“Anyone can blend in, pretend to be someone else. Look at me.” She twists her head slightly into me, her warmth heating my skin, which grows hotter with my next words. “Your safety isn’t a risk I’m taking.”
“Yeah, but based on your expression, you didn’t want to leave the room.” Her eyes flick from my lips to my own eyes, her proximity making it difficult to suck in the necessary oxygen. She smiles faintly, her next words tinged with an emotional truth. “Maybe I was trying to slip away before you felt the need to follow. You’ve done enough. It was a mistake asking you to come.”
Strangely, that does more to my insides than her scent. Coming to Italy was definitely a mistake. This bookstore will beone nail, her first class another. By the end of the week, I’ll be buried in the ground, wishing I denied her request.
But it’ll be a wish I’ll be happy went unfulfilled. She asked for me because she feels safe with me, and no matter what, that’s the most important thing.
Which is why I release my breath a little, to take some of her scent inside me. It’s the last time I’ll be this close to her. Already, I’ve clung too long, but this is her fault for saying words born from misplaced guilt.
“I agreed to help because I wanted to. I have a vested interest in ensuring your safety.”
A ripple passes through the blue of her eyes, like a gentle wave as she glances towards my left shoulder. After another moment, she whispers, “Alright, I promise to not leave you behind again.”
“That would make it easier, thank you.” My fingers uncurl from her arm. I hate touching others, and Idespiseothers touching me, but Serafina’s skin is smooth and soft, and I grabbed her without much though.
So strange.
She walks away, and I wait until she’s about ten paces before trailing her across campus, scanning everyone we pass. The majority are lost in their own activities, moving here and there. Some are gathered in groups, a couple guys across the way tossing a ball back and forth.
No one looks twice at Serafina, and yet, my head thumps, the unwelcome noise making everything fuzzy again. Inside the dorm and being in Serafina’s proximity made my head quiet, so it’s a striking shift.
Soon, we arrive at a store made of mainly glass labelled asCampus Storeabove the door. She stops and pulls out her phone, fingers flying across the screen. Even from the distance,the clicking of her nails reminds me of Anastasia, making the sound that normally irritates me oddly welcoming.
The area’s busier than the rest of campus, students flitting here and there, their anxieties making me want to hide. Seems she was incorrect about people waiting until tomorrow to shop, since inside ispacked. Many enter the store while just as many exit, their arms jammed with textbooks. An air of excitement tainted with the sourness of stress permeates the air, students all but reeking of it.
Not Serafina, though.
I have no fucking idea what I’m about to get myself into, but it likely won’t be anything good.
10
SERAFINA
Amara arrives a few minutes after I text her. She slides her sunglasses up her forehead as she wraps an arm around my neck, her hug clogging my mouth with her unruly dark curls, which are nearly as chaotic as her personality.
“Hey! How was the drive in?”
“Uneventful. Yours?”
“My parents insisted on a million and one photos. They’re gone now, and your message saved me from unpacking.” She gestures towards the buildings across the property. “I have a roommate who seems alright. Nice, I guess. Kind of quiet. What about you?”
Mine’s…interesting.I subtly glance towards where Lev is doing a less-than-stellar-job fitting in.
First off, the cargo pants and plain black tee are vastly different from most guys’ preference for jeans. When he moves, his shirt pulls slightly across his chest, highlighting that he’s a whole lot more fit than the average student. It makes him seem older, more dangerous. Certainly more intense.
It’s a similar outfit to the first time I met him; what he showed up fighting in, what he wore that morning in the kitchen.I wonder if the clothes are intentional, to hide weapons. If Lev is anything like Zeno, he’s never unarmed. People pass him with no idea that the stranger glaring at them could drop them with a single motion if he wanted to.
His eyes flash to mine before his lips pull up on one side, his smile crooked and almost shy. I break the contact before Amara catches me staring. She’d ask questions I’m not certain how to answer. She’s aware I have a brother named Zeno, but not who he is and what he does. Mentioning my protection detail will create questions I definitely won’t answer.
“Sera?”
Right. She asked about my living situation—which means admitting, “My brother paid for one of those expensive rooms. The mini-apartment ones we saw online.”
“Damn.” She whistles. “Lucky you. We’ll have to hang out at your place.”
Yeah, that can’t happen.
It’d be impossible to hide Lev if she visited—and more impossible to invent a plausible reason for my roommate being a guy, one who isn’t my boyfriend, brother, or anyone she knows.
