Chapter 13 Dex - Past
thirteen
Dex - Past
SOMETHING MORE THAN WORDS.
Jonah was fucking trashed.
While I would normally enjoy watching a drunk idiot try to take on Henrik, I found myself feeling uncharacteristically fond of this particular drunk idiot.
He hadn’t even noticed that I’d handed off his drink to the nearest stranger. After experiencing him rubbing my shirt like he was trying to start a fire, I wasn’t about to leave him there alone.
This was so not like me. I didn’t drink, and I made it a point not to associate with anyone who did.
Yet here I was steering Jonah around the side of the property and away from the crowds and prying eyes so I could, with any luck, sober him up a little.
I’d meant what I said to him. Becca would be safe with Henrik.
In fact, she was probably the safest person in all of Port Skelton with that human weapon taking an interest in her.
“Sit down,” I instructed, letting go of his arm and letting gravity aid in his obedience as he practically stumbled onto his ass on the manicured lawn.
He was pouting. He’d been doing that a lot tonight. It definitely wasn’t doing what he thought it was doing. In contrast to his usual glare, this was cute. Not that the glare didn’t have its own appeal.
I tugged the lopsided bunny ears off and tossed them beside him on the grass before I took a seat on the other side of him, crossing my legs so that my knee brushed his thigh, just to see what he’d do.
True to form, he glared down as if he could set it on fire with his vision alone.
I chuckled to myself as I pulled my pouch from my pocket to roll a smoke.
“Why do you smoke that?”
“Tobacco?”
“No, like… like that. Can’t you buy them already made? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “It’s cheaper like this.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie. Rolling your own cigarettes was cheaper, although that wasn’t the reason I did it.
I did it ’cause my pops did it. He’d taught me how to roll them for him on the promise that if he did, I would never roll them for myself.
I’d broken that promise years ago, but he’d broken the promise not to leave, so I’d say that was worse.
Besides, I liked to think he’d be proud of how good I’d gotten at it.
“Gimme one,” Jonah said after I’d finished.
“Not a good idea, Rabbit.”
“Fuck you. I do what I want. Gimme one.”
He was pouting again. That must have been the third time anyone had dared to say “fuck you” to my face without fearing the consequences. It was also the third time I’d let it slide.
“Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I lit the cigarette and passed it to him.
He stared at it as though, if he concentrated on it enough, he could force himself not to react like last time. Then, finally, he brought it to his lips and took a shorter drag on this attempt. It still didn’t stop him from coughing.
I reached to take it back, but he pulled it away from me.
“It’s mine,” he snarled.
“Alright, alright.” I raised my hands in placation. Some people just had to learn things the hard way. I rolled myself another while Jonah continued to struggle through his.
“Show me that.”
I turned to see him holding out his hand for my lighter. I clutched it tighter, and he rolled his eyes. “I just want to look. I’m not gonna steal it.”
If it had been anyone else, I would have promptly told them to fuck right off. Instead, for some unknown reason, I placed my father’s lighter into Jonah’s outstretched palm.
He angled his body toward the light to see it clearer, as his slender fingers traced over the flowers and leaves engraved on the front.
“It looks old.” He flipped it over to examine the back as well.
“It is.”
Older than either of us, for sure. It had seen better days, but wherever I went it came with me.
“Where did you get it?”
Here was the part where I normally lied. Except this time, I didn’t want to. “It was my dad’s.”
Jonah looked at me for a long moment—maybe he was searching for something, or maybe he was just drunk and had lost his words—before handing it back. I tucked it back into my pocket. Safe and secure.
He groaned as he lay back in the grass, and I did the same.
I would have liked there to be stars or something, but above us was the edge of the too-large house and a blank darkness beyond.
Still, it was quiet enough out here that it was almost peaceful.
Granted, there was a house full of drunk idiots beside us, but for the moment, it was just him and me again, like that day in the meadow. It was nice.
Nice was a dangerous thing for a guy like me to have. Nice and I didn’t fit together, like two puzzle pieces that formed entirely different pictures. So I knew it was only a matter of time before something went wrong.
When the silence between us had extended long enough that I wondered if he’d fallen asleep or something, I turned, and found Jonah already staring back at me.
We just looked at each other for a long moment.
Something electric pulsed from his gaze to mine, sharing more than words.
A quiet weight I’d never known. His eyes dropped to my lips.
Jonah moved closer, and my chest constricted in panic.
I was by no means a prude. I’d tongue fuck anyone decent-looking enough, and Jonah was so far beyond decent looking, but his eyes were still heavy and unfocused from intoxication.
When I kissed him—and it was a matter of when and not if—I wanted him to be sober.
I wanted him to choose it without the shield of alcohol to hide behind afterward.
I wouldn’t let him claim it was just a drunken mistake.
His lips were only an inch from mine when I turned my head away before they could touch, quickly occupying my mouth with my cigarette that had burned out without me realizing.
Then it was too quiet, and when I turned to look at him again, there was a fire in his eyes that I could almost feel burning me.
“Fuck you!” He raised his voice before shoving me.
That was four times now. Four too many. I shoved him back. “What’s wrong, Rabbit? Pissed off I wouldn’t give you a kiss?”
I’d known it was only a matter of time before something went wrong, and this time had been even shorter than I anticipated, because as Jonah’s knuckles connected with my lips, my reflexes kicked in and I hit him back before I’d even thought about it.
He stared at me wide-eyed, his hand covering his struck cheek. I licked the blood from my lip. The split in the bottom one opened again, thanks to the kiss from his knuckles. Then he launched himself at me, and we were brawling in the grass.
Jonah had clearly never been in a real fight before, but he was fucking strong and he was pissed, and those things made him dangerous enough as I blocked his next hit.
“Fight!” someone yelled from further down the property, but I couldn’t spare them a glance and give Jonah another opening.
Moments later there was a crowd of people growing around us, cheering and hollering obnoxiously, and if Jonah wasn’t such a damn handful, I would have punched every single one of them too.
As it was, I was mainly trying to block his hits and restrain him rather than actually fight him, but he was having none of it.
Jonah wasn’t above fighting dirty. When I had his wrists pinned, he’d try to kick me or bite me instead.
It was like wrestling a rabid orangutan.
“Jonah!” came a familiar screech, then a flash of orange hair and white spandex as Becca threw herself into the fray. Then a freakishly large strong hand grabbed the collar of my jacket and yanked me up by the scruff of the neck like a misbehaving kitten.
“Enough,” Henrik scolded, setting me on my feet.
Jonah was up again too, and he launched himself at me a second time, but Henrik was faster, and my rabbit coat-hangered himself on the immovable rod of Henrik’s arm, sending himself back down onto his ass.
“Jonah, stop!” Becca begged.
“We’re leaving,” Henrik informed me, a firm hand on my chest shoving me in a challenge I was sorely tempted to take on. People really had to stop fucking shoving me today. I slapped his arm away, knowing the only reason it shifted at all was because he allowed it.
“Fine.” I fixed my jacket back into place as I sneered at Jonah. “Better luck next time, Rabbit.”
“Just go!” Becca snapped at me, using what must have been all her strength to hold Jonah back from coming at me again.
As we walked back to the bikes, I wondered how long it would be before I got another chance to kiss Jonah’s lips rather than his fist.