FIFTEEN
JULIAN
LUCY
Something is wrong. If not wrong, thendifferent.
Off.
And I don’t like it.
He won’t tell me what it is. He won’t give me a chance to ask him about it before he’s changing the subject, focusing only on me. On how I’m doing. On what I remember. On how I’m continuing to settle in. But I feel it in the way the air changes when he walks into a room. In the way his shoulders stay tight even when he’s sitting still. In the way he stares out at Harmony Heights like he’s daring it to try him.
Dallas is not the same.
And I don’t know why.
At first, I thought it was due to what happened with Heather. The poor girl got the wrong idea in her head that she was supposed to enter an arranged marriage with Dallas, as though that’s something normal in Harmony Heights. He told me he would take care of it, and I think he must have, because—at the very least—she hasn’t come back.
After how he chased after me, then brought me to the dandelion fountain in the old park, I wanted to believe him when he said that I was his wife, and that there was no one else. Of course the girl was confused. How could he marry her if he was already married to me?
Unless we were divorced, not separated, but when I floated the idea to Dallas, he looked at me with such a curious expression and said, “We don’t do divorce in Harmony Heights.”
I had blinked, folding in on my house, apologizing for even asking the question, before he shook his head, coming out of a daze, and kissing me so thoroughly I stopped doubting the fact that we were still legally wed.
For that night, at least, I managed to set aside my suspicions. Too bad they always come creeping right back in…
It’s so strange. Especially how, sometimes when he thinks I’m distracted doing something else, I walk into the living room and see him standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows with his hands clasped behind his back, rugged jaw set, like a king surveying his kingdom.
King.
The word flickers in my head sometimes, uninvited. I think it, then I choke, and it’s all I can do to banish it before I examine it too closely.
The changes aren’t all bad, I have to admit. After he caught me staring in the mirror over the vanity in the guest bathroom, tugging on my hair, poking at the purple bags under my eyes, and, in a rare state of vulnerability, murmuring that I didn’t understand why a man like him lovedme, Dallas has gone to even bigger extremes to make sure I know that he does.
It was my fault. I know he told me that Heather had the wrong idea about Dallas being a bachelor, but I couldn’t stop comparing myself to how young and fresh and put together she was. She was the type of poised woman that would believe thata wealthy man—or a dangerous one, like Dallas—would take one look and want to corrupt her. Hell, I want him to corruptme.Everything about him, from his job as a mechanic to the truck he drives, his tattoos, his scruffs, and his muscular build… the dark look in his eyes, the scars on his hands, and the way he holds himself… the man radiates danger, though the most amazing part is how safe I feel when he’s around.
So he looks and dresses and acts like a biker. He laughed when I mentioned that one, saying that it’s Bas in their friend group who’s into motorcycles, but my point stands. If I didn’t know him and I saw him on the street, one part of me would freeze. Sure, the other part would want to start taking my panties off, but still. He looks like someone you wouldn’t want to cross, but he’s so, so good to me.
This man is kind. He is gentle. He is patient.
Then, when I need him to bend me over the nearest surface, fucking me so wildly that I have bruises that I relish come morning, he’ll do that, too, because that’s what I want.
No. That’s what Ineed.
And after he picked up on how my self confidence has been in the dirt ever since my accident, he’s done the sweetest thing.
He leaves me notes. Scrawled on torn scraps of papers or on the backs of receipts, they’re where I wouldn’t think to look for them, but when I find them, it’s just so obvious.
The first one was tucked under my coffee mug.
You scrunch your nose when you’re thinking. I love that. It’s adorable.
The second was folded beside the bathroom sink.
You always tilt your head to the left when you laugh.
The third was slipped between the pages of the book I was reading that I had left on the coffee table in the living room.
