“I’m not telling you this because I need you to feel bad for me. You asked why I do what I do, and now you know.” I stepped into him, hoping he would back away from me like he normally did, but he didn’t. He stayed right where he was, his jaw tight and his brow furrowed.
“Cal…” he said, stepping in closer to me. Suddenly, I found I was the one backing away.
“You know what? You said you wanted a tour, and we didn’t make it very far, did we? Wanna see where the wicked witch ofthe east used to stay?” I grinned at him, snatching up his hand and dragging him out of the room. “We renovated it after Cass moved out; now it’s a dope guest room. Naomi’s so sick with interior design. Come see!”
Ryan didn’t push me; he just let me lead him through the rest of the house and give him an enthusiastic, over-animated tour.
I put on my best show, laughing and grinning and whipping out all my best jokes. Each time the corner of his mouth tilted up, I felt a bleating beat of success shoot through my chest.
Keep ‘em laughing.
I loved it when the people around me were smiling and laughing. Sad people made me anxious.
But no matter how many times I made him smile, none of them seemed to really reach his eyes, and I felt a sickening sense of guilt that it wasmyfault those smiles weren’t hitting him properly anymore.
Alrighty then. No more talking about my sad boi past.
From now on, I would just focus on making my ginger snap happy.
I was good at that.
Just ask Cass and Naomi.
After giving me a tour of the townhouse he shared with Naomi, Cal took me home. He remained positive and upbeat the entire drive, yammering my ear off about the horrible song blasting through the speakers.
He seemed to have made it his personal mission to get me to like dubstep, and I couldn’t help but do my best to listen attentively.
After what he told me about his past, something inside me had definitely shifted. When I looked at him now, I could see the child in him. That small, innocent version of Callum that never had a chance to grow up properly.
He wasn’t a ruthless serial killer with zero ability to feel remorse. Whatever Cal was, he wasmadethis way. What brokemy heart was the fact that he truly didn’t seem to understand just how badly he had been abused.
This Damian Ryker guy had literallygroomedhim into being a child soldier and did so by dangling the safety of his sisters over his head as collateral. It was the kind of thing I had only ever seen in movies or on TV. To know all that had happened to the cheerful man sitting next to me made me want to pull him to my chest and just hold him.
Cal pulled up in front of my house and turned his handsome grin on me. My gaze tracked his hand as he slid his Ray-Bans up on his head.
“Home sweet home, ginger snap.” He smirked, his brown eyes dancing with amusement. He rested his hand on the back of my seat and nodded at my house.
“Head on in, I’ll be back in the morning with Naomi.”
I could feel the heat of his hand from where it rested by my face as if it were some sort of power generator.
Somehow, I knew he was still deflecting and trying to distract me from our earlier conversation about his past. I wasn’t done talking about it with him, but he seemed to be entirely uninterested in revisiting the topic of Apex and his upbringing.
Sighing, I glanced at my house and then back at him. He wassobeautiful. I could admit that to myself now.
His rugged, sharp jaw and warm olive skin made him look like some sort of sun god that had come down to earth to bless us with his smile.
Glancing down at his plush lips… lips that I had tastedtwicenow, I cleared my throat awkwardly.
“Do you… uh. Do you want to come in?” I asked quietly. Suddenly, I wasn’t ready for him to go. There was this strange new tension between us. It was different from the sexual tension I had been fighting since the first day we met.
This was the kind of tension that came from an unfinished conversation. I wanted to talk more about what had happened to him. Deeper than that, I found myself wanting to be a safe person for him to confide in. My fingers itched to pull him into me and hold him and soothe him because, despite the fact that he was still smiling at me, there was this sort of confused pain lurking beneath it.
Cal was hiding from me, and I didn’t fucking like it.
“I can’t tonight, ginger snap. Duty calls.” He winked, and my stomach soured at his gentle dismissal. I couldn’t tell if he was just saying that to push me away or if he really did have to ‘go to work.’
Either way, it made me extremely uncomfortable.
