“You like him?” His brow soared high. Like he couldn’t believe I actually could like him. I mean, did he see the same person I saw?
“He’s cute.”
“Every male gender is cute to you.”
“Yeah, but this one is super cute.” I nearly giggled, and a flash of intense amber eyes that reminded me of autumn lingered in my memory.
Besides Kenzo’s ocean blue, the man’s amber were the prettiest and most enigmatic eyes I had ever seen. If you had ever seen an ember caught in a dying flame, you would know what I was talking about. His eyes and his skin had the startling contrast between the sun and the moon. Eyes, the sun. Skin, the moon.
“You don’t know him, Beth.” His tone was soft, carrying a gentle warning. But was I ever careful with this heart of mine?
“We’ve met him before, though.” I murmured, like that changed anything. Like the two meetings, first one being just one line exchanged between us meant we were bound by the hips now.
“Really?” His brows furrowed as he turned the wheel to the left, making a smooth U-turn.
“I get it, you aren’t really good with remembering faces but come on, Kenzo.” I couldn’t believe he didn’t remember him.
“He’s got the face and the appearance of someone that you can’t just forget.”
He didn’t answer me. Silence stretched between us. Maybe he was working through his memory, trying to fetch that one encounter.
“Regardless.” He broke the silence with an underwhelming point. “We still don’t know him.”
“But he’s really…”
“Pretty, I know.” His slender fingers almost tightened around the wheel, flexing, a way of working out his frustration. “Tell me, what’s his name?”
His name.
Right. I didn’t catch his name. How did I skip that? Shouldn’t the exchange of names come before that of numbers?
“About that…” I trailed off sheepishly.
“You don’t even know his name.” He shook his head softly, disappointed, and I could swear I saw a victorious grin touch the corner of his lips daintily. He thought he won.
“Well, I didn’t get to ask,” I mumbled, but not defeated.
He released a noise from the back of his throat. It sounded like a silent grunt of disapproval. Like he was so tired of my excesses and recklessness. But my heart was the only thing I owned. The only thing no one had taken from me. Why wasn’t I allowed to be a bit reckless with it? Why couldn’t I just explore for the sake of it?
Did his name or where he came from really matter? Hardly. The worst thing that could happen to a girl had already found me, way before I knew what the colour of the sun was. If he was a bad person, there was nothing he was going to do to me that I hadn’t had a share of before.
“He’s like way older than you.”
I rolled my eyes.Oh, please. Say something else, friend.
“You don’t even know his age.” I pointed out, shaking my head. His points were really weak as far as I was concerned.
“It doesn’t take a genius to know he’s fucking old.”
“You’re talking like he’s 60 or something,” I scoffed, relaxing into the chair, my eyes closed. “Besides, wasn’t Rowan older too?”
Honestly, I didn’t think age was a problem to me anymore. Be 50 or 100. Just show me the littlest of kindness, let your gaze soften when your eyes would fall on me. I would be clinging to you like my fucking lifeline.
I didn’t care about age or status. Girls who were favoured got to make choices. I was cursed, broken and dirty. I wasn’t lucky enough to decide what I wanted in a man or didn’t. I had always just taken whatever I found and called it mercy.
“But he looks…odd,” he said warily, almost as a whisper, as if he was a ghost here and could hear us.
“I think the word you’re looking for is unreal,” I argued.
