“You should get some rest,” I said, deflecting the question. Or trying to at least. She turned sulky.
“I asked you a question, and I want an answer.” She sat up and brushed her bangs to one side, revealing her noticeable scar. Despite all the certainty she tried to demonstrate, she couldn’t win against my arrogant disregard.
“What was the question?” I taunted her, and she flushed with anger. She leaned back against her headboard and stretched her legs out in front of her. Her lips pursed in an involuntary pout, and I stared hungrily at her. I could have bitten her all over.
“You’re such a dick,” she said sharply.
“Fairies aren’t supposed to say bad words.” I smirked, looking at her thighs. It was a tremendous effort not to simply tear those jeans off her.
“That’s your problem—you think I’m some kind of magical being, some princess out of a fairy tale, but you’re wrong. I’m not living in a castle in the air. I also have shitty things in my past; I’ve got a messed-up family, a father I don’t get along with, and this guy who spits in my face and tells me I don’t mean anything to him whenever I try to show him how much he means to me.” She said it all in one bitter breath. Then she inhaled furiously and kept going. “If that’s what being a princess means, then I have seriously misunderstood all those fairy tales!” She shook her head, disillusioned, and clenched her fists.
I couldn’t understand why Selene didn’t just spread those fairy wings and soar away from a no-good devil like me or why she kept impressing me, stunning me. When she was so strong and tenacious, intelligent and gentle, attractive and…
Fucking beautiful.
“I’ve thought many times about what it would be like.”
We’d bounce off each other every moment of the day. I would be on you and in you every minute. You would be my angelic adversary, who I’d battle for all my days. I would bite your sharp tongue, kiss your little pout, stroke your sweet-smelling hair, and lick my way around your every curve. I would have you open countless fortune cookies in ordinary Detroit restaurants, and we would chase our fortunes together. I would ask you to kiss me like you loved me a thousand more times but never to say the words “I love you.” Then, I would make you get on your knees before me and make you my soulmate. I’d push you away a million times and go get you back a million and one.
Yeah, I had the occasional thought about you and me together.
I looked gravely at her after confessing my partial truth and instinctively touched her cheek. I felt a shiver down my spine as my fingers made contact with the softness of her skin, and she sucked in a breath at the gesture. I stared into her blue eyes, still shiny with suffering, and at her dry lips and clenched teeth.
“Lie down,” I whispered, and she obeyed. Then, still wearing her father’s sweatpants and my leather jacket, I arranged myself beside her. On my side, touching her hair.
Selene lay before me, and she was staring so intensely at me that I felt naked.
“Will you tell me someday what makes you so angry?” she murmured, delighting in the feeling of my fingers gently gliding through her long hair.
“Sleep now,” I answered, studying her rosy cheeks and eyelids puffy from crying. She sighed as I soaked up her coconut smell, trying to capture it in my lungs so I could take it back with me.
“So, will you stay tonight or—” she continued, fighting her exhaustion because she still wanted to talk to me.
“Shh…” I whispered before planting a kiss on her forehead.
Her eyes closed completely then, and after a few minutes, her breathing deepened. She was asleep. I stopped stroking her hair and carefully got off the bed, making sure not to let the springs squeak so she wouldn’t wake up.
I trod silently to her desk and rummaged around in her pink pen holder that had a kitten pattern printed on it. I smiled at that childish detail andthen wrote a note for her on a Post-it, scrawling the first thing that came to mind. I put the pen back where it went and stuck the meager little message on the top book in a nearby pile.
Then, I prepared myself to do what I did best—run away and leave her disappointed.
I opened the door, which did let out a slight creak, and I took one last brief look at her. The bedside lamp was still on, and soft light illuminated the shape of Selene stretched out on the bed, one hand in a fist beside her lips, the other by her side.
She was my Babygirl, and she would always be my Babygirl.
I crept out of the room, shutting the door behind me, and breathed a sigh of relief as I headed down the stairs and made it to the living room undisturbed.
“Are you leaving?”
I sucked in a breath when I heard Judith’s calm, confident voice. I turned to look at her and saw that she was right behind me. She was still wearing her elegant clothes and high heels, suggesting she’d just gotten home.
“Yes. I’ll wash the clothes you lent me and—” She shook her head and gestured for me to hold on a minute. She left and returned shortly thereafter with a paper bag in which she’d put my now-dry clothing and handed it politely to me.
“You can keep Matt’s clothes. Here are your own.”
“Thank you. For the clothes and the hospitality, but I really do have to go back now,” I said, taking the bag with a forced smile. I’d sleep in an airport motel or, hell, in the airport if necessary, but I needed to get out of this house.
“Dark…” Judith answered, and I froze just as I’d started checking my jacket pocket for my Winstons. I hadn’t had a smoke in too long because whenever I was with Selene, I forgot about nicotine.
