Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Today’s the day.
That I’m going to do what I’ve decided.
It’s not a special day per se. It’s a Monday after Tempest’s visit and everything’s been the same.
The school, the teachers, my supportive gang of girls.
Reed.
He’s been the same too, crazy protective and crazy caring, dropping me off at school, picking me up. Glaring at the lingering girls through the black metal gate. Helping me with the dishes and cleaning up after dinner.
In fact, that’s what he’s doing right now.
He stands beside me in his white dress shirt putting away the dishes that I’m giving him. And I’m doing the same thing that I always do these days, watching his strong beautiful hands, his veins, the tiny drops of water decorating his marble skin.
“Fae.”
I blink and look up. “What?”
He looks at me slightly impatiently. “The fucking dish.”
“Right.”
I hand him the rinsed dish I am holding and when he wipes it down and puts it up in the cupboard, I blurt out, “Reed, I…”
“You what?”
You what, Callie? Say it.
Tell him.
“I have a name,” I blurt out instead for some reason.
“What?”
“For her.”
He goes alert then. “You have a name for her.”
Biting my lip, I smile slightly. “Yes.”
Even though this wasn’t what I was going to say to him, I’m glad I did. Now that my mind isn’t muddled with exhaustion, I’ve been looking at names.
Or rather, paying attention in English lit class about character names and such.
And today I heard a name that I absolutely loved.
His wolf eyes sharpen with interest. “What is it?”
“Okay, so,” I begin, my voice buzzing with excitement as I close the tap and turn to him. “Today in class we were reading this story and there was a name that jumped out at me. It completely blew my mind.”
“Completely.”
“Yes. Like it changed how I looked at that name, you know. And I think it’s very rare. I don’t think I’ve ever —”
“Fae.”
“What?”
“What the fuck is the name?”
“Right, okay. Listen to this: Miya. With a Y.”
I grin then.
Because isn’t it wonderful? Who would have thought?
I mean, you either go with Mia or Maya. But Miya with a Y is so exotic and different and as soon as I heard it, I knew I was going to name her Miya.
He hasn’t said anything though.
He’s simply looking at me with a blank face, leaning against the counter in his open-collared office shirt, his arms folded across his chest.
So I prompt him as I keep grinning because I can’t contain the excitement. “So? What do you think? Miya with a Y, huh? I think this has completely changed how we think of the name Mia.”
“No.”
“What?”
“It hasn’t completely changed how we think of the name Mia.”
“What, why?”
“Because we still think Mia is a shitty name.”
“Excuse me?”
“And adding a Y in is not going to change that.”
I gasp. “Are you serious right now?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Then you’re insane, Reed,” I tell him, raising my chin. “Mia is a wonderful name, okay? Adding a Y makes it even more wonderful.”
He shrugs then. “All right. I’m still not naming her Miya with a fucking Y.”
“You’re not naming her?”
“That’s what I said.”
I purse my lips at him. “First of all, you’re not going to name her anything. We’re going to do that. And second of all, I really don’t think you should curse, Reed. And third —”
“Why?”
“What?”
He unfolds his arms, straightening up, his eyes flashing. “You keep saying that. That I shouldn’t curse.”
I’m confused. “Yeah…”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
I tuck my loose strands behind my ears. “Because you shouldn’t.”
He takes a step toward me. “Yeah, you said that. Why?”
I automatically take a step back. “Because it’s bad manners.”
“And you’re a good girl.”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, you are.” He smirks slightly, taking me in, my braid, his hoodie, my bare toes.
I realize that I haven’t seen his smirk on him in so long. I haven’t seen him this cocky, this arrogant in so long either.
This predatory.
He’s glorious like this. Gorgeous.
As gorgeous as he is when he’s my protector.
Because he’s both, isn’t he?
He’s my protector, the one who takes care of me and treats me like I’m the most fragile thing ever, his Fae. But he’s also a predator, the one who broke my heart and who’s stalking toward me in all his dark glory.
“And what else?” he continues.
“I don’t like it.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“I don’t.”
“You always did,” he rasps, as he keeps coming toward me and as I keep moving back.
Until I can’t.
Because the small of my back has hit the counter and I come to a jerking halt.
Unlike my heart that’s pounding like crazy, because he’s right.
I do like it when he curses.
I do like it when he talks to me so unapologetically. In a way that’s so raw and intimate and… dirty. I’ve always liked it.
“Ask me how I know that,” he says when he reaches me, the predatory quality in his tone so thick that I can taste it.
“How?”
“Because you blush,” he rasps, watching me, his face dipped. “Now ask me why I do it. Why I talk dirty to you.”
I grab hold of the counter at my hips. “W-why?”
“So you can tell me not to and get all hot and bothered, while blushing like a daisy-fresh schoolgirl.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
I don’t know how to respond because my heart is right there, in the back of my mouth, beating and beating. And then, he decides to send it to the tip of my tongue.
Where it sits precariously, on the edge of a deep and deadly fall.
When he raises his hand, the hand that I’ve been so fascinated with, and runs a rough finger down my cheek.
I feel something swirling in my blood. Heat. So much of it.
A current, a pulse.
But more than that, I feel relief, because this is the moment when I also realize that along with letting his predatory side sleep, he also hasn’t touched me.
It’s been weeks, actually, since he’s touched me like this.
I mean he has touched me, of course. But it has mostly been out of necessity, protection, an arm around my waist to help me stand up after a bout of nausea or a hand on the small of my back to usher me inside the exam room.
But not like this. Not since that night in his Mustang back in October.
He’s been holding himself back.
It’s all clear as day. When I see the relief that I’ve been feeling on his face. In his loosened shoulders, his parted lips. In the way his eyes home in on my cheek.
And God, I have to tell him. I have to say it to him now.
So he’ll touch me more.
“I liked that,” he whispers, breaking my urgent thoughts.
“What?”
“When you laughed. This weekend. With Pest.”
His finger is on my parted lips now. “Oh.”
“Haven’t seen you laugh like that in a long time,” he murmurs, still watching his finger.
“Back when you’d come over to the house.
And you and Pest would be gabbing about something in her room and suddenly you’d burst out laughing.
” He pauses and a muscle jumps out on his cheek.
“I’d hear you and I’d stop whatever I was doing and I’d think… ”
I don’t know how I manage to string words together but I do and I whisper, “You’d think what?”
He looks into my eyes, his finger tracing the curve of my lips. “She laughs like a fairy too.”
My stomach hollows out and I grab onto his wrist with both hands as I say, my body melting, “I forgive you.”
He, on the other hand, goes rigid. “What?”
That’s what I wanted to say to him. That’s what I’d decided this weekend.
That I’d tell him that.
And so I do, even though he’s gone all rigid, all unforgiving. “I-I forgive you. For everything.”
He studies my face with a gaze that has hardened, much like his body. “Everything.”
I was afraid before, to say it.
To actually say the words and make them real.
But I’m not afraid anymore.
I’m not afraid to tell him that I’ve forgiven him because it is the truth. It has been the truth for some time now. Even though he doesn’t look too happy about it. He doesn’t look like he wants to hear it.
I dig my nails into his wrist. “Yeah. I forgive you for breaking my heart two years ago. For lying to me. For using me. For breaking your promises to me and for choosing your vendetta against your dad over me. I forgive you for all that.”
This time his silence is much, much longer.
During which the muscle in his cheek beats like my own heart. It beats like it will rip out of his skin like my heart will rip out of my chest.
“Why?” he asks after a while, somehow with his finger still on my lip, still as tender as ever, so in contrast to his harsh demeanor.
“Because my heart doesn’t hurt anymore,” I whisper, staring into his pretty eyes.
“Because ever since you broke it, my heart, two years ago, I’ve been in pain.
I’ve been in so much pain, and that’s why I stole your car, to stop it.
That’s why I asked you for closure the night when…
when we had sex. For the last two years, all I’ve wanted was for the pain to stop.
I just wanted my heart to stop hurting and it has.
I don’t feel it anymore. The pain. It’s gone. ”
“Why?” he asks again. “Why is it gone?”
I go up on my tiptoes to reach him because he looks so far away right now. “Because you took it away. You made it go away. I asked you to do it and you did.”
Isn’t it ironic though?
That the guy who gave me this pain is also the one who took it away. He’s the one who soothed it.
But it only seems to push him further away.
So much so that he breaks out of my hold. He takes his touch away from me and steps back.
The touch that he’d given after weeks, he takes it back in a matter of seconds and my knees feel weak without it.
My body goes cold. My legs tremble.
He stares at me with angry eyes, his stubbled jaw ticking. “And I’m assuming all this forgiveness is because of what I’m doing, is that correct? For driving you around, for bringing you groceries, for taking you to that useless fucking doctor. You think I’m doing this for your forgiveness?”
I don’t know how I can be so calm when he’s like this. Agitated and angry. Callous.