it. I fist the fabric of my skirt to keep my hands occupied.
“Still blue, huh?”
I raise my chin. “Always.”
His lips twitch as he repeats on a whisper, “Always.”
I don’t know why he’s looking at my hair like that, with such intensity. Maybe he’s thinking up something mean to say. Whatever the reason, he doesn’t stop and when his lashes dip, I forget about the question I asked him.
What were we even talking about?
“Do you still use blue glitter pens?”
I used to, back in school. I was the poster child for the color blue. Blue backpack, blue clothes, blue glitter pens, and, when I grew up, blue hair.
I nod. “Yes.”
He nods back, looking… nostalgic. “Of course you do.”
I should say something. I really should. But I’m in a trance. I think this is what being hypnotized feels like.
Right now, all I can do is track his stare as it slides down the line of my throat, which feels jam-packed with rocks, making it difficult to swallow. When he comes down to my chest, I realize that the last time he saw me, I was a C cup. I’m a D now.
I have every intention to tell him to stop ogling. Asshole pervert. I don’t want him to stare at me. I don’t want him to make my skin shiver.
But my words won’t come out. They are stuck to the back of my mouth and my teeth are gritted.
God, make him stop.
But he keeps taking me in. My tucked-in waist, rounded hips and thighs, my bare toes. My curvy body that has only grown in his absence.
“Why did you come back?” I ask again. This time with a desperation that wasn’t there before.
He brings his gaze back to mine, and through the cigarette in his mouth, says, “Maybe I missed you.”
Forcing myself to break his stare, I look down. My Mary Janes are lying on the ground, one on its side and the other some distance away from it. Abandoned. Marooned and astray. Kind of like me, right now.
I need to get away.
Shaking my head, I bend down and pick up my shoes. “I’m leaving.”
“Nice uniform, by the way.”
I stop.
Hugging my shoes to my chest, I return his stare. His jaw is clamped. I can see the tic in his facial muscles.
Is he pissed off that I work for his family now?
Tough luck.
As if I like this arrangement. As if I’d ever set foot inside the house where he grew up.
“Thank you,” I say, smiling falsely and smoothing a hand down my skirt. “I think so, too.”
Zach looks away from me as he lets his finished blunt fall to the ground and crushes it under his boots.
“Never thought doing dishes and mopping floors were part of your life goals.”
I knew he was going to say something insulting. He’s Zach.
But still, I flinch.
Life goals.
What does he know about goals and ambitions? What does he know about what happens when they’re snatched away from you in one blink?
Even though it stings, I keep my voice calm and casual. “Well, you don’t know everything about me now, do you? And it’s called a job. That’s how responsible people buy stuff.”
“Responsible, huh?”
“Yes.”
Straightening up and away from the wall, Zach comes to his full height. Cocking his head to the side, he asks as if he’s so curious, “What else do responsible people do? Besides changing bedsheets for a job and breaking and entering into their place of work.”
My eyes widen. “It was… you.”
Oh God.
So, he is an asshole pervert. He was watching me last night.
“It was. You were cute in your little black outfit. Stupid but cute. Did you really think no one would recognize you?” He chuckles. “As cute as you were, I hate to break it to you though. You’ve got no future in espionage. You’re a little too…” He looks me up and down. “Visible for that. So maybe it’s good that you get to change sheets and mop floors. Gotta keep your options open.”
And there it is. A little dig at my body along with other insults.
Nothing has changed, has it? He’s still the same. Only now, I’m more vulnerable. I have more to lose. Like my job and eventually, my house.
“Thanks for your concern about my career choices.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Right. I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” I say, because I really can’t stop myself. “I wouldn’t expect someone like you, who’s gone through life riding on his daddy’s shoulders, completely wasted and high, to understand what it’s like for the rest of us.”
I stand tall under his scrutiny. I stand tall and firm, even though I’m quaking inside when he takes a step toward me. Then another and another. Until he’s so close to me that I can smell him.
Cigarette and blueberry pie, like the ones Maggie bakes.
Two things I never thought would go together but somehow do and I don’t like that. Not one bit.
Zach’s face is in the shadows now. But the sky and the stars provide enough light that I can see his eyes and his mouth when he says, “Yeah, maybe not. But I do understand one thing.”
Clutching my shoes tightly to my chest, I go for bravado. “What’s that?”
“If you want to keep this job, you’re gonna have to keep me happy,” he drawls.
His threat lingers between us, heavy and dark, just like him.
The soft leaves brushing against the nape of my neck suddenly start to feel sharp-edged and dangerous.
“I’m not your personal slave, if that’s what you think my job is,” I tell him, trying to hold on to the last remnants of my courage.
He leans down and his scent becomes so thick, so pervasive that my lips part. His stare falls to them before he looks me in the eyes. “I think your job is whatever I want it to be.”
Zach fills my entire vision. His dark t-shirt, his broad shoulders. I can’t see anything beyond him. It makes my heart pound faster. With fear. With hate.
So much so that I can’t stop myself from sneering, “You haven’t changed a bit, have you? I bet you still think you own the world.”
He shakes his head, slowly, dangerously. Hypnotically. “I don’t give a fuck about the world. But I do own you.”
Fully knowing that it might make my situation worse, I scoff. “You’ll never own me. Not now. Not ever.”
“Is that a challenge, Blue?”
Blue.
How can one word have such a drastic effect? It makes my inside tumble. My chest quivers as Blue slides down my throat as if I’ve inhaled it like a drug.
“It’s a promise.”
Zach scans my face, as if he’s memorizing my features. As if he plans to dream of me tonight.
I let him.
I let him memorize it, soak it in, so when he sees me behind his closed eyelids, he understands that I’m not kidding. That no matter what I’m not going to play his games. That somehow, I’m going to find a way to put this all to an end.
Getting my house back is too important to me.
“If we’re making promises, then let me tell you one thing,” he whispers, low and rough. “If I want you to be my slave, you’ll be falling to the ground so fast that your knees will bleed along with your palm. So don’t tempt me. I’m very easily tempted.”
Night sky.
I have a thing for it. A blue so deep that it’s almost black and the cluster of stars, trying to light it up.
It’s impossible, but I do appreciate their determination and that they come out night after night only to fail.
The first few months away from this town were hard because I couldn’t see the night sky. It’s practically impossible to see it in the city. Probably that’s why no one sleeps in New York. They don’t have a sky to call their own.
But even then, the lack of sleep, the fact that the world was an unknown void for me, I never thought of coming back.
Because nothing’s worth coming back here. Not then and not even now.
