Car keys #2
"Oh." I manufacture a smile, fast and functional. "Thank goodness, I thought I'd..."
He steps closer before I can finish, closing the distance between us in just a few steps, filling the space with his tall frame. "Why do you have these keys?"
He pulls them back the exact moment my hand reaches for them.
I lower my hand. Remind myself not to reach for his helmet and throw it at his goddamn head.
"James gave them to me," I say, my voice trembling with anger. "So I could get something from his car," I add when I see he isn't reacting.
"James" He says the name like he is tasting it. Deciding what it means that I know it.
"Yes." I hold my hand out, palm up. "The keys. Please."
He doesn't move.
Instead, he tilts his head slightly and looks at me with an expression that is beginning to take on a quality I don't like.
I can't figure out what it is. He has such unexpected eyes.
The kind of warm, quiet eyes you would associate with someone entirely different.
Without the rest of him, without his personality and the weight of his name and everything that comes with it, you would look at those eyes and think they belong to a kind person.
But then you take in the whole picture, and you instantly see the coldness.
"You know," he says, pulling me back from my thoughts, "this is starting to become quite obvious."
I stare at him. "What is?"
"You." A pause. "Showing up wherever I am. You are by far the worst stalker I've ever had."
I feel my jaw tighten.
There it is again.
"I'm sorry?" My voice comes out very flat.
"My house." He counts on his fingers, the keys still dangling from his other hand. "When I was showering. Now here."
"I'm sorry that you have to deal with so many stalkers," I say, "but I'm not one of them. I'm here with my friends, and trust me... I have been actively trying to avoid you."
He looks at me for a moment. And something in his expression darkens. "You shouldn't be here." The shift is abrupt enough that it catches me completely off guard. Like a different conversation has just begun, without warning.
"I decide where I belong," I snap back. "Not you."
"I'm not talking about belonging." His voice stays even. Unbothered. The tone of someone correcting a minor factual error. "I'm talking about knowing where you are. These people"a slight tilt of his head toward the crowd beyond the warehouse walls"they're not like you."
That gets my attention.
"And what am I like?" I cross my arms, noticing his eyes moving down my body. He looks at me as if he is deciding whether to roll his eyes or smile. Only then do I realize I probably look like a ten-year-old who has just been told no screen time at dinner.
"Innocent," he says, stepping even closer, which forces me to shift back, stumbling over my own feet, only catching myself because I fall back against the hood.
"The kind of innocent that doesn't know how to be anything else," he says, closing me in with his frame, doing the same thing he did last time , making my eyes fly open in shock when I feel his scent.
He smells different than santos in so many ways ,not like alcohol and tobacco.
He smells like expensive leather and aftershave, combined with a hint of wood.
Something moves through my chest. Whether that is a compliment or an insult, I genuinely cannot tell.
"So your problem is what, exactly?" I ask, trying to ignore how close he is.
"My problem," he says, looking down to my lips, catching me biting on them, "is that you walk around here like you know where you are. For example the wrong warehouse."
"I was handling it," I say.
"Certo."
I hate his Italian accent. It is so... no. No. Stop it, Sophia. Focus.
"Let me be very clear." I keep my voice low and even. "I didn't ask you to walk in there. I didn't ask for your opinion on where I should or shouldn't be. And I certainly didn't ask for your concern ,which, by the way, looks a lot more like control from where I'm standing."
Something moves in his expression.
Almost invisible.
"And as for your little pattern theory" I am not finished, not even close. "Maybe instead of wondering why I keep showing up where you are, you should ask yourself why you keep noticing."
The music beyond the warehouse walls. The distant crowd. The warm night pressing in from all sides. None of it touches the space between us, which has gone very still.
I feel his burning gaze on me.
For a long moment, he says absolutely nothing. And somehow that makes me more nervous than anything he could have said.
"This was the first and last time," he suddenly hisses lowering his voice.
"Last time for what?" I ask, confused, watching his next move as he tucks a fallen strand behind my ear, turning his head closer to mine, making me shiver. "That I step in," he whispers, making me hold my breath. "Last time helping you, stalker."
"I don't need help from someone like you," I whisper back, angry and sharp, and bring my hand to his chest in an attempt to push him back but his sudden grin makes me forget the motion. "Is that so," he murmurs back, making this whole situation even worse.
"Yes." I get a grip on myself and steady my voice again. His dark eyes make me lose myself in them.
"So what am I like?"
"Let me make it easy for you to understand." I say, feeling the tension between us as if I were standing in fire. "You are everything I hate."
And to my shock, he nods, as if he understands.
Why is he nodding? Why isn't he saying anything?
It feels like minutes pass without either of us saying anything, as if he is enjoying the situation.As if he is waiting for somthing.
"You're not a very convincing, stalker," he finally breaks the silence. "Time's up," he then adds, making me confused again.
"What?"
I follow his eyes when he drops his head, and I notice that my hand is still flat pressed against his chest.
I pull away instantly, truly mortified because he caught me.
"I wasn't... you're the one..." I try to form words, but my head is as empty as it is during math class.
Then, without a word, he steps back and holds out the car keys.
I take them slowly, watching his face. When I'm sure he isn't going to yank them away this time, I pull myself off the hood and step back, my heart still hammering from having him this close.
" I hate you," I tell him, to make sure he understands my whole point.But insted of being offended, he seems amused?
A muscle in his jaw twitches, but his expression remains dangerously still. His eyes trace my face, unblinking, mapping the anger in my expression as if searching for the lie underneath it. The silence stretches between us, taut as a wire, until the only thing I can focus on is my heart beat.
And the way he looks down at me with an arrogant grin on his lips.
"Good. I don't want you to stop."
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