He inches closer, hands surround my body, causing me to tilt my head back so I can continue getting lost in his hazel eyes. His pupils enlarge, the black color dominating all others. And then he leans in and runs his tongue over his lips awfully close to my face.
My gaze falls to his mouth, and I blink.Game over.Did he do it on purpose knowing I’d cave in? The corners of his mouth seem to turn up in a smirk. I avert my gaze, turning my whole head to the side.
Unbelievable.
Victor steps back but is still in my personal space, the invader that he is.
I lower my voice. “The knife mark was a misunderstanding because the guy… my ex-boyfriend, was drunk.” The command center of my mouth is not controlled by my brain anymore,apparently. Technically, he wasn’t my boyfriend. What else am I supposed to call Charlie besides monster, drug dealer, lunatic?
Victor wobbles a step back with eyes narrowed into small slits.
“I’ll fucking kill him!” he roars the words.
Whoa.
His voice is so threatening I believe he really could kill Charlie. But Victor doesn’t know how complicated the entire situation is. If it were that easy, I would have handled it myself by now.
“You don’t need to be so concerned about my well-being,” my voice is soft.
His limitless eyes are about to pop out of their sockets. And my uncontrolled mouth keeps on moving.
“You know getting punched in the head results in bigger trauma than my wound. Fighting can result in all kinds of injuries on the brain, and they’re long-term.”
Victor shifts his weight. He’s still holding gauze in one hand and a roll of medical tape in the other. I expect steam to come out of the bull’s flared nostrils. I need to put a filter on my mouth.
“Give me one good reason not to go after this asshole.”
“Notyourbattle.Ican handle it.”
By running away from here.Hopefully, his psychic powers don’t work right now.
“A man should not hurt a woman.”
Should anyone ever hurt anyone?He is an MMA fighter. He hurts people for a living.
This is not going well. He’s not calming down. I don’t want him to get involved. I don’t want to be responsible for more trouble.
A strange idea pops into my head and I act on it without my brain fully processing the consequences. I cross the distance between us and place one trembling hand in the middle of Victor’s chest—on the bull’s head. He exhales a hot breath and takes another sharp one.
“Let’s just finish and go downstairs. They may be worried about us,” I say.
His eyes soften at the edges and become greener and brighter. His facial expression changes to something else, more intimate, wilder with emotions. Victor nods, and I drop my hand immediately to my side. I turn back to the sink and face the mirror.
“Rule number two of the friend code is to always tell the truth. I’ll give you some time to figure this out, but you’ll need to tell Alek. If you don’t want to share with me, you’ll need to share everything with your brother. Okay?”
He’s behind me again, taping over the gauze.
“I’ll talk to him.”
When I’m on the train.
Now that I’m all taped up, I examine Victor’s work in the mirror. I don’t want a scar. Maybe one day I’ll remove it with some laser tech. But the scars within… no technology can remove those. I let out a heavy sigh. “Do you think the neck scratch will leave a scar too?”
I face Victor, who places all the items he used into a small trash bag he must have pulled from a bathroom drawer. He’s not going to leave any trace in the bathroom for Alek to find. Victor is thoughtful, and my heart does a cartwheel in my chest.
“You won’t have a scar. How did it happen?”
“A guy ambushed me in my bedroom while my mom was passed out on the couch.”
