CHAPTER SEVEN #3
Or it would. If I was looking at it.
Instead, I’m looking at the girl on the massive blue bed.
The lamp on the bedside table casts her golden as she sits with her knees bent and up to her chest. Her back is resting against the light blue cloud of pillows and her long sunshine hair’s draped over her delicate shoulder.
Her small fingers are busy working the thick mass into a braid.
She usually leaves her hair loose during the day, sliding down her spine.
Teasing the nape of her neck and swishing along the small of her back.
But at night when she’s alone in her room, she likes to sit in her bed and take her sweet time to tame those wild waves and twist them into a long braid.
Mars wasn’t lying. As much as I hate it, I know I watch her.
My eyes land on her whenever she’s close, and if she’s not, I go out of my way to track her down.
Like now. Maybe it’s just force of habit, given that I’ve been watching her, following her around, and tracking her every move for months. To help out my best friend, Arsen.
When Arsen asked me to look into the Turner girl during one of our visits at the prison, I wanted to say no.
Not because I didn’t want to be involved in the Turner business, but because I wanted to be.
So very badly. I wanted to get “tangled up in it,” as Mars put it, despite my long-ago promise.
But I agreed. I told myself I’d stay objective and do this as a favor for my best friend who needed me and nothing more.
What I saw were two girls, living together in an apartment close to their college.
They were both blondes and so similar to each other, they could’ve been sisters.
Only they weren’t; they were best friends.
And the moment I saw the curvy one, the one who appeared shy and reserved, keeping her head down, I knew Arsen would be in major trouble.
The only time I ever saw her blooming like a fucking flower was when she’d open her mailbox and find a letter from my best friend.
I wouldn’t have picked her for the Turner girl, but what the fuck did I know.
I’d heard about her but only in passing.
I knew Hank Turner had a daughter who lived in the city, away from Wildfire and Black Rock, after the attack on him.
But as surprising as the Turner girl turned out to be, her friend was even more so.
Because once I saw her, I couldn’t stop watching her.
Her hair was longer, possibly the longest I’d ever seen, and she was petite.
So much so that I could wrap my arms around her twice, carry her in one hand, whisk her away on my shoulder, and no one would know.
Her eyes shone no matter the time of day, and her cheeks reminded me of the roses my ma used to grow in her garden.
She was the most stunning thing I’d ever seen.
She was also the louder of the two, more outgoing, animated.
A little firecracker. Always in motion, always smiling, laughing, talking.
Alive. She was so fucking alive, in a way that I wasn’t.
That I’d never been, not even before everything happened.
Unrestrained and free, which made me think about my ropes against her creamy skin. Tying her up; tying her down.
The more I watched her, the more I realized I liked watching her.
I liked watching the little details of her face, the wrinkle in her brow, the way she bit her lip and crinkled her nose; I liked watching what made her smile, flowers blooming, rain clouds in the sky.
I liked watching her flit about in her room.
I liked that it took her a long time to decide what to wear, that she left her laundry on the floor.
She was like a little tornado, and I liked her chaos.
Strangely, it calmed the chaos in me. It calmed the noise in my head, soothed the headaches I’ve been prone to getting ever since the accident.
It also gave me a purpose. To not let that smile on her pink mouth slip or that light in her pretty eyes fade.
Maybe that’s why I let her see me that night.
The night in the alley three months ago when those three creeps jumped her.
That was the first time I’d seen her truly afraid, and it triggered something in me.
A kind of bloodlust that I’d never known before—not even for the man who killed my family, not even for the convicted criminals going through their initiation period.
Not even when I’d see her go out with other men.
That was the other thing she did: go out on dates with random men.
Needless to say, it pissed me off. Not only because I hated—loathed—when others looked at her, looked at something that only I had the right to.
But also, she didn’t want to be on those dates.
I knew those men disgusted her. She’d dodge their advances with an ease that appeared practiced.
But more than that, the only man she ever bloomed for was me.
I was the one she looked for in the shadows.
I was the one she turned around for while walking down a lonely street.
It was me she’d provoke while out partying with her friends, me she searched for outside her classroom windows.
Me she stripped for in the middle of the night.
I was the one she touched her pretty cunt for. Me and no one else. I knew that.
I wanted to feel your hands…
But then Arsen told me he’d fucked up. That the girl he thought was Peyton Turner turned out to be her nanny’s daughter and her best friend. And that the real Peyton Turner was the girl I’d been watching for months and mistakenly become obsessed with.
She turned out to be the wrong girl, the absolutely fucking wrong girl for me.
So again, it could be that it’s a hard habit to break and that’s why I watch her reach for the lotion on her bedside table.
A blue bottle that smells of bergamot and hyacinths.
Or it could be that she’s the enemy and can’t be trusted.
So I need to keep an eye on her. Wouldn’t be a stretch; she did go around snooping earlier that night.