17. Nevaeh
Lincoln smiles brightly at me, holding a bouquet of flowers in a vase he clearly made for me.
“Before you say anything, butterfly, I don’t expect you to have forgiven me or anything of the sort, but you’ve made me realize it’s time I put more effort into my apology. So, here I am—” Lincoln’s eyes drift behind me, anger replacing the happy mood he was in before. “—clearly interrupting you while you’re on a date.” He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “And with Adrian fucking Romana, out of all people.”
Lincoln shoves the vase into my hands while watching, without a doubt, Adrian walking up behind me. My left hand burns from the impact, so I look down to spot a little cut. Blood fills the wound, but I don’t have time to focus on it when Lincoln grabs my full attention again.
“Feel free to throw the vase and flowers in the garbage,” he says through gritted teeth and moves to the side just enough to face Adrian, whose hand moves onto my shoulder.
I give him a confused look, unsure why he’s touching me, but one glance at his face tells me everything I need to know. He’s trying to protect me. Adrian doesn’t trust Lincoln. I look down at my hand, which is barely bleeding, but only the Monegasque notices it. He takes my hand to study the cut, his thumb running over the skin below it.
Lincoln is too busy glaring at him to care.
“I think you should calm down, Nash,” Adrian says softly, slowly guiding me behind him. “You made Nevaeh bleed. Wrong fucking move.”
This is the first time I’ve ever heard someone speak with so much authority. Lincoln’s eyes go wide, but Adrian gets in the Grenzenlos driver’s face.
“I suggest you leave.”
I don’t think Adrian is a violent person, yet, at this moment, I’m convinced he’d kick Lincoln’s ass if he had to.
“You know, Romana, she might be on a date with you, but I was the one who had his tongue down her throat only a few days ago,” Lincoln says with disgust on his face before turning to me. “I’m sorry I hurt you, butterfly, it wasn’t my intention. Send him home so I can take care of the cut.” I know he wants me to, I can read it on his face, but his words have me boiling from anger. His behavior is disgusting, and I want nothing to do with him.
“Get the fuck off my property. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
I step in front of Adrian to hand Lincoln the vase, a lot gentler than he shoved it at me and then slam the door in his face.
“Jesus,” I mumble and run my right hand through my hair, my left one still burning.
Adrian takes my hand to inspect the cut again. It’s not deep, and hardly bleeding, but he looks at it like Lincoln personally offended him and his entire bloodline.
“Where is your first-aid kit?” I look up at him, his eyes meeting my gaze. Whatever he spots in my face makes him even unhappier.
Adrian’s focus shifts back to the wound, but I pull my hand away to walk into the kitchen. The longer we stand there, the more I’ll get overwhelmed by the way he looks at me.
He follows but stays quiet.
“I’m sorry about Lincoln. I didn’t know he would show up here and make such a big scene,” I say and reach for the kit, which is, thanks to Papa, on the top shelf.
I hear Adrian snicker as he moves toward me and reaches for it. For a split second, his shirt lifts enough to show off his V-line, making my mouth water involuntarily.
“Don’t be sorry. Lincoln is the one who needs to properly apologize to you.”
Adrian opens the kit and pulls out an alcohol wipe to clean my cut. He does so silently, gently, as if he’s scared to hurt me more than Lincoln did. When I suck in a sharp breath from the burning the wipe leaves behind, Adrian blows on the wound to ease the ache.
“So, you kissed him,” he points out after a while of silence. I scan his beautiful face for jealousy, but there doesn’t seem to be any. He’s merely curious.
“Yeah. It was before I found out my job forbids it and we agreed to go on a date.”
Adrian nods as he finishes up taking care of my hand.
“It meant nothing,” I whisper, causing a smile to break out across his face.
He moves toward me until my back touches the counter. His hands move to each side of me, imprisoning me with his body. My heart hums happily at the proximity of him, at the way his cologne fills my nose.
“Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, but if you ever let me kiss you, whatever it was will turn to dust and that boy will be history in your mind,” Adrian says, his mouth yet again too close to mine to be bearable.
I lick my lips as I watch him get closer and closer with every shallow breath of mine.
“I think I should go, mon paradis.” I furrow my brows.
“What did you just say?” I ask because I’m sure those last two words were French, and I only understood mon as my. He mumbled the other word too much for me to hear it.
Adrian smiles as he leans away from me.
“Let me tutor you in French, and I will tell you someday,” he offers, making my heart stutter for a moment.
“You would do that for me?” I ask, and he raises his fingers to play with a strand of my hair before tugging it behind my ear. Goosebumps appear on my body wherever his fingers graze my skin, my stomach tumbling at the softness of his touch.
“Absolutely.” He leans down to press the swiftest of kisses to my cheek, adding, “Text me,” and leaving my house again.
I stay in the kitchen for a moment, unsure what to do with myself.
Mama and Papa will be home soon, so I make sure everything is cleaned up and head upstairs into my bedroom. I barely feel the cut in my hand because my mind is stuck on the way Adrian’s lips felt on my skin.
Then, I think about him offering to tutor me and everything else that comes with my job. Things will change once the season starts, and I hope that means I’ll enjoy it more. Because if I don’t, I don’t know what I’ll do.
If this isn’t my passion, what is?
The same question repeats itself over and over again as I sit down on my bed and lose myself in my photo editing.
A lot of people don’t realize that a photographer’s job isn’t just taking pictures. There’s a lot of refining them afterward too. Playing with the sharpness or saturation, editing out little things like a random person’s shoe at the bottom of the image, or adjusting the sizing to fit whatever I’ll use the picture for.
These ones I’m working on today are for Nova’s birthday next month. I’m making her a photo album of all of her favorite pictures I’ve ever taken. I’m planning to make it look more like a scrapbook than a photo album because Nova loves those, but I need to get the pictures ready and printed first.
All of my worries leave me as I use my creative outlet in the way it was meant to be used: as an escape from everything unpleasant in my life.