I stared at him. His face was hard again, all stone and shadow, like this man who dragged me out of the rec center wasn’t the same man who’d trembled under my touch minutes ago. That version of him was already gone. My stomach wrenched, that guilt and shame kind of creeping back in. Maybe I should stick to window shows.
He helped me with the helmet even though I didn’t ask. His fingers brushed my cheek, and I thought he might soften, but he didn’t. He tightened the strap under my chin just enough that it pinched and then turned away like it meant nothing.
The ride was fast and reckless and freezing with my arms wrapped around him, clinging to the only solid thing I had left to hold onto. He didn’t move or react to my touch, only reaching up once to put his hands over mine when I suddenly tightened my hold as we took a sharp corner. I realized it was more to keep my body moving the way it had to so we didn’t tip over.
When we arrived, he didn’t say anything but parked and walked inside, knowing I’d follow. He hadn’t cared that I saw how to get here this time, and for some reason, that worried me. Once we were inside, he avoided my eyes, busying himself with locking the door, checking windows, pulling the curtains tighter.
“Halo,” I said.
He didn’t respond.
“I’m sorry.” My voice was soft, nearly swallowed by the quiet.
Nothing. He walked to the kitchen and poured water into a glass like I wasn’t even there. He drank it down like he hadn’t had anything for days… honestly, had he consumed anything other than what I had offered him at the cafe?
“I didn’t mean to screw anything up, I just—”
“You shouldn’t have left,” he snapped, finally turning. “You don’t get to decide when you’re safe. Youdon’t knowwhen you’re safe.”
“I just needed air, a little freedom. I wasn’t trying to run away. I wasn’t trying to be reckless,” I said, repeating the word he’d used last night on the phone.
“But youwere.” He crossed the room in three quick strides, stopping just close enough that I had to tilt my head to look up at him. His voice dropped, but the words were still sharp. “Do you understand that you were two seconds away from running into men who would have killed you? Or worse?”
The blood drained from my face.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered again, “I didn’t know—”
“Exactly,” he cut me off. “You don’tknowanything. You keep acting like this is a game. Like it’s some romantic, fucked-up fairytale where you get to flirt with danger and survive by sheer luck. But none of this is luck, Eden.I’mthe reason you’re still alive. I am in control of your fate right now.”
My throat tightened.
“Iknowthat,” I said, “I just felt…”
He scoffed, turning away. “This isn’t about feelings.”
“You kissed me back,” I said, louder.
“I shouldn’t have.”
“But you did.”
“I don’t exactly get a lot of action in this line of work. Don’t flatter yourself.”
Ouch.
Then his eyes flashed with something that could have been fury or could have been regret. “You think you want something from me, but you don’t even know what I am. You don’t understand that I am just as dangerous…moredangerous than all of those men who want to kill you. I’m not here for your entertainment; I’m not here to be your babysitter.” He stared at me for a long, unbearable moment, and then said the one thing that actually stung: “You’re fucking naive.”
I flinched. I stood frozen in place as his words echoed off the bare walls like shrapnel.
He looked away again, like that ended the conversation, and maybe it did, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t, because somewhere deep inside, even after everything, I still wanted to touch him. I still wanted to make sense of him.
I held my ground, I didn’t turn away or shrink into myself. I watched him pace the edge of his own storm, hands flexing at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them. He was unraveling in slow motion.
“I’m not stupid,” I said quietly.
He didn’t respond, but he stopped moving. His shoulders rose with a sharp inhale. “Don’t mistake instinct for intimacy. I don’t have many morals, but I wasn’t going to kill you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s not any deeper than that. You think you’re in control of this, but you’re not. You don’t get to rewrite what this is just because it feels good in the dark.”
I swallowed. “But itdidfeel good. Didn’t it?”
