Mr. Bad News #2
The burn in my throat was by far the worst it’d ever been, and it made me bitter and desperate to run away from the conversation.
I was afraid of what I’d hear next, and I didn’t really understand why.
It wasn’t fair to Phillip for me to react this way, but I couldn’t help it.
The discomfort was so intense I wanted to do whatever I could to free myself from this vice-like grip around my heart.
I swallowed, pulling away some, but Phillip’s arm around me squeezed and refused to let me get far. “Phil—”
“By that time, I’d made a name for myself. I was the target of a lot of very powerful dark creatures, but none that I couldn’t defeat. It didn’t occur to me that there’d someday be someone more powerful, and it was inevitably my downfall.”
His voice softened. “I’d gotten the attention of Eros after a mission where I stopped him from assassinating an important contact of the Organization.
He made it his goal to slaughter every last person I loved in retaliation.
Giselle was first. He’s the type to go straight for the throat, so he killed her before I ever knew he was a threat.
Then everyone else important to me thereafter. ”
The Hunter’s story blindsided me, and I didn’t know how to react when Phillip relived the painful memory with every drop of his voice and deepened line on his face.
“He slaughtered Giselle while she was out on a mission, and I never got a chance to protect her or even warn her,” Phillip whispered angrily.
The older man’s dark expression was so full of anguish and torment, it tore me apart to see it.
A tear escaped my eye and fell onto his arm, causing Phillip’s gaze to jerk down to me. “I’m sorry, Phil. I shouldn’t have…”
“V?” he asked, cradling my face. “What’s wrong?”
“You wouldn’t ask that if you could see your face right now.” The tears came faster. “I made you talk about this. I shouldn’t have. I know what it’s like to…” It hurt to swallow as I struggled to express what I was feeling.
I’d lost my parents and probably Grams. I’d lost every friend I’d made and a life that may not have been normal but it was mine.
Still, I hadn’t lost a loved one to death the way Phillip had.
It made me realize I couldn’t truly empathize or offer anything of value to comfort him.
I’d probably make everything worse by trying.
I talked on and on about how I wouldn’t let anything get in the way of the life I wanted, but would I still talk that way if I was the reason a person I loved died?
I wasn’t so sure.
“I’ve been so selfish and ignorant,” I said softly.
Phillip’s eyes danced before our lips met briefly. “You didn’t force me to talk about that, V. I wanted to tell you.”
“Yeah, because I asked,” I clapped back, angry at myself for crying when I didn’t have any right to.
It was Phillip who should cry. Instead, he looked resolved to a fate of unhappiness and torment. His expression was of someone who’d given up and come to terms with their terrible fate a long time ago.
And I hated seeing it.
But what I hated most was the selfish part of me that wanted him to move past it and find the will to hope for something more again. For him to conquer his lost love and open his heart to me, because if he didn’t, I’d never get in.
Goddammit.
It dawned on me in that moment that I’d been fooling myself. I’d convinced myself what we had was enough, but it wasn’t. I wanted more. I wanted to be more to him, and it hurt to realize I never would be.
This was all we’d ever be.
Phillip’s hands sunk into my hair, and he forced our eyes to meet. “That’s not why I told you. You asked why I was acting different. Why I’ve been…salty.”
I laughed despite streams of tears pouring down my face. “That word sounds weird with your accent.”
I no longer cried for Phillip. I cried for myself. I cried because I’d walked right back into a hopeless situation and had no one else but myself to blame.
The other Hunter kissed my wet cheeks and licked the tears from his mouth. “If anyone’s being salty, it’s you. Look at all these tears. What are you, a broken dam?”
“Shut up, asshole,” I said angrily, sobbing harder. “I can’t stop them. It’s just all so sad.”
Mostly, it was me who was sob-worthy.
Dammit, V. You just had to go and fall for Mr. Bad News.
“Says the girl who’s lost a whole world of loved ones,” Phillip teased with a soft smile. “I didn’t tell you all this to make you cry. I told you because it was important you know it.”
Well, now I felt guilty about lying. Don’t get me wrong. Phillip’s story was heartbreaking, but not enough for me to ball my eyes out. Guess I couldn’t scorn Phillip for bad lies anymore. Not I, the compelling liar who used her tears to guilt a man into comforting her.
“Why?” I finally asked, working quickly to calm myself.
“Because I vowed never to get close to anyone else, and…” His hands tightened around my face. “I didn’t have any trouble keeping people at a distance until I met you. You changed everything.”
“Hey, don’t blame me for—”
“And I think I’m probably falling for you.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
Did he say he was falling for me? ME—the girl who only just figured out how sex worked? Me, the girl who chose sarcasm over actual heartfelt declarations? Or me, the target of an entire supernatural world?
That girl?
It felt too good to be true that someone as jaded as Phillip would fall for someone like me.
The same elusive, longtime bachelor who lost his one love and vowed to never love again declaring he’d fallen for me sounded like a lie.
Mostly, it didn’t sound real that I’d have an epiphany about my own feelings, only for him to declare his on the same damn day.
It had to be a trap.
Phillip paused, eyes tracing my face and thumbs brushing away drying tears. “But it’s not a good idea.”
There it was, the other shoe.
“Not a good idea?”
“Everyone I’ve ever cared about ends up dead, V. And you’re young with a whole life ahead of you. It’s a bad idea because you haven’t even figured out who you are yet.”
Anger overpowered every other emotion and destroyed the calm I’d worked hard to keep.
I’m going to say something I regret.
“I feel like we’ve already had this conversation, Phillip,” I retorted heatedly. “I’m fully capable of deciding what I want for myself, thank you very much.”
“You’re right, but I’d be taking advantage of you if I didn’t say something,” Phillip argued, clearly conflicted by his own statement.
“Oh, so what, now you care about how young I am? So sex is all good, but a relationship, god-forbid, is the line you’ve drawn. Seems a little backwards, dude.”
“You’re right,” he agreed, releasing my face. “But it’s like I said, I don’t know what I’m doing these days either. Everything’s fucked up.”
“That’s a cop-out and you know it,” I hissed and escaped the bed to put on my clothes. “You know exactly what you’re doing. You’re just pretending you don’t because admitting anything would mean you have to own up to that shit, Phil.”
I couldn’t figure out who was the adult in this room. Certainly not the man who one minute talked about his deeply rooted pain, proclaimed he was falling for me, then threw a punch right to the gut by saying it was a bad idea.
Phillip watched me, completely silent to my eternal annoyance. Fuming, I pulled down my shirt and glared at the vexing Austrian stretched out over the bed, still very much naked and delicious to look at.
I shook away the lust and pinned my eyes on his. “You know what I think?” His expression faded away to confusion. “I think you’re scared. I think you hide behind this manufactured excuse of me being too young and not up to snuff, but it’s you who’s not ready to admit you’re a coward.”
Phillip’s expression morphed, visibly frustrated. “You have a lot of balls to call someone like me a coward.”
I’d regret it, but with Phillip, I had to go for the throat to make a point. Maybe it’d deliver the kick in the ass he needed to get his shit together.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m young and haven’t experienced enough to know what I want.
Because you’re not wrong. I’ve always known you were a bad idea.
We were a bad idea.” Steeling my resolve, I kept my eyes firmly on his.
“Maybe I should move on and call this thing what it is, not worth it, and set my sights on someone who won’t use their past as a scape-goat. ”
I was really channeling Grams in this passive-aggressive speech of mine. But something told me Grams was exactly who I needed to channel to get through to Phillip.
The door opened with a click downstairs, alerting us to Sloan’s arrival.
“Someone like Sloan, maybe.”
Phillip’s expression didn’t give anything away, but his entire body tautened as if he was under attack.
I didn’t stay long enough to watch and left him there to marinate in my threat.
Guilt settled in my throat after the door clicked behind me, but I lifted my chin and refused to let it get the better of me.
Because it wasn’t anything short of what Phillip deserved.
And he’s lucky I didn’t punch him.
Still, if I’d spent more time accepting my feelings, I might’ve been prepared for my heart to break the second I left Phillip in that bedroom.