Chapter 15 #3
“Did you follow me here, Mr. Vuk? For protection? So I don’t mess up your reputation?”
“Why the sticky note?” He asks instead.
I hide back an exhausted groan. Not a single question answered.
Since he isn’t going to look at me…
I stand up and round his body to face him. “Because I hated how everyone looked at you and I hated what I said at the anniversary party to you and Callahan. If I’d known?—”
“You wouldn’t have been honest,” he resigns. “Why are you here, Miss Rivera?”
I shouldn’t have said it, but he refuses to answer my questions, so I answer his with a lie.
“To find love, Mr. Vuk .”
“Here you go,” I place the omelette in front of Rhys.
After our argument? Fight? Conversation? Whatever happened outside, Dean muttered he was going to drop Lottie off and I stomped inside.
Doesn’t answer questions. Doesn’t try to make things better.
Dean Vuk is pissing me off to a level that doesn’t exist.
When I went downstairs to make everyone breakfast, food on the stove was being cooked, and I wanted to scream.
According to my quick message with Azar, no one knows Dean is here.
Hello from the north pole. What does your ogre brother eat for breakfast?
Azar
Hello from the south pole (we need to study geometry again). The ogre brother must be Dean and he drinks green smoothies for breakfast.
Geography, Azar. We need to study. Period. You sure it isn’t children’s hearts?
Azar
Fuck, I’m dumb. But yeah, just green, fibre-filled smoothies.
Your brother is weird.
Azar
So are you. Anyways, why are you asking?
Maybe I’m just brainstorming ways to poison him.
Azar
You need help. Want my therapist’s number?
Sure, if I don’t want to make any progress.
Azar
I hate you.
How’s that pretty popstar of yours?
Azar
In case you’re wondering, I didn’t make the smoothie. No one should force their bodies to digest murky liquids for breakfast. I’m doing him a favour.
He goes from being a stranger to being a man reading romance novels on the steps to my room. Dean makes no sense to me. Every question asked, he shoves it aside and throws one at me instead.
Yes, I love hearing myself talk. That's why I’m clearly clinically psychotic.
Serves him right for being—“Here,” Hina pushes a plate in front of me. My stomach doesn’t like food when my brain is throwing up. I opt out of breakfast most days. It’s a sad choice I have to make to survive.
But when I look at the steaming bowl of soup, my stomach growls.
Odd. It never does that. It hates doing that.
Maybe I’m hungover on life. I mean, I did just travel almost halfway across the world to another country.
My body was high-strung last night. It makes sense.
Drunk on life, hungover in Switzerland. It’ll take me a minute for my body to fit with the new circadian rhythm amongst other things.
“You didn’t have to,” I say but it looks appetizing. There’s boiled chicken steaming inside and it looks unbelievably comforting.
“I didn’t,” she yawns while stretching back along the chair. “Dean made it for you.”
Pretty sure my dignity catapults into the pits of hell and the smoke is rushing up my cheeks like it needs somewhere to stain. “He… what?”
“Let’s stop for a second.” A sharp, featured man steps forward. “Instead of Dean, can you say Rhys made it for her?”
“But Dean made it for me,” I say, confused. “That’s ingenuine.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t care. “And?”
My cheeks heat. Everyone stares.
“Nova,” Katarina pulls my arm. “You know the truth, that’s all that matters.”
I swallow hard, everyone should know the truth too. But I don’t say that, instead we redo the moment using Rhys’ name instead.
“How did you sleep last night?” Rhys takes the seat next to me.
I take the first bite of the soup. Lethal. Deadly. Someone get Dean out of the kitchen.
It tastes good enough to have its own NYT article.
Swallowing, “Good. Great. Except, I do miss my bed.”
“Preach, sister.” Hina looks deathly. Literally. The face mask from last night did nothing for her. As much as her skin shows zero signs of pores, her eyebags are dragging her down. She’s still beautiful.
“When I started training in the Police force, I had to sleep at the precinct once and it made me cherish my bed a lot.” Rhys takes a bite of his omelette. “This is really good, by the way. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” ignoring the way my body stiffens at the compliment. I didn’t do it to be praised. Just to show how sorry I am. I’m a messer - upper . I mess up a lot. I have to be better to be seen. “Glad you like it,” too much energy wafts out of me.
“Dean!” Hina waves him over with a dead arm. “Come join us.”
My body does that thing bodies do before jumping off the ledge during bungie jumping or sky diving. Not sure what’s going on here.
“No breakfast?” I say casually, like I didn’t just feel myself about to die.
He looks at me.
I look at him.
I look away.
He’s still looking at me.
“He’s about to go make it, right Dean?” Katarina answers for him.
“Let me then,” I stand for reasons I don’t understand. I didn’t plan on making him anything. The whole ordeal was to not make him breakfast. Ignore him, act like he doesn’t exist.
Except he made me soup from scratch.
This goes against my mental checklist.
“I made you peanut butter oatmeal, Katarina.”
“Hm,” she rubs her shoulder like it aches. “I’d rather have that.” She looks at my soup and I’m possessive. I want to snarl at her.
Again, woah girl. It’s never that serious.
Forcing a smile, “Take it.” I take my spoon out and hand over the bowl. “I’m full anyways.”
“You’re the best,” she responds.
Dean looks over the interaction. Lips pressed together.
He should be happy I didn’t chuck it at him.
“Here,” Rhys extends his plate to me. “Take mine.”
Shaking my head furiously, “I’m good. Really. Totally full. ”
My stomach takes that as its cue to growl. “I’ll eat an apple,” I quickly say before dashing into the kitchen.
Humiliating, devastating, absolutely horrifying . Can’t believe my stomach betrayed me like that. I thought him and I were friends, besties for life, you know?
Starting today, I don’t know my stomach. He and I are nothing but strangers.
I groan at the sight of dishes in the sink.
Pots, pans, and five different mixing spoons even though I only needed two. No wonder Rosa used to look at me like she wanted to set me on fire every time it was her turn to wash dishes in our house.
I’m kind of giving college student with this behaviour and let me tell you, I am not eating .
Taking an apple from the fridge, washing it, and doing what every other human in this world would consider an abomination, I peel the skin before biting into it.
Hip against the small island, eyes through the window upon a mountain in a distance, and a subtle, slithering sense of peace overtakes my ability for overthinking to give birth to anxiety. I am stopped. For now.
My parents would love Lucerne.
It’s the perfect place for them. Kind of like Cornwall but multiplied by a million.
When I discard the end of the apple into the compost, that’s when I feel it.
Feel him.
His presence is a looming shadow behind me as I busy myself by scrubbing at the dishes. Each movement, each dish cleaned, he stands there. Not a word, nor a sound, but being annoyingly overwhelming, nonetheless .
I’m done with the dishes, he’s still here.
I open the cabinet to put said dishes back, he’s still here.
I take out the same dishes because they’re still wet, and well? He’s still here.
With more force than needed, I put them down on the counter and turn around to face him.
Dark golden-brown hair flops over his forehead, strands of them sticking out in places like he uses his thick fingers as a comb. His biceps bulge from beneath the black muscle T. I’d love to slip it off of him with my teeth. For research purposes, of course.
Dean is… Dean. But takes up my space in a way I didn’t notice before.
It’s because we’re out of the office.
Because he’s invading my personal life and I can’t tell him to step out. Somehow, we’re in the same space at the same time in this exact moment of history and there’s no explanation for it.
When my chest falls down, his moves up.
He steals the air from the room— from me .
I stare at him. He stares at me. We simply… exist in the crevices of each other’s eyes.
Something crackles at a distance.
Exasperation forces its way out of me, “Mr. Vuk, can I help you?—”
“Dean,” he interrupts with a thick tinge of depth to his tone.
More than a second later, I compose myself. “ Dean ,” I emphasise this time. “Is there something I can help you with?”
Or at least tell me why you’re here when you knew I’d be here.
“You gave your food away,” pointing out the obvious. “Why?” Demanding. Under other circumstances, that’s my kryptonite.
“Katarina wanted it,” I shrug. Thought we all knew that .
His gaze hardens.
What is he seeing on my face that has him peeling away all the expressions I carefully built?
“The broth was for you.”
Tantalizing heat ropes itself up my throat and ties itself around my eye sockets at the gentleness of his tone.
At the kindness and human decency of his behaviour.
Freaking hypocrite. “I never asked you to do that,” I glare.
“If you’re looking for appreciation, then you can take your kindness elsewhere, Dean . ”
His jaw clenches. His face is all hard lines and muscle-y frowns. Body stricken and still with forced control.
Austin stands behind him with a camera pointed at us.
Faking a pearly white, “What do you want for breakfast? Everyone had something catered to them, but I don’t know yours.”
He looks taken aback like I slapped him with my mood swings . This is nothing, ogre .
“Cereal sounds good, right?” I don’t step aside to make room for his words. Maybe it’s a smart idea that he doesn't talk.
Once a man opens his mouth, there wouldn’t be enough garbage disposals in the world for their bullshit.
“Cereal’s better than green smoothies that turn sweet men into ogres, don’t you think?” I say it to bother him, knowing damn well he loves green smoothies.
He looks like he might disagree with me.
There goes that jaw tick. There goes that subtle glare.
But nope, nothing. He merely nods before leaving the kitchen. It’s like one step forward, a thousand steps back. Let me tell you, I am not a runner or a track star. He can run as far as he wants, but he’ll end up back in front of me.
The cameraman follows behind him .
My shoulders slump down. Taking back the air he stole from me with practiced breaths, it does nothing but make me madder.
I have never asked him to do anything for me and here he is acting like I have an obligation to treat him as more than just strangers on a dating show? Like he hasn’t insulted my very existence.
I slam a bowl down on the counter. After dumping cereal into it, I pour the milk. Watching it slip through the holes of the unhealthiest, sugary, artificially flavoured cereal I could find brings me immense joy. I hope tomorrow Dean wakes up to a flab of fat somewhere on his body.
My stomach growls at the sight of the cereal. Damn, even my cereal looks devour-worthy.
That’s not enough to teach Dean a lesson.
I ruin everything right? I can ruin this too. Easy.
Opening the fridge, I scour through the unopened contents before landing on a familiar red bottle that has SOY SAUCE written on it in bright yellow letters.
This will teach Dean to stay far, far away from me if he wants to survive the next two months.
Dumping about half a cup of it in the milk that is now light pink, I head back into the dining room.
Rhys is talking to Katarina, who finished my broth.
Hina is on her phone.
Shaan is nowhere to be found.
And right there, on my spot, Dean sits with his arms crossed over his chest.
My anger turns into childish giddiness. “Enjoy,” I put the bowl down.
For the next while, my eyes are constantly on Dean.
First bite, he freezes for half a millisecond, but no reaction .
Three bites in, still nothing.
When he pushes the bowl away, I know I must have succeeded because no human in their right mind would be able to finish what I gave him.
And when the convo is done and Hina’s helping me clean the table, I move to pick up Dean’s bowl only to find it completely empty.