“You’re good at this,” Reid murmurs after a while. I’d almost forgotten he was there, that my canvas was a living, breathing person. Fighting against the blush that rises, I dip my head to look at the paint palette.
“Don’t patronize me,” I huff back. His arm shifts slightly beneath my touch, adjusting to permit me better access. “And don’t move. You’ll ruin my masterpiece.” A sound follows which could almost be a low chuckle, if I believed Reid were capable of one. He’s an enigma to me, a closed book I can’t lift thecover of and glimpse what could be inside. Even now, as some invisible wall dissolves between us, I have no idea what’s waiting underneath.
Questions rise to the tip of my tongue, but I clamp my teeth together before they can escape my mouth. The whole point of this strange form of art therapy is to soothe my nightmares, not to play twenty questions with Reid.
It doesn’t matter if he got his outlined tattoos for this exact reason, or if he suffers from nightmares often himself. I don’t need to ask how he manages to say so much whilst saying so little. And I don’t want to know just how long he’s been paying far more attention to me than I have to him. He’s simply allowing me this time, this emotional release, and I hope my gratitude is implied because I’m sure as hell not voicing it out loud.
I lose myself in the task, filling Reid’s arm with shades of gray and red, the skulls amongst the roses coming to life in somewhat 3D. My other hand turns his forearm back and forth, my fingers against Reid’s wrist as I make my way down. I don’t even realize I’m holding him so tenderly until his warmth seeps into my palm. Satisfied, I sit back, studying my work. Looking over his shoulder, Reid’s gray gaze catches my small smile.
“Better?” he asks. I huff a small laugh, noting how relaxed my shoulders are now.
“If this is some ploy to get me back in the shower,” I start, catching myself a moment too late. My teeth sink into my bottom lip, withholding the remainder of that sentence. Heat floods my cheeks again, but luckily, Reid doesn’t dignify me with an answer. I’ll blame my lack of sleep if he does.
Instead, I return to the actual reason I came here, which had nothing to do with pressing the line of my body against his. “Will you keep your music down now?” Reid holds my gaze, a beat of understanding happening between us.
“No,” he replies coldly, and my mouth drops open.
“Seriously?!” My brows shoot up, the brief moment of calm I’d managed to claw back slipping away. Reid doesn’t move much, simply peering down at the job I’ve done on his arm. It’s a stark contrast to the other one now, standing out boldly against the thin lines illustrating the rest of his body. I simply stare at him, waiting for some kind of reaction that I don't receive. Reid doesn’t care for my requests.
“Unbelievable. You’re lucky you’re cute,” I mutter, shaking my head as I snap the paint tin shut. I’m not even mad that compliment slipped through, my tiredness and irritation snapping back into place.
Pushing upright, I cross the room in two strides and grab the controller for the music. Reid watches me stuff it into my cleavage without any reaction, which only fuels me to throw his door open harder. And here I was thinking we were starting to cover some ground. Almost over the threshold, ready to lock the past half an hour away in the recesses of my mind, his voice finally sounds, stopping me in my tracks.
“Sometimes, I get the impression my brain hates me, too.” His eyes flick back to mine, a hint of sadness bleeding through his stoney irises. “The dreams, nightmares, whatever you want to call them. The therapists will tell you they’re trying to make sense of things you haven’t let yourself feel yet. I just think there’s no escaping our demons.”
I don’t turn around straight away, keeping my back to him as my hand tightens around the doorframe. There’s a very real fear that if I turn around, if I move too quickly, Reid might shut down again. Perhaps I’m learning how he ticks, how he offers pieces of himself sparingly, so I stay where I am. Letting the silence stretch just long enough for him to say whatever else is on his closed mind.
“I saw the student forum, you and that guy,” Reid continues and my eyes widen at the opposite wall. Well, I wasn’t expecting that, or what comes next. “I think you should go for it.”
Turning slowly, my throat is suddenly dry. The image of Thiago dipping me and kissing the tip of my nose flares to life within my eyes, but my curiosity takes over. I didn’t know Reid checked the forums, never mind forming opinions on them. I don’t know how to take a man I’ve just had a somewhat intimate moment with, telling me to pursue someone else, not that Reid and I were ever…or could ever have been anything else.
Standing to his full, towering height, Reid closes the distance between us, keeping himself on the other side of the threshold. His face is taut now, sunken eyes lowered to his bare chest. Even his white hair appears limp, flicking forward onto his face.
“I know what it’s like to yearn for someone you can never have,” he breathes, his voice suddenly edged with pain. My brows pull together as I barely breathe, not wanting to break his thoughts by inserting myself too soon. “It’s a fate worse than death. Excruciating and slow. Take whatever glimpse of happiness you can get and enjoy it for the rest of us.”
In the pit of my soul, I sense that Reid is speaking from experience, and my heart dies a little at that thought.
Licking my lips, I open my mouth to respond when Reid reaches forward with his painted arm. The color flashes beneath my eyes, barely registering his hand sinking into my buttoned top to fish the controller out of my cleavage. I don’t have time to even stammer at that as he steps back and shuts the door with a flick of his wrist. No sooner has it clicked into place does that music kick back up again. My eyelids flutter shut, the breath sawing out of me. Well, all of that is going to take some unpacking, and I’m nowhere near in the mood to do it now.
Chapter Thirty Eight
A shudder rolls through me and once again, I glare at the offensive AC unit in the corner of the room. The IT block is a far cry from my old bedroom, tightly enclosed with the curtains drawn, overly warm from the monitors that never rest and infused with the scent of an impending electrical fire. Good times.
Instead, I’m in an open plan space with rogue wires snaking across the floor and rows of desks barely holding up heavy, outdated computer systems. As well as being too cold, the chairs are hard and have no capacity to rock back with my fingers laced over my stomach. I suppose I can kiss goodbye to my primesupervillain era, but that doesn’t mean I’ve gone to the light side completely.
Lines of code flicker across my screen, my fingers moving lazily over the keyboard as I half-listen to the guys behind me arguing over which energy drinks give them a better boost. They don’t seem to be coming to a conclusion, which is just fine with me. As long as they’re too distracted to look over at my screen, they can start arguing over which professor sucks dick better for all I care.
The request came in early this morning, a quick job with a decent pay out. No one could blame me anyway. I may have awarded myself a fully paid scholarship, but my expenses are all on me. A new pair of Jordon’s for my collection, nightly takeouts, gifts for Meg. The important stuff.
With my screen angled towards the wall and a few clicks of the clunky mouse, I layer encrypted windows over one another, opening access points from a foreign IP address. The job is adjusting some financial aid records and rerouting funds so that they mysteriously go bye-bye. Basically, someone is about to go bust and someone else is about to get a lot richer.
Maybe I’m a cynic, but I don’t have a guilt gauge for these things. We’re living in a world where chipped plastic cards have the power to make or break us, enslaved to a structure that rewards bad behavior and doesn’t give honest, hard workers a chance. We bet on stock rates and pray on lottery tickets. We lose the people we love because insurance companies won’t pay out. And yet, it’s all just digits on a screen.
I may have been failed by an educational system who couldn’t support my dyslexia, but I do know my way around those digits. Now, I line the pockets of others as well as my own, and no one can tell me I’m wrong. Hacking is all I can do. It’s all that’s gotten me this far, sitting in this freezing cold IT room waiting for my girl to message me good morning.
Speaking of which, I pick up my phone and stare at the image of us on my home screen. Meg has been suspiciously quiet this morning, but it’s my understanding that yesterday’s game did not go well. The terrible weather was against them from the start and as much as I wanted to be there to support her, I was relieved when Meg insisted I sit that one out. I had to actually catch up on some coursework anyway. This degree isn’t going to fulfill itself.
“Dude, stop staring at your phone. She’ll message when she’s ready,” Tyler pipes up from across the room, earning a snort from James beside him.
