But my reaction didn’t affect him in the slightest as he reached forward and tapped my chin lightly with two fingers, nudging it closed in a gesture that was almost playful.
“I am, of course, teasing you.” He let go of my hand as he finished speaking, settling back into his seat as though the space between us had been his to control all along.
“Are you?” I challenged, though it lacked its previous bite, my voice catching in a way that was embarrassingly breathless. As for the cause of my heart now hammering in my chest, he simply gave the smallest shrug.
“Trust me. Either outcome would be far kinder than what would happen if such an attempt came from someone else,” he replied, once more bringing me back to how this conversation had started and the threat of hitting him. However, his response drew me in again, prompting another question, just as he had likely planned.
“What do you mean?” I asked quietly.
He held my gaze without flinching.
“What do you think would happen to someone who attacked me?”
The question settled heavily between us as my mind raced back to the punishment he had inflicted on the guy who had touched me in his club. If he could do that, I dread to imagine what he would do to anyone foolish enough to try to take a swing at him.
I cleared my throat, twisting my hands in the material of my skirt and said,
“Right, well, let’s not test that theory, shall we?”
A faint curve returned to his mouth like he had just won this round.
“Please,” he said, inclining his head slightly.
“Continue. I believe we were at the flattened amphibian.”
I shot him a dry look.
“Ha. Ha,” I mocked a laugh, and he winked at me, before waiting for me to continue.
“Why are you so interested?” I couldn’t help but ask, truly curious.
My question seemed to take him by surprise, as if he were now asking himself that very same thing.
Instead of telling me why, he inclined his head once more and said,
“Indulge me.”
So, I shrugged and did exactly that, without really knowing why.
“Okay, well, I saw this poor frog and then ran to my mom, hysterical, convinced I’d committed some unspeakable crime. She took me outside, and we had this little pond in the garden. That’s why there were always frogs around. Anyway, she told me to place him on a lily-pad. Said it was the proper way to say goodbye,” I said, my voice softening without meaning to.
“I laid him there. I cried. Like a lot… I remember being convinced the other frogs were judging me,” I added after a small laugh, shaking my head at myself and the innocent memory of it. A faint sound escaped him, not laughter, but something gentler that warmed the space between us.
“The next morning,” I continued.
“I went back to check on him, and he was gone. But sitting right there on the lily-pad was this tiny ceramic frog. It was the first one my mom ever bought me,” I told him, smiling faintly at the memory.
“She told me, sometimes when you make a mistake, you replace it with something better. Something everlasting, a lesson learned, and in this case, a gift given, so I would also remember to be careful around those who were vulnerable.”
He granted me a soft smile, and there was something in it, something almost tender, that caught me off guard. The car hummed steadily beneath us as I added,
“After that, it just became my thing. Lily-pad as a nickname and frogs every birthday, every Christmas, every holiday. It just stuck.”
He was silent after that, and when I looked at him, something in his expression had softened in a way I hadn’t seen before. The usual control remained, but it had gentled around the edges even more.
“That is possibly the most adorable thing I have ever heard,” he said quietly, and heat rushed to my face instantly.
“It is not adorable,” I protested weakly.
