In my bowed body.
I’m on my knees, see.
With my fake, feather-light wings slung across my back, I’m on the floor and my body is bent in an arc, and he’s watching that arc, tracking it with his wolf eyes.
My shoulder blades, the slope of my spine, the line of my neck, all the way up to my tight, blonde bun.
And he’s so enamored that he doesn’t even know that I’ve spotted him.
Not until I unfold myself and stand up.
Only then do his eyes snap up and clash with mine. And what a clash it is.
I feel the impact of it right in my chest, right where my wounded heart lives, and I spin around to face him.
“You’re here.” I state the obvious. “Again.”
I knew he’d come.
Even though I was hoping that what happened at the cupcake shop might give him the message, I knew he’d follow me like he used to two years ago.
He’s a predator, isn’t he? A villain, and I’m the lost girl at midnight.
That isexactlywhy I chose to make my point that he can’t control me like he did before by getting here the way I wanted.
Reed doesn’t answer right away.
He’s watching a drop of sweat sliding down my throat, and when it disappears under the neck of my leotard, only then does he lift his eyes and say, “Because you ran from me the other day. Again.”
His usual statement said in a dangerous tone jacks up my breaths. It makes me hypersensitive. So much so that I feel that drop he was watching slide further down my body, reaching between my breasts.
But I try to focus on what he’s saying.
“I had to. You were being an asshole,” I tell him.
“And you were quite the picture of politeness yourself.”
I fist my sweaty hands at his accusation. “Well, you made me angry.”
“So you dumped your lemonade on me.”
My eyes go to his foot then, his right one that I stomped on. “And stomped on your foot.”
He narrows his eyes slightly as he continues, “You also left me to pay your bill.”
I wince.
I can’t believe I did that.
I’ve never, not in my entire life, run out of a restaurant without paying the bill.
Not until him.
But then that’s nothing new, is it?
I do things for him that I’ve never done. I feel things for him that I’ve never felt before.
He turns me into a different Callie. His Callie.
