Chapter 44 – Thomas
Chapter Forty-Four
Thomas
“I brought these for Clover,” I say, despite Clover giving me a look like she wants to sink her teeth into me like a wild cat.
I don’t care if she looks at me like I have two heads covered in oozing boils.
She’s hurting and she needs flowers, I don’t care what she says.
I saw how she looked in the hospital, all small and sad.
I miss her head pressed against my chest and I want to feel it again – those tiny moments of warmth from the beastly girl now glowering at me with bloodlust behind her mahogany eyes.
Kola and Sylvia both look at her, but her eyes won’t leave mine. It’s hard to feel glad about it when she emanates pure rage, but she’s still gorgeous with those pretty dreadlocks and her scrunched up face.
Clover grabs my sleeve with her fury and snarls at everyone, “I’ll handle this.”
She drags me off to her bedroom, which she left completely locked, I might add.
If her doors and windows weren’t both shut and locked, I would have snuck in and left the flowers for her.
But I wandered the hall and heard her voice, so how could I resist delivering the flowers in person.
How the bloody hell have I done anything wrong?
“Thank God Molly isn’t here,” She hisses as she flings the door open and flings me into the bedroom, forcing me to grasp the flowers for dear life. It’s a rather nice bouquet and I sent Kit to pick them up during my history class.
She won’t be angry once she realizes how hard I’ve worked.
“Is there a problem?”
“Is there a problem?” Clover repeats with all the sass she can muster.
I grin and set the flowers on her desk. She’ll have to find a vase for them.
“I only watched one video,” I say to her. Maybe she’s upset because of the type of flowers I brought. Women are quite particular about floral arrangements, judging by mum’s reactions to the maids bringing in the wrong kind for the fresh bouquets.
“I just wanted to find out your favorites, that’s all,” I say to Clover, crossing my heart with my right hand.
She told me her entire life was on the internet and it’s taken everything in my power not to look her up, not to learn every fucking detail about Clover Robinson’s life, which is entirely available for the public.
I don’t think most people here even know what she sees as her dirty little secret.
English people don’t care about celebrity like Americans — especially not posh English people who find that sort of thing gauche.
People from our background don’t tend to indulge in that sort of American obsession with nosing into strangers’ lives. We’d rather buy race horses, play polo or vacation in St. Tropez than concerning ourselves with Americans designer handbag collections.
“What were you thinking?” Clover snaps, her sassy little lecture beginning. “My friends are going to think there’s something going on between us.”
Isn’t there? Each time I kiss her, I want her more. Each time she resists me, I make impossible attempts to fall away. And aren’t we friends? We’re supposed to be staging a public fight, not a real one. But this is definitely a real fight. Or… it’s about to be.
“I was thinking that I fucking liked you, so I’d bring you flowers because you were having a hard time. Is that a bloody crime, now?”
“Yes!”
“Really? What crime is it?”
She folds her arms and I can see her scanning my torso for places to punch. I hold steady. This time, her flailing little fists won’t make me buzz off.
“No! I mean… Jesus Christ, Thomas! I don’t… We just… We just kissed.”
She knows bloody well it wasn’t just a kiss. That’s why she ran away. That’s why she’s always running. Something about us scares her.
“We kissed because I like you. We kissed because there is something here, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“There isn’t,” she hisses. “You said it yourself, I’m a slut, right? Maybe I go around kissing all types of boys in all types of bathrooms and you aren’t the first or the last.”
Blood courses through me. She knows how to get under my skin, how to upset me. I know I’m not the only man to touch her. I’m not her first. I’ll never be any of her firsts. But Clover can’t deny what she feels. I won’t let her.
“I might not be the first,” I say to her, my voice stern and brimming with the desire to show her just how fucking angry she makes me.
I couldn’t bring myself to do anything to scare her.
I can’t be the guy who thinks it okay to hurt her anymore.
If I want her to treat me like a prince, I’d better start treating her like a princess.
I soften my voice. “Why can’t we talk about this?”
“Because… I don’t do this stuff, Thomas. I don’t do relationships.”
I want to throw something. I want to wrestle her to the bed and shut her up with kisses and my hand between her legs. I know she’s lying, but unless she lets me in, I have to stand here outside the ten foot walls Clover Robinson puts up around her heart.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means, I don’t have boyfriends. I don’t date. I don’t do that stuff.”
“Why not?”
“Because, I just don’t.”
“I think you’re scared,” I tell her, closing the distance between, nearly pressing Clover up against her bed. “I think you’re fucking terrified.”
“You have the bruises to prove I’m not,” she says. “There’s nothing going on between us. I kissed you to check it off a list.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not a liar,” she says. “I don’t like you.”
“Liar.”
“Stop it!” she yells.
I don’t. I can’t. I touch her face and kiss her.
Clover kisses back and then remembers herself.
She pushes my chest, but I can’t stop kissing her.
I won’t let her push me off this time. I kiss her harder, raking my fingers through her dreads and wanting so fucking badly to take her into bed.
Clover grabs my forearm and digs her fingernails in. Hard.
I pull away from her and she glares.
“You kissed back,” I whisper.
I didn’t want to let go of her, but I know she’ll draw blood if I don’t.
“I’m not who you want,” she says with far too much self-assurance. “I’m not.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“You don’t know me, Thomas,” she says.
“That’s the point, Clover. I want to know you. I want…”
I don’t back away from her. I can’t make myself. I want so much from her. I like her. I really like her. And I know that she likes me too.
“Someone wants to kill both of us just for talking,” she says before I can finish my thought. “We don’t belong together, Thomas. Move on. Date someone else or something.”
“Perhaps I will,” I tell her. “But there isn’t a girl on this planet who could ever make me get over you.”
“You’ve met every girl?” she shoots back.
“I don’t have to. I’ve seen the world, Clover. I’ve seen everything that’s out there, and I just want a girl who’s tough. Gorgeous. A girl I can’t stop fucking thinking about. That’s you. It’s been you from the first time I saw you.”
“Stop,” she whispers. “We’re going to have our fight, you’re going to fake date Kola, and we’re going to get out of this and hopefully never talk to each other again.”
“You’ll keep the flowers?”
She pauses and bites her lower lip.
“If you leave, I’ll keep the flowers.”
“Goodbye, Clover.”
Her shoulders relax, but she won’t meet my gaze. “Goodbye, Thomas.”
That’s it between us, isn’t it? I have my answer from Clover. She doesn’t want me.
* * *