“That you’re flirting with me.”
I swallow as my skin starts to feel tight, restless. Swollen.
God, why?Whydoes he have to be like this?
Seductive and stunning and so freaking consuming.
Why does my body have to react to it?
He broke our heart, you stupid body. He betrayed us, remember? We were in pain for days. Weeks.
We still are…
“Oh my God, youaredelusional,” I tell him, fisting my hands.
Reed shakes his head slowly, his eyes glittering with challenge. “You know you don’t have to try so hard with me. You want me to touch you, Fae, just say the word.”
Fae.
And just like that, I stop breathing.
I stop shaking. My restlessness evaporates and I freeze.
I freeze in a time two years ago. When he used to call me that.
His white mustang was his baby and I was his Fae, short for Fairy. It’s because of my blonde hair, blue eyes and a pocket-sized body but with long, graceful, dancer’s limbs.
His words, not mine.
I’m not pocket-sized. I’m an average 5’ 4 ½”. But like a foolish girl that I was, it used to make me happy. It used to make me smile that he had a special name for me. I had a special name for him too but I’m not going there.
I’m never going there.
I take a deep breath, clutch my whiskey bottle and look him in the eyes.
“Hey,Reed.” Deliberately emphasizing his name, I smile with my mouth but my eyes are lethal; I can feel it. “I know it’s been two years and all but my name is Calliope Thorne. People also call me Callie. And if I’m being honest, I’d rather you not call me anything at all. But asshole’s choice, of course.”
He smiles too. Not the full-blown smile from a few seconds ago but a fraction of it. And like me, his mouth might be smiling but his eyes are grave, intense, heavy with our shared past.
“Calliope Juliet Thorne,” he murmurs. “I know what your name is, Fae. I also know what my name is. Do you?”
My breaths escalate.
They swell and crash inside my lungs when I think of his name, his full name.
Reed Roman Jackson.
This time when I go back in time, I can hear my own voice, my sixteen-year-old smiling voice, telling him,I’m Juliet and you’re Roman. And everybody knows that Roman is just a different version of Romeo. So that means we’re Romeo andJuliet. Which also means that we should probably stay away from each other. Since they both die and all…
If only I had taken my own advice and stayed away from him.
It’s in our very names, our fate. Our catastrophe. Our destruction.
“You said that our names made us Shakespearean, star-crossed lovers,” he says, bringing me back to the moment. “A teenage tragedy. And I told you that they didn’t. Because what did fucking Shakespeare know? To me, you’ll always be Fae. And to you, I’ll always be Roman.”
That’s what I used to call him, Roman. Not Reed.
Because back then I was a fool. I thought he belonged to me like I belonged to him.
