Chapter 3 #2
“No, it comes with long nails and sharp teeth,” I tell him with a sweet smile and a chirpy voice.
He lifts his eyes then. “Well then, I’ll be over here, sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting to unwrap it.”
Ugh.
Of course.
Of course he’d say that. Of course he’d twist my words and turn them into something dirty and seductive. Something that would make me blush and squirm.
And like the idiot I am, I am blushing.
What is wrong with me?
“As much as I’m enjoying talking to you,” I say with my chin raised, “I don’t have time for this. So let’s do it.”
He looks at me for a few beats before repeating my words flatly. “Let’s do it.”
I widen my stance, shift on my feet like a fighter, getting ready to throw punches. “Yeah. Let’s do this thing so you can leave me alone.”
The sooner he does what he came here to do – which if history is any indication, is probably to ruffle my feathers and make me uncomfortable with dirty innuendos – the sooner I can move on from this awful, terrible coincidence of seeing him again.
Because it is a coincidence, isn’t it?
Him being here, at the same bar, at the same time.
Reed notices my stance and asks in a low voice, “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Come on. I’m ready.”
“Okay.” He nods, his eyes hooded. “Where do you want it?”
“What?”
“Yeah, where do you want it?” He gestures toward the wall that I’m standing against. “Here, up against the wall? Or in the back seat of my car.” He doesn’t give me the time to respond to his statement.
“It’s been two years, but I remember how much you seemed to love writhing on my leather seats.
And if I’m being honest, I’d love to see that again. But lady’s choice, of course.”
“What… I…”
As I sputter out confused syllables, I understand his meaning.
His stupid meaning.
He’s talking about all the times I danced and writhed on his leather seats while he took me out on those rides. While he put on the music and I danced for him even when I was sitting down.
Because I loved dancing for him. Because I was an idiot.
I loved writhing on his lap too. That one time in the rain…
But I don’t want to think about that right now.
Not in front of him.
“You’re funny,” I tell him and his wolf eyes sparkle with humor. “And delusional. If you think I’m letting you touch me ever again, you need your head examined.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.” I grit my teeth at his condescending tone, at the tone that has the power to make me feel all young and na?ve. “Because it’s never happening. So say what you came here to say and leave.”
He looks at me thoughtfully. “Hmm. I’m not so sure you want me to leave though. Because this feels like a dare, and you know how much I like those.”
I know.
I do know.
He likes dares. He likes provocation. He likes to rile people up and ruffle their feathers like he used to do with Ledger on the field. When they played together back at Bardstown High. When they were rivals.
As I debate throwing this bottle at him, I say, “It’s not a dare, it’s reality. Touch me and lose your teeth. So you really need to leave now.”
Instead, he takes a step toward me and I press myself into the wall even more.
“You’re not making it easy though,” he drawls. “Leaving.”
“Get away from me or I’ll punch you, okay? I’m not kidding.”
Of course he thinks I’m kidding and does the opposite of what I’m asking him to do.
He takes another step toward me and I swear to God, it’s such a big step that he’s almost here. He’s almost where I am and I have to hold my breath because I don’t want to breathe the same air as him.
I don’t want to find out if his scent, his delicious scent, has remained the same after two years or not.
“If you keep talking like that,” he dips his face toward me, reminding me of how short I am compared to him, “I’ll start getting ideas.”
“What ideas?” I squeak, wondering how it is possible that I forgot the difference in our sizes.
When I lived for those differences back then.
I lived for how tall he was, how strong, how he could pick me up while I danced on my toes for him.
“That you’re flirting with me,” he says in a husky tone.
I ignore the pounding of my heart and the rush under my skin. “Oh my God, you are delusional.”
“You know you don’t have to try so hard with me,” he goes on like I haven’t spoken. “You want me to touch you, Fae, just say the word.”
Fae.
I breathe out.
I blink.
I didn’t want him to say that. Because I didn’t want to find out.
I didn’t want to find out if it sounds the same.
My name. The name that he gave me two years ago.
It does.
It sounds exactly like it did two years ago.
Intense and intimate. Like it belongs to me. Like I was made to be called that.
Blonde and tiny with the limbs of a dancer, his dancer.
His fairy.
But I was never his and that is not my name.
“Hey, Reed.” I stare into his wolf eyes and throw him a false smile. “I know it’s been two years and all, but my name is Calliope Thorne. People also call me Callie. And if I’m being honest, I’d rather you not call me anything at all. But asshole’s choice, of course.”
Those eyes of his become intense as he murmurs, “Calliope Juliet Thorne. I know what your name is, Fae. I also know what my name is. Do you?”
Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I do.
I do know his name.
I know his name like I know how to breathe.
Like I know how to cry in my pillow at night, biting down on it so I don’t make a noise.
I know his name like I know how to hurt when I see someone wearing a white hoodie on the street. When I see a girl so in love with a guy that she only has eyes for him and no one else.
I know his name, yes.
Reed Roman Jackson.
My Roman.
Or so I thought.
“You said that our names made us Shakespearean, star-crossed lovers,” he says, bringing me back to the moment. “A teenage tragedy. And I told you that they didn’t. Because what did fucking Shakespeare know? To me, you’ll always be Fae. And to you, I’ll always be Roman.”
I did say those things to him. I did tell him about our names and I did warn him to stay away from me.
It was a warning for me too.
If only I had listened to it myself.
If only I’d stayed away.
“I remember,” I tell him, staring into the face of the villain I fell in love with.
“I remember everything. I remember everything I said to you and everything you said to me. And that’s why I know that we are a teenage tragedy.
Because you made sure of that, didn’t you?
So get away from me because I wasn’t kidding about you losing your teeth. Reed.”
But again, instead of moving away he gets even closer, and I find out the answer to another question that I didn’t want to know.
His scent.
It’s still the same.
He still smells of wildflowers and woods. He still smells of open roads and freedom.
The freedom that I don’t have anymore.
The freedom I lost the night I stole his Mustang and tried to destroy it.
The Mustang that he built himself.
He did, yes.
I didn’t know that, see.
I had no idea that the thing I was destroying, the thing that he loved the most in the world, was also a thing that he had made himself.
Reed Roman Jackson, the richest boy at Bardstown High, in Bardstown, had built his Mustang with his own two hands.
I found that out later.
Much, much later.
After all the damage was done.
I don’t even blame him for calling the cops on me. I never blamed him for calling them.
I’ve only ever blamed him for breaking my heart.
I only blame him now, for smelling the same even after two years.
And while I’m so busy smelling him and remembering the past, he’s doing something else. I don’t realize that the reason he’s so close to me is because he’s stealing from me.
My whiskey bottle.
It is only after he’s straightened up and moved back that I realize that my hand is empty and his is not.
That… asshole.
“Give it back,” I order.
Staring at me, he puts the bottle to his mouth and takes a long gulp. As if to taunt me.
When he’s done drinking my whiskey, his red lips glisten and his face sparkles like the moon that hangs low in the sky. “See you around, Fae.”
And just like that he turns around and leaves.
I should be relieved.
I should be, I know.
This is what I wanted. I wanted him to leave me alone.
But I don’t feel relief. Not at all.
I feel anger.
I feel so much fury right now. So much heat in my body that I can’t contain it.
I can’t contain this massive outrage, this massive wrath at what he said just now, the words that he used.
See you around, Fae.
The same words he said to me the night he smashed my heart to pieces. When he turned around and never looked back as I stood there, crying.
Before I know it, I’ve taken off after him.
I’ve started to charge at him like a crazy, wounded animal. I probably sound like one too, grunting and groaning, and in the back of my mind, I know I shouldn’t be acting this way.
You’re not a violent person, Callie. You don’t do this.
But I guess I’m violent for him.
I’m a bad girl for Reed Roman Jackson.
He’s at the back door, just about to enter the bar, and I’m about to crash into him until I don’t.
Until he spins around at the last second, intercepts me and spins me around too, pinning me to the brick wall. And then I’m right back where I started, pressed against a wall, staring up at him.
Only this time things are worse because he’s closer.
Much, much closer.
And he’s touching me.
Oh God, he’s touching me.
He has his hand on my stomach and he’s using it to keep me in my spot. He’s using it to trap me.
He’s actually holding me hostage right now and oh my God, I lose it.
I completely lose it.
“Take your hand off me,” I tell him, my legs jiggling. And when he doesn’t comply immediately, I start to struggle. “Take your hand off me. Take your hand off me right now!”
Thankfully, he does.