Chapter 190
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINETY
AKIO
My alarm woke me up at five fifty.
I slammed my hand on the Stop button so I wouldn’t wake Mom if she had returned sometime late last night and rolled off the couch. After yanking my shirt over my head, I grabbed some cream and bandages from the bathroom and headed to my bedroom.
Once I pressed my ear to the door to make sure Nicole wasn’t already up and dressing, I walked into the room and shut the door behind me. She lay in my bed, her head against my pillow and her cheeks still stained with tears.
After tucking strands of Nicole’s hair behind her ears, I sat on the edge of my bed and squeezed some cream onto my finger. The cuts on her face from her fingernails were deeper than I’d originally thought they were, and there was blood.
A lot of it.
I gently pulled off the bandages I’d placed on them last night and dabbed the cream on the cuts to moisturize them so they’d heal faster, until each one of them was covered with a glob of ointment. Then, I fastened some new, very small gauze pads over the wounds.
Nicole loved keeping up with her appearance, and I didn’t want her to see what she had done to her face last night. It hadn’t even seemed like it hurt her. She had sunk her nails into her head and pulled as if she wanted to rip off her face.
My chest tightened at the thought of her wanting to do that to herself.
Of anyone wanting to do that to themselves.
In the middle of me covering her last wound, Nicole fluttered her eyes open. I stiffened for a moment because I hadn’t wanted her to see me.
Last time I’d cleaned someone’s wounds was when I was five.
Mom had come home and passed out on the couch, bleeding everywhere.
I cleaned them up the best I could, but accidentally used the wrong cream on her.
Instead of Mom being grateful that I’d tried to help, she’d beaten me for using the wrong cream on her face and accidentally making it worse.
“You look tired,” Nicole whispered, glancing over at the empty bed. “Did you sleep?”
“On the couch, downstairs.”
“Why not with me?” she asked.
“Because.”
While I had thought about sliding into my bed and holding her like I had dreamed about doing for years now, I had decided that would be crossing a line. I didn’t know Nicole on that level and hadn’t wanted to do anything wrong.
After all, I was just the kid she was using to get a good grade.
Her lips quivered, yet she pressed them together. “You really didn’t sleep with me?”
“No.”
“You’re …”
A wimp. At least that was what Carter would probably say.
“So sweet.”
My gaze flickered up to hers. “Respectful.”
She didn’t have to call me sweet or nice because I would’ve done that if it were any woman in my bed. It shouldn’t be celebrated, but expected. And by the look on Nicole’s face, that wasn’t what she expected anyone to do.
Which pissed me off.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“A little bit.” She pushed herself to a seated position and leaned against my headboard. Her gaze raised to the mirror across from my bed, and she lifted her hand to her face. “Did you do this too?”
I nodded.
She slipped off the bed and walked toward the dresser, her eyes widening. “Oh my God. There are so many,” she whispered.
Her lips trembled, but she bit her bottom lip to stop it. Then, she leaned forward and peeled off one of the bandages, flinching when she saw the wound underneath it. I shuffled my feet against the hardwood, not sure what to do.
“I’m never going to be able to hide these,” she said under her breath.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
But I had heard her. Who was she hiding these from? Kids at Redwood?
After she replaced the bandage, she glanced at me in the mirror.
“Why are you so nice to me?” she whispered.
Because I like you.
“Returning the favor,” I said, but, God, it was so much more than that. I shuffled my feet across the floor, rubbing my sweaty palms together. “You know, from the other night when you cleaned up my black eye.”
“Oh,” she whispered. “I thought it was for another reason …”
My heart raced inside my chest, and I wanted her to say that she thought I liked her the way that she liked me. But she never finished the sentence, and I so desperately needed to hear it. So, I moved closer to her.
“Like what?” I asked quietly, standing next to her but placing the cream on the dresser and keeping my gaze on it. I couldn’t look her in the eye … because what if her reasons were drastically different from mine?!
Nicole moved a few inches closer, her body facing the dresser too. “You know …”
I swallowed, heart pounding.
She glanced up into the reflection, those bright eyes burning into me. When I lifted my gaze to meet hers in the reflection, she pulled hers away and gently ran her fingers across her bandages, cheeks reddening.
A moment later, she looked back at me through the mirror. Her gaze dropped to my lips, then lifted to my eyes. I swallowed again, my mouth suddenly dry and my heart so loud that I could hear it in my ears.
I moved an inch closer to her, our arms brushing against each other’s.
She leaned closer, brushing her arm against me again.
Does she know what she’s doing to me? She has to know the effect she has on guys.
Especially guys like me.
She stared at me in the mirror, her eyes wide and her lips pressed together, as if she desperately wanted to tell me something. And, hell, I wanted to tell her something, too, but it probably wasn’t the same thing.
“Akio,” she whispered, her cheeks even redder, “I li—”
But before she could finish her sentence, someone banged on the door. “Open up!”