“Visiting from LA?”
Perhaps that was a rude awakening because she jolts upright, with one leg out of the bed, ready to make a run for it.
Our stares crash into each other’s, and it’s like the moment of reckoning when the world tips on its axis. For one split second, everything feels right, as if I can finally breathe and the world isn’t going to be yanked from beneath my feet.
There’s no threat to my career, or that constant, itching need to see her.
She’s in my bed. In my sights. Wearing my shirt, beneath my sheets, undermyroof. She’s close enough to touch, and not just pixels on a screen, and I can take her in without fear of being caught.
Mina’s eyes are comically wild and frantic—what I’d imagine a cartoon character would look like when they’re caught somewhere they shouldn’t be.
It’s not how I wanted this to go, but it’s what I expected nonetheless. In my fantasy, she’d just be shocked and then elated to end this whole charade, but she doesn’t know what I know. This isn’t a level playing field.
And I didn’t want yesterday to be the catalyst. I was hoping we could play a different song and dance before the curtains rise.
Yet here we are. And she doesn’t look... pleased.
The heavy bags under her eyes feel like a punch to the stomach. The red lining them is the killing blow. Whoever destroyed her apartment may have handed me the means to bring us closer, but he forfeited his life for coming into her space. Once I find him, he’s a dead man.
Unless her mother is the reason she cried. In which case, I could find it in me to come to terms with killing a woman.
I grab the strawberry-flavored lip balm out of a nearby cupboard and throw it onto the bed beside her. “You forgot this here last month.”
And the purple shirt that’s now in my drawer.
Or, at least, I think she did. It’s hard to keep track of what I’ve taken from her place and what she’s left at mine.
If her eyes widen any more, they’re going to fall right out of her head. She’s stock-still, lips parted like she’s trying to decide between fight or flight.
It’s rather amusing seeing her brain spin a thousand miles per hour. Yesterday, when she looked at me like a deer in headlights, I knew letting the skeletons out of our closets would be both liberating and downright fucking maddening.
How am I expected to keep my hands to myself when she’s finallylookingat me? We’re close enough to touch, and she’s awake for every moment of it. I never knew that the sunlight would catch on the golden flecks in her irises. Or that her bottom lip would cast that much shadow along her chin.
For a moment, I’m simply content to look at her, then that isn’t enough. I need to hear her speak and for her to stop glancing at the fucking door like she’s seriously considering running from me.
Mina says nothing. Neither do I.
I can tell she has a hundred questions on the tip of her tongue, but when her only reaction is to gawk at me for the ensuing ten seconds, I decide to put us both out of our misery.
“Word from the wise: check whether a house has internal cameras or not before making a habit of breaking in without hiding your face.”
Her mouth opens and closes, and anger flickers through me when she glances at the door again before darting her eyes around the room, presumably in search of the cameras. Slowly, she reaches for her glasses and slides them on. The delicate bump in her throat bobs when our stares meet again.
“Y-you know who I am?”
A sick thrill runs down my spine at the sound of her voice. Yes. This is what I’ve been missing. Hearing her through the phone doesn’t do the real thing justice. There’s the barest husky touch that turns her whispered words molten.
Carefully, but with the confidence of a man who’s in his own space, I take a step forward so that my legs hit the end of the bed.
“Mina,” I confirm, and watch with rapt attention as she suppresses a shudder. “Or would you prefer to be called JT?”
The sharp intake of breath makes me want to gloat. I know everything there is to know about Mina. I’ve never been into academia, but I have no doubt I could write pages about every minute part of her existence, and all the ways I see her for the woman she is.
“How long have you known?” I hate the hint of fear laced in her voice.
“Which part?”
Her eyes dart between mine. “W-who I am.”
