Chapter 6
chapter
six
Vivian
“Oh my hell, that was amazing. Seriously. I thought my body was broken,” I say.
He stares down at me with those electric green eyes. “Broken? No. You are alive and perfect.”
I suck in a breath, because no man has ever called me perfect before. No man has ever looked at me like this. I want to pause the world and just wallow in this feeling for a moment.
My stomach takes that moment to rumble loudly.
He looks down at me, his mouth twitching awkwardly as if he’s sorta forgotten how to smile.
I put a hand up to his face, then I press the other half of his mouth up into the grin.
“There it is.” I feel the muscles relax under my touch, feel the smile become more natural.
“Wow, you’re already handsome, but when you smile, it’s kinda staggering how hot you are. ”
“I’m smiling,” he murmurs, a look of awe on his face.
My stomach growls again.
“I should feed you.” He stands, then pulls me to my feet too. He pulls on his boxers and I grab my panties and t-shirt.
“You said you don’t do this,” I say, while I quickly pull on my shirt. “Does that mean you don’t usually hook up with random women who wander through your woods getting attacked by bug men?”
I should probably try harder to play it cool, but this is all so new to me and I’m desperate to know if it feels as life altering to him as it does to me.
He takes my hand and threads our fingers together. “I haven’t touched a woman, like that,” he points to the floor. The scene of our crime, as it were. “Since before. Back when I was human.”
“Oh,” I murmur. So maybe it does.
I’m so blown away by the idea, that it takes me a minute to recognize the underlying sadness in his voice when he says the words when I was human.
He leads me into his kitchen, then lifts me, effortlessly up onto the big island counter.
“You seem pretty human to me,” I say. “You’re very sweet and considerate.”
His gaze falls to his feet, but I swear pink splotches into his cheeks. Is he blushing? He bends and digs through a cabinet. Pans clang as he shifts things around.
“Is an omelet okay with you? I know that’s cliched to make, but I make a pretty good one.”
“You make omelets?” My stomach lurches.
He must hear the trepidation in my voice because he blanches. “Not brain omelets. Egg omelets. I eat real food, too.”
I give him a suspicious side eye. “You eat real food. That doesn’t seem very zombie-esque of you.”
He ducks his head and looks embarrassed. “I do eat brains, but I eat other things as well.”
I nudge my foot against his thigh, hoping he hears the teasing in my voice. “Then I’d love an omelet. No brains in mine, please.”
He eyes me. Then he gives me a crooked grin, he looks boyish and charming. “No brains included, I promise. Just eggs, cheese and veggies.”
“And bacon? Do you have bacon?” I ask.
“Right.” He holds up a finger. “Because bacon is life.”
“Do you believe in soulmates?” I blurt, then I cover my mouth. “You know what, don’t answer that. I don’t even know why I asked that.” I shake my head feeling embarrassed and dumb.
His back is to me while he’s putting the skillet on the stove. And the entire surface is covered in ink.
“You don’t really seem like a tattoo kind of guy so what’s the story there?” I ask.
He turns to face me, coming to the counter space to my left to chop vegetables. While he chops, I watch his muscles play beneath his pale purplish skin. He’s got nearly full sleeves on each arm and several tattoos on his chest.
“It’s interesting that you’d notice that.
I mean right away like that,” he says. “You’re correct, I’m not really a tattoo guy.
” He gets a couple more items out of the fridge and then starts cooking the bacon in a cast-iron skillet.
“I got the first two when I was still… well, before I was this.” He motions to his body.
“Oh, for any particular reason?”
He nods. “I’d made a bet with my closest friend at the time. He worked with me at Hunt Industries. We were behind on a deadline. He said there was no way we could make it. I told the team that if we did meet the goal, I’d get a tattoo.”
His lips curve into the faintest of smiles and it takes my breath away.
“So your team obviously met the deadline and you got the first tattoo.” I leave the sentence out there, hoping he’ll say more. Because I want to hear everything he has to say. Everything he’s willing to share with me.
“And the next time a deadline came along, they wanted me to get another tattoo.”
“And the next time?” I ask.
His smile falters and he looks back down at the skillet. “The next deadline was after the transition. I wasn’t involved in the company then. Not in any real sense.”
There’s almost no change in his tone. Almost no indication that this admission hurts him, but I feel it. I feel it deep in my bones. I’m sure he misses his work. Misses the comradery of working on a team. Of leading a company.
“But you still got more tattoos?” I prod.
After a second, he nods. “It was a way of feeling like I was part of the business, a way to mark the company milestones, even if I couldn’t celebrate with the team in person.”
His admission brings tears to my eyes for some reason. “Are you still connected to the company?”
“I’m more or less a silent partner these days. I do some work remotely, troubleshooting problems from here when I can. But I’m never … involved.” He cooks in silence for several minutes and I just stare at the different images illustrating his back.
“They suit you though,” I say. “I mean, the tattoos look really good on you.”
“In the last several years, I’ve gotten some that have nothing to do with my company or milestones.
Mostly just because the sensations I get when I’m being inked, I can nearly feel that pain.
“It’s the closest I’ve felt to being human…
” He sets a plate of food down on the island next to me, then meets my gaze. “until I met you.”
I suck in a breath. “Why? What’s different about me?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure. But I do know you’re different. You make me feel things.”
“You make me feel—” but before I can even finish what I’m trying to say, my stomach rumbles loudly again.
His lips quirk in a near grin again. “Hungry.” So he forks up a bite of the food and puts it to my lips.
He feeds me several bites before he lets me speak again. “So what was it like before? I mean if you didn’t feel things?”
“The best way for me to explain it is like this. A long time ago, before I was changed, I watched this documentary where they were interviewing these teenagers who had abused the drug Ecstasy over a certain period of time. What happened was that the repeated abuse of the drug seemed to permanently damage their brain’s ability to produce serotonin, so ultimately they were left feeling emotionally numb all of the time. They just felt nothing.
“They were alert, coherent. They could go to school, have conversations, hold jobs, etc, but they could feel nothing. No empathy, no sadness, no happiness, nothing. I remember watching that and feeling heartbroken for those kids and their families. Then suddenly I was sort of in that world, through no fault of my own, and I couldn’t even be angry or frustrated about it because those emotions just weren’t there. ”
I reach out and squeeze one of his hands. “That sounds terrible and so lonely. I’m sorry, Atticus, that you’ve been living like that for so long.”
He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “We all have our problems and issues. I haven’t been completely alone. I have a few friends in town. What about you?”
“I have Harry. We’ve been best friends since college.”
“Harry?” he asks, his voice tight, his jaw clenched.
“Her name is actually Harriet, but she goes by Harry. She was really pissed that I came here without her.”
We finish eating and he shows me to a bedroom—I think it’s his, but I’m not positive.
“There’s a bathroom right through that door and it should have anything you’d need in it, but if not, just let me know,” he says.
“Are you going to leave again?” I ask.
“I don’t have to.”
“I’d really like it if you stayed. Until we know if that bug thing is well and gone,” I say.
“Of course.” He nods to the bathroom door. “You go ahead and get ready. I’m going to grab my laptop, then I’ll be back. I’ll do some work while you’re falling asleep.”
“Do you sleep?”
“Some. I just don’t need much.”
“Thank you, Atticus. For everything.”
He visibly swallows. “You’re quite welcome.”