“Eat it,” he said in that rich voice I’d barely heard any part of for the last few days.
“I don’t want to eat it,” I argued, or at least I tried to. It didn’t sound all that effective when I was still whispering and my voice was so hoarse.
“You need the calories. Eat it.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. “Half and half?” I croaked.
He gave me his look. The annoying one.
“Please?” I compromised. “My stomach is all off. It’s pathetic. I know.”
His gaze narrowed, but he seemed to think about it for a moment before eventually nodding.
Taking his fork, I ate half and then handed him the plate.
It wasn’t until sometime later, when my butt was numb and the temperature started to drop so quickly that I was considering going inside, that he said, “I’m going to spend the night out here.”
Really? Even after we’d done the same for the last three nights?
“I’ve had enough of enclosed spaces for now,” he explained, like he knew what I’d been thinking.
Oh. “Is that… was that… your first time, you know, being captured?”
Alex had leaned back on his palms, head tipped back and aimed up toward the darkening sky. “Yes and it’ll be the last.”
I “hmmed” and nodded. That was good.
“I told you, there’s nothing that can hurt me,” he explained.
Other than what already had, I thought.
Did he know what had happened to him, then? He didn’t seem all that concerned about it anymore. He wasn’t focusing on the sky like he was scared of something in it. If it had been me who had gotten hurt the way he had, I’d be fucking terrified. So why would he be so nonchalant about it?
And why was he admitting this to me? Because he knew we were stuck together? At least until we figured out some way of hiding my identity. Or was I going to have to live in a house within hearing distance so I could shout if anyone ever showed up again? I guess that wouldn’t be so bad. There could be worse things than living close to someone whocouldprotect me against just about anything.
You know, I could have water poured down my face and into my mouth again.
Fuck.
Just thinking about it made my throat tighter than it already was.
I had to think about something else. “I’d give a year of my life for a bag of Cheetos right now.” I told him. “What about you? What would you want?”
“I could go for a fucking cookie.”
I snorted, surprised. Him having a sweet tooth was the last thing I would have expected.
We sat there quietly for a while before I thought about something that had crawled into my head while I’d been trying to distract myself. “Say, Alexander….”
I peeked at him to see what he thought about me saying his name.
The side of his mouth might have tweaked a little.
“You don’t happen to live near a beach, do you?” I asked him.
“No.” There was a pause. “Why?”
I took a shallow breath through my nose. “A couple nights ago, I had a dream about a beach, and it just reminded me that I’ve always wanted to go to a real one.”
