Chapter 16
?
Feeling like a klutz.
Maelin
He left his jacket crumpled in a heap on the floor. His tablet lays neglected on the bed behind me. I sit at my new sewing machine, grounding myself in the whir of its motor as I struggle to comprehend what just happened.
He asked if he could kiss me.
While my brain turned off, he started to flee.
And then?
Then I stopped him.
My useless brain remembered, oh yeah, I need to get his measurements if I’m going to start working on his suit , which I’m going to do first because I’m positive pants have to be easier than juggling the five hundred yards of fabric I’ll need to use for my dress.
Ignorant cruelty abounding, I destroyed his plans to run away.
And then I, idiot that I am, brought the kissing thing back up.
As though I was all for it, instead of very, very much against .
Has it been a few months since Harry crushed my heart?
Yes.
But has it also only been a week and a half since I’ve met Zakery?
Mmhm .
Huh. Weird.
The internet says it can take years to get over a breakup. Or, you know, seconds.
My nose wrinkles as I scroll through the answers for how long to get over relationship on my phone.
This doesn’t seem to be an exact science.
And, yet, I keep googling.
Wow.
Crazy.
How long does it take to fall in love has similar results.
Not that I’m in love or anything like that. I was just curious if I could be. I’m not certain that responses on Reddit are entirely reliable, though. I’m likely infatuated because Zakery’s being so kind and spoiling me and, fine, he is very pretty. My brain keeps skimming back to the tattoos that disappeared beneath his tank top. I’m desperate to learn all the secrets of what he chose to etch into his own skin. It must have been painful, tedious… torturous .
What compels someone?
I’ve always been a curious person. Mom and Dad used to say that my why, why, why train came with specifics. It wasn’t just why is the sky blue? Well, because sunlight reaches the gases and particles in our atmosphere, scattering blue light. Why, why, why?
It was how do you know about the gasses and particles? What shape are they? Do they have friends? Are they sad? Is that why they’re making the sky blue?
And then, maybe, the occasional plain why tossed in there. For posterity.
It’s normal for me to be curious about Zakery.
It’s normal for me to want to see the art scrawled all over his skin.
I like his art.
It’s beautiful, and powerful, and…sad. Like the blue, blue sky.
A semicolon tattoo, Google says, conveys a person’s commitment to overcoming mental health struggles, suicidal thoughts, and depression.
A semicolon, most often, is the place where a sentence could have ended, but didn’t.
His parents used to hit him and his brothers.
With my family as warm and caring as it is, I can barely picture growing up in an environment like the one Zakery must have known. I feared punishment, like most children, but never being hit. Even spankings were rare, controlled, and calm. Most often, my punishments consisted of being very, very quiet and standing in the corner. I could leave when I’d been silent for five minutes.
The worst punishment I ever had left me in the corner for an hour. But, even then, it was my own fault. I was angry, for some reason. I don’t even remember it now. I just know I kept blurting final words and restarting my clock.
If Harry was abusive, if all the feelings of worthlessness and being unlovable or annoying are clinging to me after only seven years of scattered dates and classes mostly spent in separate sections, how much worse is whatever Zakery’s parents did throughout his entire childhood clinging to him? He’s only been free of them as long as I knew Harry.
Since these are questions I can’t google, and I shouldn’t even be on my phone right now, anyway, I put it up, push my hair behind my ears, and get back to sewing.
?
“Zakery?” I murmur, knocking on his ajar door. I haven’t seen him since he stumbled out of my studio hours ago. Morana’s gone home for the day. I don’t know why I’m still here. Or why she just grinned at me and chirped, Don’t worry. I won’t tell your old sewing machine that you’re cheating with a new side thread.
Sisters and their incurable compulsion to tease…
Pushing the door slightly more open, I peek inside and lose my breath.
He’s asleep. Scattered light from his windows trace the black ink all over his arms as his chest softly rises and falls.
Mindlessly, I slip inside, set his tablet on his crowded dresser and find a free hanger in his closet to put his jacket on. Then, I stand in the middle of his room, chewing my lip and fiddling with my fingers.
It’s going to be dinner time soon.
I do not want to have dinner with the rest of the Bachelor brothers all by myself. I really shouldn’t be here still. I don’t know what compelled me. Maybe I’ll skip dinner in favor of continuing to work on his suit? Pants are my new archenemy, after all. I could be up for hours pinning hems and making slight alterations. I don’t know why I’m going with such a form fitting design…or intending to add dozens of embroidered branches to every centimeter. It’s bad enough I need to make a vest, and an ascot, and a tailcoat, but nothing short of vastly regal fits for Zakery.
I will be up for days sewing golden threads.
And I will both love and hate every second of it.
“Zakery?” I try again, voice still much too soft to wake anyone. I curl my toes, recalling that I took my shoes off to get comfortable on my bed earlier. Stocking feet are very dangerous with such slick flooring.
Maybe I should wait until Viktor calls everyone to dinner?
He’ll probably wake his brother.
I don’t have to.
Being in here is weird, and wrong.
Weirder and wronger still is the way I can’t stop myself from inching toward the bed to get a better look at the ink petals scattered over Zakery’s broad shoulders. Those petals mix with dappled stars and fade into pale skin where he stopped being able to reach. The stars and buds cover him like universes punctured into his pores.
My fingers itch to trace the strokes.
So I turn—quite swiftly—around, take a step, and lose the feeling of the ground beneath my feet.
Horror explodes in my chest as I realize I’m falling back, back, back on top of Zakery’s bed .
My half-squeal of terror meets a pained uuf , and then. It is too late.
I am on top of a wincing Zakery, who is coming very much awake in the worst way possible.
Naturally, I scramble while he attempts to push himself up, inked muscles flexing. Voice husky with sleep, he mumbles, “Maelin?”
Naturally, I cannot be expected to stand under those conditions, so my efforts do little more than send me flailing back on top of him. This time, on his chest. “Zakery— I—”
He grips my upper arm before I can attempt to flee again, cementing me to his body. Drowsy, he says, “Please don’t hurt yourself.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s almost dinner time!” I blurt. “And I— I’m staying over tonight. If that’s okay.” I hope it’s okay. Morana has already gone home. I really probably should have checked that it was okay before she drove off. Now, if it isn’t okay, someone will have to take me home. Someone being Zakery , who I’m not sure I will survive being alone in a car with for ten minutes.
His sleepy gaze settles where our bodies meet. “Yeah. That’s fine.” Lifting his hand from my arm, he sets back the curtain of my hair and squints at the clock on his nightstand. Almost seven. “Gracious. How long was I asleep?”
“Three…or possibly four hours.”
He hums, and his fingers tickle my neck as they rest by my pulse. “Feels like I’ve been hit by a truck.”
Probably…because I fell on you.
I babble, “I’m sorry I’m in your room. The door was cracked, and I was putting away your tablet and jacket, and I was pretty sure it was almost time for dinner, and I didn’t want to eat alone with just your brothers, but I didn’t know how to wake y—”
His mouth.
It touches mine.
“Hush…” he mutters, sinking back down against his bed as his arms close around me, taking me down with him into an ocean of pine, cedar, a hint of citrus. “You’re welcome in my room anytime.” His fingers thread through my hair, nails grazing my back as he combs. “Also, I spoke out of turn. Don’t hush. Never hush. Ever .”
Did he just…kiss me?
It was a peck, to be certain, but it happened. His lips met mine, and now I am pinned to his body, feeling his breaths as they slow. This is…unprecedented.
“Talk to me,” he murmurs, right when I think he’s fallen back asleep. Under me.
Choking on my own air, I ground myself in the strokes of his fingers through my hair, against my back. His heat. The rise and fall of him against every inch of me . “I…don’t know what to talk about.”
The softest edge of a smile curves his lips. “Just say words. Anything you’re thinking about.”
“Um. I’d…rather not.”
That answer does not seem to suit him.
Because the next thing I know…he has rolled me onto the bed beside him and caged me there. My heart leaps into the sky, into the galaxies spinning down his arms, painting them in more ink than skin.
Breath leaves his parted lips as he lifts one hand to his mouth. He kisses the knuckle, then grazes my lips with it. “Come on, princess. Bless me.”
It is very likely that Maelin has shut down. When my mouth opens, a sound certainly leaves, but it’s not exactly a word , now is it? No. No, it is not.
He glides his knuckle across my cheek, down my neck, then his face dips, and his lips connect with my throat.
Head tilting back, I grip the blankets on either side of my body in both hands.
“I…” he begins, voice rough, “…don’t understand myself. You are haunting my dreams, Maelin. Why have I mourned the waking world three times so I could return to moments like this with you?” His arms curl around me, and his weight presses as he traps me in his embrace. “I have never wanted anyone before. I have thought myself incapable of it. But…I want you. I. Want. You. ” His muscles tense, and he comes aware, slowly, slowly—then all at once. He pulls himself away, catches my eyes, gets off me. Seated on the edge of the bed, he clamps a fist in the waves of his hair. “S-sorry. I was… I’m still waking up. Coming to my senses.” Firmly, he shakes his head, crumples, broad back caving.
My shaking fingers lift to my throat, and a buzz runs straight down into my stomach.
What…just happened?
What sorts of dreams was he having?
Before I can gather my thoughts well enough to say a single word, a knock sounds, and Zakery’s door opens wide to reveal Viktor’s imposing form swallowing the entirety of the doorway. “Time to eat, Za…”
Heat blares in every inch of me when Viktor’s eyes halt on mine.
I throw myself upright, kick my feet off the bed, and nearly die when I try to stand. If Zakery hadn’t caught the back of my dress and pulled me solidly back to safety, I am certain I would have smashed my skull on the tile.
Heart pounding , I take deep breaths and repeat socks, tile, socks, tile in my head. The socks and the tile are why I’m in this mess.
I will never wear socks again. Never .
Zakery, after confirming I am not dead-set on another Kamikaze attempt, says, “We’ll be right down. Thanks.”
Viktor grunts. “Don’t keep us waiting.”
The soft click of the latch reverberates in my ears as I slowly look back at Zakery and find him peering at me, both of us sitting on opposite edges of the bed.
“Dinner,” he says, gently.
My head begins to shake. “I— I— Um. I’d rather die than go down there and have dinner with your big brother right now.”
His dark brows knit. “Why? You haven’t done anything wrong.”
I fell on you, Zakery! Did you forget that? I fell on you because I was snooping on your pretty tattoos, which was very wrong of me. Also, in these sorts of situations, it’s always the girl who’s a harlot while the man is just being a guy . His brother probably thinks I’m some kind of tramp, seducing his younger brother for money . That’s why I have all these nice things. I’ve been sugar daddying!
Oh. Crap .
That is exactly what this looks like; that is exactly what I’ve been doing, unintentionally.
Sinking in on myself, I bury my hands in my hair. I’m gonna get my sister and me evicted from our home. Viktor is gonna have a long talk with his younger brother about the wiles of women, the way they bat their eyes and say please, please, please .
Please spend tens of thousands of dollars on me. If you do, I’ll let you keep me closer, and won’t that be fun ?
Bat. Bat. Pout. Pout.
“Hey,” Zakery soothes, interrupting the downward spiral of my thoughts. “Let’s eat dinner, okay? Then we can talk.”
I shake my head. Absolutely not! I am not going down there. I’m going to wait for the sun to fade into dusk, and then I’m going to climb out the window. I’ll alert Morana that I’ve ruined everything . She’ll mourn her mop; I’ll mourn my studio. We’ll pack whatever we can fit into her car and head back to Mom and Dad’s. Or maybe Kentucky. Start a new life there, away from the city of memories with Harry . And away from this place, with its new memories, which are proving quite panic-inspiring.
“ Eep ,” I jerk when Zakery’s body is suddenly in front of me, dropping into a crouch.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I lost my mind. Can we please have dinner, then talk? They’ll wait for us. All night. I’d rather Viktor not have to come get us again. Then he’ll be mad.”
“He’s not already mad?”
Confusion taints Zakery’s brow. “No?”
“Even though I’m seducing his little brother into buying me things?”
Zakery’s brows shoot up. “Is that what’s happening?”
Fervently, I nod.
“Wow. Well, I’m glad you told me. I do suppose that makes sense…” His gaze trails off me as he rustles his waves. “That’s why you begged me not to get you a car. And fought me every step of the way on everything else. I bet that’s even why you tried to order a side of quiche, so as to not let on how much of a gold digger you truly are. My eyes are opened.” Those open eyes find mine. “Now that the facade is behind us, should your car be pink? Or green?”
Breathless, I whisper, “Please don’t get me a car.”
He takes my hand and rises. “Please don’t slip when you stand.”
I do anyway; it’s like a disease, except this disease sends me crashing into Zakery’s chest for the third time in a matter of minutes.
Bracing me from certain doom, Zakery murmurs, “Do I need to carry you?”
“Please…no.”
“Then please take your suicide socks off.”
Catching sight of his semicolon tattoo, I swallow hard and grip his shoulder to pull off my socks. Cold tile meets my feet, and I can hardly stomach the strangeness of being in someone else’s house completely barefoot. I don’t think I was ever barefoot at Harry’s apartment. Not a single time.
Once I’m channeling someone who can walk, Zakery smiles and cups my face as he takes my free hand. “Don’t worry. Viktor doesn’t care, okay?”
“Promise?” I whisper.
“I promise. As long as you don’t make a public scene, he’s not gonna think any less of either of us, no matter what we do.”
Unconvinced, I still say, “…okay.”