“Helene told me to use the older pieces for you. There was mold on the edges, and I don’t want you to get sick.”
Is he crazy?
He’s eating stale, moldy bread instead of sharing the safe one. I rip it out of his hand and throw it down into the water. “You’re not going to get sick either.” Splitting the non-toxic sandwich, I pass him half as I lean against his chest. There are apples, bananas, and oranges in the bag with more bottles of water, a stack of dish cloths, and paper towels.
The discarded sandwich attracts screeching birds as they soar above the water then dip down to peck at it. I don’t want to think too deeply about what they survive on, but I watch them fighting each other for every morsel.
Kane wets a paper towel with the condensation collecting on the outside of one of the water bottles before he picks up an apple. Using the damp tissue, he cleans the skin then begins cutting it with the same knife he held at my throat. He brings the small slice to my lips as he whispers, “You always said it would hurt your teeth when you bite into it.”
“When I was eight,” I deadpan. “Because I wanted chocolate.”
“The stuff in the fridge isn’t labeled, and I don’t trust whatever the meat will be.”
“So we’re vegetarians?”
“For now. When we leave here, I’ll take you on a proper date. Steak and chocolate.”
I smile like a fucking idiot that has already forgotten step one as I bite into the apple.
“I’ll pick you up, open your door for you and after, what?” he says softly. “Nearly twenty years? We’ll have our first date.” He cuts another slice, but I shake my head when he brings it to my lips.
“We had a date.”
Pausing with the apple between his teeth, he cocks a brow. “When?”
“When we were twelve. We watched an old horror movie at a retro night, which was awful. You could see the boom in all the shots while they were running from the killer.”
“No, we didn’t. I got sick so I couldn’t go, remember?”
Asher.
I thought it was weird Kane didn’t mention me holding his hand while we were watching the movie, but I thought it was another reason he didn’tlike-likeme. In my juvenile mind, he was doing the kind thing by not mentioning it, so I ignored it too in fear of losing my best friend.
“It was Asher pretending to be you,” I explain, wrapping my arms around him. “That’s how he tricked me into going out with him.”
“Why did you stay with him?” I stare at his tight hold on the knife, anticipating it being held at my throat. But he doesn’t turn it on me as he drives the sharp point through the core of the apple.
“At the time, it was daunting to admit I’d been tricked.” I shrug. “I thought we’d break up after a few weeks, he’d get bored or I’d be able to make it less embarrassing. Then my parents were happy when they found out. I wasn’t a stupid girl irritating them, I was Delilah who made a good choice.”
“You were never stupid.” He hugs me closer, kissing my crown. “We were children trying to navigate a world we didn’t know was really a puppet show. There’s only so many ways a body can bend when there are strings attached.”
“I never felt those strings when I was with you,” I whisper, staring at the horizon.
“Do you still get jealous?” he asks, whipping his hand down so the apple falls off the blade. The steel is covered in the juice, and he gently presses it flat against my lips as he whispers against my ear, “I have never touched another woman, only you. I’ve never wanted to fuck anyone else, so you never felt the strings because they were on me. You control me, you always have, but you never noticed.”
“What about the girl you were talking to in school? You took her on a date?”
“We were doing a group project, but I liked that it pissed you off. I wanted you to be afraid of losing me like I was with you.”
He drops the knife into the bag before he turns me to straddle him, grabbing the back of my head to seal his lips over mine. The towel gets tangled, unknotting and slipping away from my body as he leans forward. I gasp into his mouth whenhe roughly grabs my ass with both hands as my hair softly blows in the wind.
The towel is ripped away as the wind picks up and my chest heaves from Kane’s hungry stare. He leans back enough to be able to see me fully, slowly raking his gaze down my exposed body. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful.”
He rests against the window, handing me a bottle of water. I expect him to take out his own when he reaches back into the bag, but he lifts a large jar hidden beneath the dish cloths.
“Why do you have coconut oil?” I ask, resting the cool edge of the bottle on my bottom lip.
“Prison rules. You learn how to keep your skin from drying out when you have no money left.”
