Page 161 of Toxic Kiss

“Technically, we’re only in jail, not prison,” I say, before I can stop myself.

I’m genuinely shocked that smoke isn’t coming out of her ears.

“But, yes. I am.” I add quickly.

“Are you really? Because I don’t think you even know what the word means, let alone feel it.”

She shoots daggers at me with her gaze.

Stupidly, the thread of anger prevalent in her voice is a fucking turn on, but I keep that to myself.

“Will you come sit down?”

“No,” she snarls, stomping from one side of the small cage to the other.

“I think…” The guy in the corner mumbles and holds up a finger like he’s about to make a great speech. “That you should…hear him out.”

He really thinks about each word before he says it, and then he smiles.

Haven blinks, and I can see the wheels turning in her mind. She wants to reply, but isn’t sure if she should.

I point at my new roomie.

“Listen to him. He looks like he has a lot of life experience,” I say, purposely taunting her now.

“Yes…I do.”

He hiccups, then slides sideways and passes out, snoring with his face dangerously close to the toilet.

Not exactly the life experience I’m aiming for, but I’ll take any help I can get. Sadly, if you swap out the jail cell for a hotel room, I have been in that position.

Haven rolls her shoulders, and I love that I can still tell what she is thinking…at least some of the time.

“Call me whatever names you want, but come sit with me. Please.”

I give Haven my sad eyes. She grumbles under her breath but walks over. I still got it. The glee I feel is wiped away when she sits down, the bars between us, and I stare at the long scratch line across her cheek.

“We’ll be fine. Declan will have already contacted LG Records’ lawyers to get us out. They’ll settle a deal with that girl, and trust me, Charles won’t come after me. I’ll be shocked if we even spend the night.”

“See, that’s the thing, Cy, I don’t trust you. I’ve never been able to trust you. And saying, Hey, relax, I’ve been arrested before,” she mocks, “doesn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies.”

“Fair enough, but Haven, I’m not the same guy. You of all people should be able to see that.”

“Should I now?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, let me refresh your memory. You went months being…friendly. You sat with me if you saw I was alone. You offered to play video games with me or go to the mall because you knew I hated going alone. We laughed and talked, and in my heart, I hoped you were finally seeing how much we had in common, how similar we were in our grief. But I was on pins and needles the entire time waiting for the moment you switched back to being an asshole.”

The hurt in her eyes is something that I wish I could wipe away. But I’ll never be able to go back in time to fix things, so finding a way for her to believe me now is my only choice.

“Do you remember what you did?”

I don’t answer. Not because I don’t remember, but because I need to hear it as much as Haven needs to get it off her chest.

She licks her lips.

“You waited until I let my guard down, then yanked the rug out from under me. It was a tennis match you designed so that I would always trip and fall on my face. You knew that you were my weakness, and you exploited my feelings after isolating me from everyone else. You took so much pleasure in hurting and scaring me throughout high school. How I still loved you through that…I don’t know. I need some good fucking therapy.”