Chapter 17 #3
I glance down as she crouches beside me, gathering the groceries from the pavement, picking up the tin, and the apple that have seen better days, moving with the focused efficiency of a woman who needs something to do with her hands right now and has found it.
“Sky,” I say, already bending down beside her.
“I’m fine.”
I pause for half a second because I know that tone. She is absolutely not fine.
“Here, let me help.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Yeah, I heard you.”
“Then maybe try listening.”
I crouch anyway and pick up the flowers. They are a little crushed and bent, yet somehow still trying to be pretty about the whole situation.
Skylar snatches them from my hand.
“Careful,” I mutter.
Her head snaps up and I see the fury blazing in her eyes. Skylar has never been able to hide anything from me, no matter how hard she tries, and right now she isn’t trying very hard.
Fuck. That stare lands somewhere it has no business being.
“Careful?” she repeats. “That is rich coming from you.”
“I meant the flowers.”
“Of course you did.” She shoves the flowers under one arm and grabs the last tin off the ground with more force than it deserves.
“Men,” she mutters, dragging out the word as if it has personally offended her. “Always so fucking helpful right up until they make everything worse.”
I stare at her. “That directed at anyone in particular?”
“If your ego wants to stand in front of it, who am I to stop it?”
Even when pissed, she can still take a clean swing.
And because I am apparently still the same idiot I was seven years ago, some part of me wants to smile at that.
Skylar pushes herself to her feet, both bags awkwardly in her arms, one of them sagging badly where the corner has torn.
I reach for them before I can stop myself.
She pulls back. “I can carry my own groceries.”
“I know you can.”
“Then why are your hands on them?”
“Because one of the bags is about to give up on life.”
“Let it join the club.”
“Skylar.”
She huffs before thrusting one of the bags hard at my chest. Hard enough to make her point absolutely clear and leave a mark if I’m not careful.
“Fine. Since you are clearly desperate to be useful after your little pavement performance.”
I take the bag because she’s shaking. Only a little, barely enough for anyone else to notice, but I notice.
She turns toward the building and I fall into step beside her.
For three seconds, neither of us says a word.
It’s almost peaceful.
Which, with us, means disaster is warming up in the corner.
She shoves the key into the front door, yanks it open, and steps inside.
The lobby smells of old carpet, cleaning spray, and someone’s dinner from two floors up. The light above us flickers as if even the building is tired of our shit. The second the door shuts behind us, Skylar rounds on me.
“Why the fuck do you have to do that?”
I blink at her. “Do what?”
Her mouth drops open for half a second before she laughs, but there is no humor in it. Not even close. “That right there. The innocent face. The what-did-I-do routine. You just slammed a man into a brick wall, Zane.”
“He had his hand on you.”
“And you went straight for his throat.”
“He had his hand on you.”
“You keep saying that like it explains everything.”
“It explains enough.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She starts toward the stairs and I follow because, apparently, I have chosen argument as my cardio for the evening and am committed to seeing it through. “It explains why you were angry. It doesn’t explain why you went feral in the middle of the street.”
“Feral?”
“Yes, feral. Do you need me to use smaller words?”
I grit my teeth. “Who the fuck was he?”
She keeps walking. “That’s not the point.”
“It’s absolutely the point.”
“No, the point is you cannot keep solving every problem with your fists.”
“I didn’t hit him.”
She turns on the first landing so quickly I almost walk straight into her. “You had your hand around his throat.”
“He could still talk, so clearly I showed growth.”
“Are you serious?”
“No,” I snap. “I’m not fucking serious. I’m trying not to lose my mind because I turned a corner and saw some prick grabbing you on the sidewalk.”
“I had it handled.”
The laugh that leaves me is short and ugly. “You were cornered on the pavement with your groceries spread across the concrete.”
“I said I had it handled.”
“And I am asking who he was.”
She turns and keeps climbing.
“Damien.”
The name drops between us and rolls down the stairs.
“Damien,” I repeat.
My hand tightens around the grocery bag until the torn corner gives another inch. “That supposed to mean something to me?”
“It means he’s nobody.”
“A nobody had his hand on your arm.”
She stops again and looks back at me over her shoulder with an expression that is tired, honest, and something else I can’t quite name. “He is someone I made the mistake of dating.”
Everything in me goes still.
She sees it and her eyes narrow. “Do not.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. Your face said enough.”
My voice drops before I can stop it. “Did he ever hurt you?”
“Not like you are thinking,” she says.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make it smaller because you think I can’t handle hearing it.”
She turns back to me fully.
There she is again, angry, tired and beautiful in the worst possible way. The way that makes my chest ache at exactly the moment I need my head clear and my chest to mind its own business.
“Maybe I am making it smaller,” she says, “because I don’t want another man deciding what my hurt is supposed to look like.”
That shuts me up.
For once in my life, at this precise moment in this stairwell, my mouth has the good sense to stop digging and let the silence do what it does.
She holds my gaze for a second longer. Something passes between us that neither of us reaches for. Then she turns and climbs the last few steps.
I follow her.
Slower this time.
By the time we reach her door, the fight between us is still alive. We are simply breathing, waiting, as if it has all the time in the world and knows it.
Skylar opens the apartment door with a sharp twist of the key, then walks inside.
She doesn’t hold it open for me. Of course, she doesn’t.
The door swings back and I catch it with my shoulder before it can hit me in the face. I step inside behind her, one grocery bag in my hand, and the second I cross the threshold, my chest does something stupid.
The apartment is small but warm and it is not meant to impress anyone. Mismatched furniture. A couch with a blanket draped over the back. A tiny table near the window, stacked with books, candles, and a cactus that looks considerably healthier than anything I have ever been trusted to keep alive.
There are photos stuck to the fridge. Cassie and Skylar laughing. Skylar, younger and softer, wearing a smile I haven’t seen in years. That one hits harder than it should.
Skylar drops the bag onto the kitchen counter with enough force to make the apples jump and she lodges a formal complaint.
I close the door behind me.
She turns, crosses the room, and takes the grocery bag from my hand before I can set it down.
“Thank you,” she says.
Her voice is polite which is never a good sign. Polite Skylar is a loaded gun wearing lipstick and I’ve been on the wrong end of it enough times to know exactly what comes next.
“But you can go now.”
I stare at her.
She stares back.
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“No, Zane. I save my comedy for men who do not choke people outside my building.”
“He had his hand on you.”
“And you nearly strangled him in the street.”
“I stopped.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Do you want a gold star?”
“No. I want to know why you are acting like I was the problem.”
She laughs once. The laugh that has never meant anything is funny and she turns back to the counter. “There it is.”
“What?”
“That thing you do.”
I step further into the apartment, even though every functioning brain cell I have left is telling me to stay near the door.
“What thing?”
“You make it sound so simple.” She starts unpacking the groceries with quick, angry movements.
Pasta on the counter. Apples beside it. The dented tin of tomatoes lands with more force than it needs.
“He touched me, so you reacted. End of story. Noble hero. Big, strong man. Everyone claps. Credits roll.”
“He fucking grabbed you.”
“And you lunged directly for his throat.”
My jaw tightens. “That’s not what I said.”
“No, but that’s what you think.”
“You have no idea what I think.”
She turns then, and fuck, the expression on her face almost cuts me open. It is something worse than anger. Something that has been with her since the pavement and has taken shape over the journey upstairs.
“I know exactly what you think, Zane. I watched it happen.” Her voice is quiet now, more devastating than the loud version ever was. “Your face changed. Your body changed. You went somewhere else entirely and I was standing right there, watching you become the man from that alley again.”
The words land hard.
The room goes quiet around them. That particular kind of quiet that arrives when something true has just been said and both people in the room know it, yet neither knows what to do with it yet.
I feel them in my throat. In my hands. In the old scars under my skin that have never fully stopped knowing what they cost.
“That’s not fair,” I say.
Her eyes flash. “No. None of this is fair.”