If he knew, would he punch me? Lash out with his fists the way he used to before Charlotte? I don’t know, but if he did, I wouldn’t fight back.
I deserve whatever he might decide to dish out.
“Fine,” I say, nodding.
He arches a brow. “You sure?”
I nod. Once.
Nix laughs, clapping me on the shoulder. “Got it. Not in the talking mood today. No worries, just wanted to check on you. And to thank you for introducing Bea to Clover. They’re having such a great time since she moved in. I think it’s been really good for her to live with a friend instead of going straight to solo life after the breakup. Catch you later, okay?”
I nod, lifting a hand in farewell as he moves to rejoin Charlotte.
They are also deeply in love, but not in an unhinged way. In a profound way. Theirs is the kind of love that spans lifetimes, eternities. It’s the kind of love that strips you naked in the dark and makes you realize nothing else really matters.
It’s even more dangerous than the unhinged kind.
I knew the second I laid eyes on Beatrice that she was dangerous, the kind of woman who…
I nip the thought in the bud.
I refuse to allowthatthought pattern to dig a pathway in my brain.
Mistakes were made, but they won’t be made again. That’s the end of it. No more storytelling about the situation required.
Unfortunately, my resolve has zero time to harden before a peal of feminine laughter jerks my gaze toward the row of video games by the bathrooms.
And there she is.
Beatrice.
Beautiful, forbidden Beatrice in a loose, brown and yellow floral sundress and combat boots…
She sips what looks like a club soda as she watches Clover, the bass player I introduced her to, laugh over an old videogame. Torrance looks on from Clover’s other side, clearly trying to flirt. Sierra broke up with him a few months ago, but he doesn’t seem to have done much to process the loss.
He’s too busy running.
Running into too much drink, too much exercise, too much casual sex…
Clover won’t touch him—she has her shit firmly together—but she doesn’t seem to be bothered by him, either. She laughs at something he says and appears unconcerned when Beatrice touches a hand to her shoulder and walks away from the game.
I watch her go, her hips swaying the way they did that night three weeks ago.
But she wasn’t walking away then. She was walking toward me across my small kitchen, climbing into my lap, reaching for my belt, and then…
Well, then it all goes fuzzy. Hazy.
Unconscious in every sense of the word.
I was not inhabiting the highest plane of my Self that night, when Beatrice showed up at my door, drunk and sad and wondering if she’d always be alone. She was happy for her brother and Charlotte, but lamenting the fact that she’d been single for nearly six months and couldn’t even get laid, let alone learn anything new about love.
Or lust…
I tried to make her a grilled cheese. A glass of mint tea. Tried not to notice how fucking beautiful she was, with her hair wild around her bare shoulders and a dress that clung to her in ways I’d wanted to cling to her since the moment I met her.
I thought I’d tamed my baser urges.
Then I met Beatrice Nix.
