“Fine, I came looking for you.”
“Why?” Wes leans back in his chair, taking a long sip of his coffee.
I try to come up with a reason why I’m here besides the truth, which is that I’m trying to hunt him down because of morbid curiosity and a little bit of an obsession.
“Oh! Shane. I wanted to see if you made any progress on finding Shane.”
Wes raises a single eyebrow. “You didn’t have to come here to do that. I bet you wanted more of my pie.” He nods his chin to my plate. “I’d understand that. I can buy you another slice if you’re still hungry.”
I let out a laugh, noting that he’d buy back his own pie. “Ido have a thing for your pie. And I finished the one you left in my apartment.”
“What are you talking about?” Wes cocks his head and looks fake-confused. Oh, he’s still pretending it wasn’t his pie? Proof or not, I know it was him.
“Wesley.”
“Calliope.”
We stare at each other for a long few seconds, and I almost burst out laughing.
“I’ve been meaning to say.” He leans forward on the table as he breaks our silence, and smirks. “You probably shouldn’t eat random pies that show up in your kitchen. What if some lowlife tried to drug you?” His voice is a conspiratorial whisper.
“Who the fuck would do that?” I whisper back.
He shrugs and throws me a charming grin. Then a dark shadow crosses his face.
“But Calliope, you actually shouldn’t be walking down dark alleys at night by yourself.”
“And you shouldn’t be following people around.”
“Maybe. I’m honestly not sure how you’ve survived this long without someone like me to look out for you.”
“I’m usually a lot more careful.”
“I find that hard to believe, but okay.” He has the decency to look worried, not annoyed.
No one has looked out for me since high school. Not my father, nor Jake, nor Shane. But Wes seems to want to. That is… fucking weird. And shouldn’t make me as happy as it does. I can take care of myself. Kinda.
I swallow and shut my eyes, fighting back the memories of my father not protecting me from his associate when I was in high school. Pushing away the dread that cloaks me whenever I think of Shane’s gaslighting and demands for myfather’s money. I punch back the anger I have toward Jake, who could help me find Shane but refuses to.
“Hey, where’d you go?” A warm hand touches my arm, and my eyes fly open. Wes stares at me with a furrowed brow, and the spot where his fingers touch my skin draws my eyes.
“Uh, nowhere.” I shake my head and look up. “But I don’t need your protection. I don’t even know you.”
A comical flash of hurt crosses Wes’s face.
“You’re right. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
At this, I laugh. A smile turns up the corners of Wes’s mouth, and then he chuckles with me.
“What’s so funny?”
“There are so many ways in which you’ve overstepped over the past ten days.”
“Does that upset you?” he asks, paying careful attention to my reaction.
“Fuck, I don’t know.” I shake my head. “It should. It really, really should.”
So why doesn’t it?
