Chapter 22. #2
“Basta.” He steps into me so suddenly, the words are caught in my throat, and when I meet his gaze, the tenderness in his eyes makes my heart feel like it’ll burst apart.
“Don’t.” He tilts my head up with a command he’s used before, but this time his voice is soft.
This time it’s a request.
“Ever.” He pulls his scarf down so I can see his face clearly and I shiver, but I can’t tell if it’s from the cold or the heat.
“If you want something from me, you’ve gotta give me a real chance,” he murmurs the words. “You have to wait for me. Don’t just drop the ball and run for the hills.” He pulls my bottom lip down with his thumb, “I don’t care where it is, I’ll go wherever you want… Okay?”
Reuben, you… you have this strange way of making me feel like... I'm real.
Like I'm someone special.
It hurts so much…
And yet it makes me so happy.
I close the distance between us to kiss his lips gently, and I can’t help the smile when I hear his breath hiccup. Can’t help the sadness when I realize he's not breathing—that I’ve stolen him away.
My kiss is clumsier than his—my lips inexperienced, my teeth maybe too gentle as they tug on his bottom lip—but it’s all of the sensations he’s placed inside me. All the guilt. The gratitude. The affection. And because there’s no regret, I’m sure there’s a bit of shame too.
And I want him to see all of it.
I want him to remember the colours he sees on me… and know it was real, at least. For me.
When I pull away, my response is breathless, “Okay.”
His gaze is stormy. Heated. Tender. “Do that—again?” He’s glitching before my very eyes. “I think I hallucinated it.”
“You didn’t.” A smile tugs the corners of my lips as I step past him. “I’m not going to ask why you’re here, so go home, before Xavier kills you. I'll meet you back at the house.”
Reuben mutters something under his breath—something about the chain of command—but I ignore him as I continue to follow Evie.
I’m sure to keep my sights on Evie for the rest of the evening, but Reuben keeps filtering into my mind like a fever.
Unfortunately, though, I don’t see him that night.
Or the night after that.
Before I can blink, it’s already Christmas Eve, and Reuben and I haven’t been paired together again.
I’m unsure if Xavier’s doing it on purpose; maybe we made a scene in the market like I’d feared…
but there’s nothing I can do about it, really.
Reuben’s been distracting me too much anyway.
I should be focusing solely on Evie so I can protect her properly.
Even with Christmas a day away, the roads and the malls are still bustling with traffic and people. All the last-minute shoppers are creating long queues for gift wrapping services and fighting with clerks over sales deals and discounts.
It's more chaotic than ‘jolly’, like the songs say.
Philip and Evie had already finished their shopping, so they stride through the mall at a leisurely pace, people-watching more than anything.
Gabriel and I have a hard time trying to follow them without drawing attention to ourselves.
We make a show of stopping for food and purchasing a few things while we look around, until our charges disappear into the cinema, a massive section of the mall.
I’m pausing at the threshold of it without meaning to, because I've never gone to one before.
And Reuben said we’d go together.
I hesitate at the entrance, but even I know my hesitation is ridiculous. My first movie doesn’t need to be with Reuben…
Still, the moment I cross the threshold, I feel irritated. My nose flares, and I ignore Gabriel's raised brow as we pay for tickets and follow the crowds through blue hallways.
The theatre is dark and cold with white lights along the stairs that lead to higher and higher seats.
The screen at the front of the room is bigger than any I’ve ever seen and I'm even more grateful for my black sweater and wool scarf when we choose seats closer to the top of the room, four rows away from Evie and Philip.
There aren’t many people here, and I’m trying to decide whether that’s a good thing, when Gabriel leaves to find the bathroom. It couldn’t be more than five minutes when he returns to sit beside me and I tilt my head up with a bored expression, “Do you know where—?”
My words trail off into silence. My heart simultaneously seizes and stutters all at once. Because even in the dim light Reuben’s watching me with a familiar heat, and his smirk sends a shiver across my skin.
“Where, what?” His voice sends shivers across my skin and I’m staring because it’s the furthest from what I expected.
“You’re joking.”
“I love jokes, baby,” he whispers and I can only watch with wide eyes as he leans into my seat and takes my lips with his teeth.
As startled as I am, I don’t pull away. The scent of coffee in my nose, the taste of him—by now, it’s too familiar.
It’s sunk so deep into my skin, it’s practically brainwashed me.
When he breaks the kiss, I'm sure the fire in his eyes is mirrored in mine.
“What… are you doing?” Stars, it’s like the kiss scattered my thoughts.
“You asked me to watch a movie with you.” The murmur of his voice makes my dick twitch and I’m tongue-tied for a few seconds before I can find my reason again.
“I said after work. Not during.”
He tilts his head, “But you’re happy to see me.”
Ugh. I squint my eyes into a piercing stare, preparing the harsh words on my tongue, “Reuben, if this is distracting you—”
“You don’t want to threaten me, baby.” His words are spoken slowly. Lazily. His voice is devastating and the spark in his eyes is daring me to keep going. To risk it. To test him.
I know better.
His cheek rests on his fist as he watches me, but even in the dark of the theatre, his charm is magnetic. “Besides, isn’t it your fault for distracting me?”
I ignore him with narrowed eyes, “Does Xavier know you’re here? Is Gabriel even coming back?”
“I think I hate other men's names on those lips,” he mutters under his breath in Spanish and I blink. I’m so unprepared, my insides melt.
Ever since the start of this operation, there hasn’t been anything else to do aside from monitor Evie…
but I’m not sure now if I should’ve blazed through the Spanish language like I did.
Ugh.
“Don’t worry about them, baby.” He threads his fingers through mine, and I sink into my chair in an attempt to hide the blush on my face as the movie starts up.
“What kind of movie is it anyway?” I grumble but my fingers only slide more deeply into his.
“I think it’s a re-run alien movie.”
The word alien makes me wince and I sink even further.
Reuben squeezes my fingers gently with a chuckle, "You don't like alien movies?"
I’d like them a little more if the aliens weren’t always blown to bits in the end.
Not to mention the ‘aliens’ in question are rarely friendly. They’re either wild and predatory, or intelligent enough to justify mass murder.
"They're unrealistic," I mumble. And depressing.
“But our planet is just one in millions out there,” Reuben’s head tilts to one side. “It might not be that unrealistic.”
My head snaps to him and there’s so much suspicion in my gaze that he snorts, “I’m just saying. I wouldn't be surprised.”
“Never thought you were the type to reflect on the possibility of alien life.”
“I’m a balanced guy,” he grins.
Balanced is… most incorrect. I ignore him, “Well, that's not what I meant. I just think it’s… unrealistic to think they kidnap cows.”
“We’re past that now, you know.” He raises a teasing brow. “These days they kidnap people."
“Why would they do that?”
“Food?”
I meet his gaze with a steady, blank stare, “So what were they eating before?”
Reuben’s lip twitches. “They could’ve run away from home… and now it's a last resort?”
I think I already feel a headache coming on from the nonsense, “Right. So what if, there are aliens out there, but they're just curious about you and aren't interested in eating you?"
“You mean like... vegetarians?”
And now, my head hurts.
"Vegetarian aliens?" He repeats.
Kill me right now.
The corners of his lips tilt up, “Tell you what, since it means that much to you—"
“It does not.” I want to punch the amusement off his face.
“—If I ever meet a vegetarian alien,” he bulldozes right through me with an obnoxious grin, “that is not interested in snatching up people—or cows—"
“I hate you."
“—I won't shoot them.”
I hope the colour of my exasperation blinds you to death.
“I'm sooo happy,” I deadpan, “you’d do that for me.”
By some twist of fate… the movie is actually my favourite. It’s about a human who tries to blend into an alien society to learn more about them and ends up falling in love with them and their culture. He chooses to live as one of them in the end.
I’m sure to keep one eye on Evie in the rows below us, but otherwise… I love every second of it. So much so that I don’t remember breathing through any of it.
“You lied, baby,” Reuben’s voice pulls me out of the movie at a climactic scene, and when I turn my gaze to his, reluctantly, he’s still watching me.
There’s no change in his posture that says he’d looked away at all.
“You love alien movies.” There’s a new tenderness in his expression I’ve started to see recently. One that makes me turn away and avoid his eyes.
“Just this one,” I admit quietly, but before I can get sucked away into the plot of the movie again, I remember something and immediately reach for the small box in my pocket.
“If possible, can you give this to Evie?”
Reuben’s discontent immediately furrows his brows.
“She’ll be spending Christmas with a fake brother this year,” I remind him firmly.
“Because of us. There’s a ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Happy New Year’ note inside.
For her to burn after she opens it.” My thoughts feel far away when I remember the little box of strawberries she used to bring to my door.
“I don’t like how little we’ve done for her,” I make my displeasure clear. “She deserves more.”