Chapter Seven #2
Oh, fuck. Here we go. I choked on the air. My brows arched. “For?” Let’s see… ripping my heart from my chest and abandoning it on the cobblestone streets? Not reaching out for three years? Overstepping with the sanctuary? Truly, he had choices!
“For scaring you earlier; I didn’t know when you’d get here.”
You have to be kidding. Blown away by the audacity of a man, I remained too in shock to respond. And it seemed Laken took that as his sign to leave.
Pushing up from his chair, he stood. “I’ll leave you to… whatever you were doing here, then.”
And he walked off. Just like that. Always just walking away.
For some treacherous reason, I spun around. “Where are you going?”
“Darts.” He nodded to the board on the wall. “You’re welcome to join me, but,” his honeyed voice dragged, “I know you hate losing.”
Shifting in my seat, cautious and wary, I frowned. “Might be dangerous; what if you’ve become an axe murderer?” I argued.
Laken’s features pinched. “Wouldn’t matter anyway; winning or losing darts doesn’t change my choice in victims,” he amended.
The air between us grew thick with hot tension, like sparks of a fire waiting to burst. He watched me, waiting, and I knew he hoped I’d say yes.
You see, Laken always knew what he was doing.
He played people like a game, and he became quite good at it.
That’s how he charmed or bullshitted his way in or out of anything.
We’d play and we’d move into conversations where he’d slowly gather bits and pieces from me, using them to pry deeper and deeper into our past, attempting to get his greedy little hands around my heart once again.
It’d be a terrible idea, ending in nothing but heartbreak and misery—
“That’s what I thought,” he baited.
Fuck. A challenge. I did hate losing. And I hated his satisfaction even more. Maybe it was Goldie’s drink, maybe it was the shit day I’d had, but I felt bold—or angry. I didn’t know; the two had started to mesh.
“On one condition,” I proposed.
“I’m listening.”
“If I win, you answer a question, just one. And if you win, I’ll answer a question, anything you want.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“You scare me, McCarthen.” Laken raked his fingers through his hair, dragging his gaze to me so slowly it hurt. He and his pathetic blue eyes were like an ocean trying to drown me, a wave trying to rip into me. But inside, I wanted to tear him apart.
He finally broke our staring match, coming to me. He lowered his hand to mine with a sigh. “Deal.” He shook my hand too easily. “You’ll never beat me.”
That used to be true.
This seemed like a bad idea, I knew that. But long ago, I’d fallen in love with making bad decisions. Laken being exhibit A.
Being the generous person I am, I let Laken throw first. The dartboard consisted of three rings and a bullseye. Each increasing in points as it closed in. He focused, twirling the metal dart between fingers that once traced my skin. He scored a ten.
When I’m nervous, I bite my lip. So I did. He noticed. I hit the wall behind the target.
“Come on.” I threw a flirty, wide smile his way. One I didn’t think he’d resist. “Show me how to throw it like you. It’s not fair.”
“That’s cheating and you know it,” he argued.
We both knew fully well he’d cave because Laken, through and through, was a physical being.
He always had been. He loved touch. It didn’t even have to be major, just holding hands when we were younger or the brush of a thumb, sitting side by side with our legs or shoulders grazing.
“Please,” I pleaded, the word dragging on my tongue. I edged closer to him, leaning in on my tiptoes.
I knew him, too. I knew his body and his impulses. I knew the way he’d rake his eyes down my figure and flex his fingers, wanting to grip me. I knew the begging would set him over the edge, too.
I knew him so well. Well enough to play him.
He slid behind me, his hand wrapped around my waist. The once-familiar scent of mint and honey sent lightning bolts buzzing inside of me.
His cheek and chin settled against the side of my face, his breath brushed against my skin, and goose bumps erupted down my body.
The palm of his hand pressed into my gut, straightening my posture against him. His foot moved mine.
I tried, and failed, to remember I was supposed to be the one in charge here. I wasn’t the pawn.
“Angle your body more.” He pulled my hips back. “Like this.”
The rhythm of his breathing bounced through my bones.
He grabbed my wrist, raising it into a throwing position.
Carefully, he wove his fingers between mine to move the dart around.
His skin was tan compared to mine. And I remembered when I used to see our hands together and think they’d be intertwined forever.
Stress sweat entered the conversation.
Guiding me through the motions, Laken leaned in. “Just like that.”
When his body slipped away, I knew he missed the way his skin felt on mine from the way his breath hitched before he slowly retreated.
He didn’t make a sound and wouldn’t lift his eyes to meet mine.
Cold air filled the space where he’d stood against me.
If I were honest, my mind begged to return to a dark place it had stayed for years.
A place of isolation and abandonment. A place of, Why did he leave?
Why didn’t he say goodbye? But I knew better than to go there.
With a focused breath, I threw the dart. Perfect bullseye.
I turned over my shoulder with a triumphant smirk. “Like that?”
His mouth parted, eyes bugging as they bounced between me and the board.
“Perhaps I have changed. Perhaps I became good at darts.” I winked, throwing the other two. I scored a twelve. He didn’t need to know I’d gone to plenty of pubs with Maggie, and I trained for this. Turning around, I flipped him off.
“You fooled me, McCarthen. I’ll give you that.” Laken grinned. “When did you learn?”
“I’ve been practicing for the past three years.” I lifted myself to sit on the top of his table, dangling my feet over the edge. “For three years, I’ve pictured your face on that board with each bullseye.”
“So what I’m hearing is you couldn’t stop thinking about me?”
“Not in ways you want me to.”
“Do any of them consist of me being tied up?”
I couldn’t help but buckle with laughter. Kinky son of a bitch.
Laken took his stance and continued to throw. “It’s fine.” He aimed. “You know I like a challenge.” Of course I knew; otherwise he wouldn’t have been interested in me in the first place.
Being here with him, I saw it. How fine he was. For the past three years, I’d battled with myself, wishing I knew where he was and if he was okay while also wishing to forget him entirely, secretly hoping he was miserable.
This—well and happy—wasn’t how I’d expected to find him. I hated him for it. Truthfully speaking, I wished he was hating himself and drunk, barely hanging by a thread—like I was. I wanted to see him crawling to his mother’s house, hungover and crying.
Really rude of him to be well, actually.
Laken threw and hit the third ring, his score not far behind mine. “So,” he began, “are you going to tell me about the flower shop?”
He didn’t deserve to know. “How do you know about the flower shop?”
Yanking his darts out, he kept his back to me. “You really think I spent the entire last month with your father and didn’t ask about you every day?”
“Why?” Instinctively, the word jumped from my lips.
Laken faced me. “To make sure you were good, that you were okay.”
Ah. “To make yourself feel better.” I nodded, taking the darts from his hands. I didn’t watch for his reaction, but I heard his loud silence.
“You plan on keeping the sanctuary?” Laken asked, his voice deepening.
What? “What? Why wouldn’t I?”
Empty-handed, he shrugged. “I don’t know, I wasn’t sure if you really cared that much for it after all these years.”
Laken’s question pissed me off for two reasons: One, he knew I’d loved my home when my mother was here and that I wished it never changed.
Two, “It is mine after all,” I argued. It was all I had left.
Of my mother, my father, my whole family, in fact.
I had nothing of my childhood save for a couple feathered assholes and an old house.
“I didn’t know you still wanted it—”
I turned over my shoulder, cutting my eyes. “Well, you should have.” Blood boiling, I balanced the metal between my fingers and threw, hitting close to the center. Taking my second dart, I needed to hit the same score ring or better to keep up. I closed one eye, focused, and…
“Bocckk bock!” Laken shouted just as I released the dart from my grip and—it hit the wall.
Throwing my hand to my hip, I whipped around to see that putrid little grin and was tempted to wipe it off his smug face. If looks could kill, I would’ve fatally wounded him.
“I’m sorry, did my hellblazer impersonation scare you? Does that make you the chicken?” he asked, self-content.
“If I’m a chicken, you’re the jackass.” I should’ve known he didn’t care about the flower shop.
He only cared about winning this round of darts.
The questions, the charm… all a charade.
Luckily, I’d been playing his game since we were young and knew all the rules.
If he wanted to play, we’d play. “It’s your turn. ”
Laken took the darts out of the board, keeping a stern eye on me as he made his way back to throw. I waited several feet away while he parted his feet. He peeked over his shoulder at me real quick. I only raised my brows.
As he faced the board, arm bent and ready, I slipped down from the table, sneaking to his side.
Leaning in close enough that my breath brushed his skin, I whispered against his ear, “You were right, you know.” A muscle in his jaw feathered.
“About me thinking about you.” The blues of his eyes drifted to me, sharp but softening, until he snapped them off me.
“This isn’t going to work,” he said. “You can’t get under my skin.”