12. Nick
12
NICK
I wanted Sabrina to yell at me.
I craved her anger. A reaction. Something.
This aloof distance that Sabrina put between us gnawed at me, making me more restless than ever before.
I lingered in the hallway outside her classroom this morning. I’d been waiting for her to get off the bus—that committed to stalking her and knowing her routine—but when it didn’t show, I hurried to her first class. I had to see how she was taking the news of the painting I’d let Daniela share.
When that asshole in her class suggested he would use my painting as something to jerk off to, I saw red.
I hadn’t put it up for him to fucking appreciate it. Not like that.
Jealousy raged within me that someone else would benefit from the painting. I’d given Daniela the okay to share it as a way to strike back at Sabrina, and it had really fucking backfired.
I texted Daniela right then and there to take it all down.
Daniela: It’s viral.
Daniela: I’ll delete the posts but it will still be out there.
I didn’t need her to explain how social media worked. I was just glad she deleted her posts. It was a step toward rectifying my stupidity in letting her share my fantasies of Sabrina.
Hearing Sabrina respond to her professor irked me even more. Only she would be able to turn this thing around into a cry for women’s rights and some debate about censorship. That was how fucking good she was.
That was how much of a badass she was.
No tears.
No shouts.
Not a single damn reply online.
She wouldn’t let me see her lips tremble any more than she’d let me think this would drag her down.
As I went about the rest of my day, I hated how much she could resist my best efforts to ruin her.
No one could be that damn strong and good. She had to have a weak spot somewhere. Normally, calling any girl or woman a slut was a surefire route to earning their hatred and loathing. Not her, though. As I tried and failed to pay attention in my classes and do the bare minimum for my instructors, I surrendered to the fact that I wanted to find her weakness. I wanted to know how to get another rise out of her. I wanted to exploit it and see her crumble beneath me.
She’d snapped when I called her a slut at the food bank. She’d given in a little then to slap me. But it was almost as though that action had prompted her to be even cooler toward me and look more unaffected.
Never before had I wanted to mess up something good like I did with her. Not once in my life did I let myself get so dark and twisted with this need to inflict damage on something so seemingly perfect and flawless.
And that was why I stayed on campus all day and evening, following her around my classes. Later, when I waited near the bus stop where she’d show up for a ride home, I raised my brows as another student passed me, frowning.
“Bus isn’t running this week,” he said as he went by.
Goddammit.
I hated the thought that I could’ve missed her. It wasn’t just because I had to ruin her per Tiffany’s request, but also because it was my obsession to see her and be near.
After a jog toward the law buildings, I spotted her walking. Just to mess with her, liking how she always seemed aware of when I had her in view, I followed behind her for a while. If letting me stalk her was a secret little fantasy of hers…
Yeah, right. I doubt it.
Once she got off campus and walked through part of the city, I closed the distance between us until we walked side by side.
She didn’t acknowledge me. Not with a glance, a wave, a word. Nothing.
Minutes passed. They blurred and blended together for so long that I wondered if and when she’d crack under the pressure. She had to have tons to say. She had to have a lot on her mind after I’d painted her so naughty like that. But when it seemed she wouldn’t speak up, sticking with this persistence to ignore me, I gritted my teeth and gave in.
She won.
This round.
“Did you like my painting of you?” I asked, figuring I could be direct.
“That wasn’t me,” she replied. “I’ve never modeled or posed for you.”
I chuckled softly, letting the thrill of her arguing with me light me up from the inside out.
“That’s not what I asked.”
She looked ahead, not glancing at me. “I don’t owe you any answers to anything you might ask.”
“Ooh. You’re tough.”
“I’m also tired.” Now she faced me for a second, droll and cool. “I’m tired of your fucking bullshit.”
I feigned shock. “Is that how a prim and proper lady talks?”
“It would seem you don’t want the world to see me as prim or proper with that painting.”
“Hmm.” I shoved my hands in my pockets because I was that tempted to touch her and make her stop walking so she’d face me. I was still desperate for her attention. And I hated the power she had over me. Having her light-brown eyes directed at me, only me, was becoming an addiction. “I recall your saying that you didn’t care what others thought of you.”
“I said I didn’t care what you think of me.”
I ground my molars, riled up to push her buttons but also to grin that she’d be so tough with me.
“But now you know that I do.”
She furrowed her brow, facing forward.
“I think about you a lot, Sabrina.”
Tiffany suggested that I could ruin her by fucking her and letting that scandalous news spread. Serious law student sleeping with the reckless bad boy artist. That would get people talking.
But now, I was excited to fuck with her. I was only beginning with the games I could play with her. Because if there were a chance she was attracted to me, I could wreak havoc on her in that regard.
“I think?—”
“Save it.” She rolled her eyes. “Save it for whenever you need another muse to paint. Save it for when you’re lonely and pathetically so empty that you need the sick pleasure of trying to make me miserable. I don’t care, Nick.” With another short glare my way, she shook her head. “I don’t have time for guys like you. And you will never win. Not at this. I won’t let you get close to where you can hurt me.”
Every one of her words stoked the fire inside me. I wasn’t sure when the loathing turned so sharply into lust, but I couldn’t let her get away with shutting me down like that. “You…”
Again, she was ignoring me. This time, it didn’t seem like she was putting effort into tuning me out. With a gasp and her attention directed ahead of us, it seemed that she was acutely distracted by the sounds of a man beating on a woman in an alley up ahead.
I frowned, looking that way too. But before I could open my mouth to reply to her, she was gone.
Sabrina took off running toward the sign of trouble, shouting at the man to leave that woman alone.
My mouth dropped. “What the?—”
I watched as Sabrina sprinted up to the woman crying out for help. She put her arms up to uselessly deflect the man beating on her. Crouching lower and lower, she futilely resisted this man’s violence.
Until Sabrina showed up.
“Leave her alone!” She intercepted the man’s fists, stopping the attacker from reaching the woman he’d dragged back here.
Seeing that man’s hand touching Sabrina’s arm was all it took for me to lose control. I snapped. My shock at Sabrina’s run over there was cut short. Anger lit a fuse of action within me, and I was running to the scene.
I’d be damned if some other asshole used my painting of her to jerk off.
And I’d be damned if some other man dared to hit her.
Sabrina wasn’t mine. She never would be mine. But there was no off switch to this streak of possessiveness I felt toward her.
“Get the fuck off her!” I lunged in to pull him away from Sabrina and the stranger she was trying to help out. “What is wrong with you?” I roared it at her, but it seemed she didn’t think my question was for her.
She had to be insane, rushing into a violent scene like that. She couldn’t seriously think that she’d be able to ward off this big asshole. Shocked that she’d put herself in harm’s way—without even thinking it through—I resisted the urge to tug her away and demand an answer for why she’d rushed toward a fight like that.
“Fuck off,” the man growled, trying to reach forward and get the woman again.
I wouldn’t fuck off. No one would get away with telling me to leave Sabrina. I hadn’t counted on being in a fight tonight, not for a stranger we’d happened upon so suddenly in the alley, but here I was. And I unleashed all my pent-up fury on this stupid fucker. Raining hits and kicks down on him, I fought back so swiftly that he’d never be able to get away without having his ass handed to him.
Several minutes later, with aching knuckles and my chest heaving to catch my breath, I spat out a mouthful of blood from when he’d gotten a lucky jab in to my face. He lay on the ground, moaning in pain and clutching his side.
Sometime during the fight, the scared woman ran off. As I spun slowly to glower at Sabrina who’d stayed behind me, the man pulled himself off the pavement and escaped too.
I didn’t care. I’d helped. That woman got away. That asshole wouldn’t be feeling good for a long time.
But Sabrina wouldn’t fare so well. This stubborn good girl behind me wasn’t getting off the hook that easily.
She furrowed her brow at me, taking me in as though I were a feral animal on the loose. I felt like one, rabid and enraged. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me ?” She gaped at me, indignation clear on her face.
“What the fuck is wrong with you to run toward danger like that?” I flung my hand out at where the woman had cowered from the man I’d beaten.
“What’s wrong with you”—she shoved at my chest, sending me back a step because it surprised me—“that you wouldn’t?”
“What?” I narrowed my eyes at her, confused. “Are you judging me, testing me over why I wouldn’t interfere in someone else’s business?”
She stepped back, frowning more. “It’s one thing to bully me, Nick. It’s one thing to try to slander me and hurt my reputation. But that’s nowhere near as disappointing as your being too afraid to help a defenseless woman.”
“ Afraid ?” I set my lips in a firm line, breathing hard through my nose. I wasn’t going to stand around and listen to how I disappointed her. I didn’t want to even care whether I’d disappointed her!
“Why are you pretending to be a coward?” she asked, backing away from me with scorn on her face. “Go ahead and be the big, tough guy who wants to make my life hell. But you’ve got no excuse to stand back from helping someone else out of real and present danger.”
Coward?
Did she just fucking call me a coward ?
If there were ever a word to trigger me into red-hot rage, that was it. My dad tossed that word at me when my mom’s mental health intimidated me. He’d told me not to be a coward when he died. Even George seemed to think I was a coward, not being mature and seeking a real future or career.
Sick of Sabrina’s angry scowl and precisely wicked words, I turned around and walked away.
How dare she…
I shook my head, grinding my teeth so hard that my jaw would be more sore after that one hit the guy got in.
Sabrina had no right to say any of what she’d shouted at me, and I hated that she could see through me to ever speak those words.
A coward?
After I singlehandedly took that man down so the woman could get away in the end?
Maybe I’d hesitated for a moment because I was so shocked that Sabrina ran to save her without any regard for her own well-being.
But I wouldn’t have ignored the situation.
I could’ve stayed to tell her that. I should’ve corrected her.
The mere possibility that I could be a coward pissed me off, though.
Despite how she’d ignore me so stubbornly, Sabrina was perceptive enough to see through me.
And I wasn’t sure that I liked what I saw in myself anymore, either.