She skips past all of the other food meticulously laid before her and goes directly for the cake. I should’ve guessed that’s what she would go for, even though she hasn’t had anything of substance in her stomach since the previous night.
Wasting no time, she digs her fork into the soft dessert and quickly brings a heaping bite into her mouth. She practically moans as she wraps her lips around the fork before slowly pulling it out of her mouth, leaving a couple of smears of whipped cream on her lips. The combination of that sound with that visual sends my blood rushing south. Fuck. Keep it together.
“This is delicious,” she manages to say around a mouthful of cake.
I smile. “I’m glad you think so. It’s the cake you made.”
“What?” Her head snaps up, surprise shaping her features.
“The cake you made the other night. I had the baker prepare the whipped cream and strawberries to top it off, but it’s your cake.”
She turns her attention back to the food in her bowl, not saying anything, but as she takes another bite, she lets out a giggle so quiet I would have missed it if not for the stillness of the day.
“What’s funny?”
“It’s not funny.” She shakes her head, but she can’t rid herself of the smile on her face.
“Say it anyway,” I push, taking my own hefty bite of her cake. Her smile widens, and for a moment I think she might laugh. I hope she might laugh. She scoots closer, closing some of the distance between us, her face going serious as if ready to confess her worst sins.
“I may have contemplated slipping some hemlock into the cake while baking it and then serving it to you.”
My fork stops halfway to my mouth, and my eyes drift to hers, trying to decipher whether she decided to follow through with that thought or not. Surely she wouldn’t be giggling if she had accidentally poisoned the two of us. Or have I driven her that mad? She tucks her lips together, no doubt trying to conceal the smile that wants to break free.
I pause. It would be ludicrous for Azalea to poison me, but still I can’t stop myself from asking, “Did you?”
“No.” She shakes her head and releases a humored breath. “I realized that I wouldn’t be able to escape this curse if you died.”
“Glad that’s the reason you decided to keep me alive.”
Her shoulders bob casually as if she didn’t just admit to her contemplations of my murder. “It’s funny, though. If I had. Then, you would have accidentally killed us both in an attemptto be thoughtful.” This time, she claps her hand over her mouth to try to conceal the sound that is begging to break free.
“And that’s amusing to you?”
“A little,” she says, her voice strained. “It would be poetic in a way.” At this, she finally lets out the laugh that had been building in her chest, and it’s the equivalent of hearing the world come alive after a lifetime of living in silence. “Don’t worry, though. I’m glad I didn’t kill you. Then, we wouldn’t have been able to have this picnic.”
Her tone is friendly as she says this, as if her words are meant for someone else. She lets out another laugh. A true, genuine laugh. The musical sound wraps around my heart and squeezes to the point of suffocation. And as much as I want to capture that sound, so I can listen to it over and over again every night before I fall asleep, I falter.
Deep down, I know I can’t trust it. That laugh isn’t for me, yet I want to claim it as my own. I yearn to claim every part of her, and for that reason alone, I don’t trust it. Perhaps it’s myself I don’t trust when I heart it. Either way, I know I can’t allow myself to get used to it. Because if I do that, then when she decides to hate me again, when she decides to take it away, as she always does, as she always will, it will only be that much harder to let her go… again.
17
Braxton
“So,mynickname,”Azaleastarts, her eyes roaming my face.
“What about it?” I ask after the silence between us stretches for a beat too long.
“Where did it come from?”
I quirk a brow at her as I try to come up with an answer I know will appease her. I can’t tell her the entire truth behind the nickname, but I can give her something.
“Is this your—”
“Yes, this is my second question of the day,” Azalea cuts me off, rolling her eyes. “Why do you call me that?” she quickly clarifies.
“Many reasons.” My tone is casual even as my heart hammers in my chest.
For starters, you have the most maddeningly delicious flowery scent that I can’t seem to get out of my head, no matter how hard I try.I want to say, but I know that isn’t a truth she’s prepared to handle.
