14. Blesk
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
blesk
“See…” I hear Jaxon’s voice before I see him approach, just as we move into a different part of the exhibition, leaving the wall of love letters to inmates behind. “I would have taken you to dinner.”
I turn. He is striding over to our little group. Slapping his hand on Konnor’s shoulder, eyes on me, he says, “Dinner and a movie.”
“Classic,” Elise agrees.
“How boring.” Konnor laughs, but it’s tight, as if he’s kicking himself for the morbid choice of date. But he didn’t know. He didn’t know that this would be creepy. Or that there would be an entire installation about crime in The District. That it’s a little too close to home for me.
My fingers move to find a loose thread… Nothing. I smooth my palms down my dress instead.
Blinking, I focus on the displays. Most of the scenes on the walls are from the 1980s, well before… Well—before.
I’ve had a lot of practice ignoring the world’s reminders. I just want to let my past go—completely. And right now, I’m looking forward to the restaurant at the other end of the museum. Somehow, this strange exhibition is less frightening than my walk through campus at dusk.
“What’s in there?” Jax points to the murder mystery room we just left, which was actually really fun.
“Oh! You just missed a wall of crazy-eyes,” Elise says to him. “Literally, a wall of criminals.” She lifts her hands, making a border around her eyes. “Just their eyes. It says to guess the crime based on the gaze. Come see!”
Jax looks at Konnor. “You good?”
“As rain.”
“I got them all wrong,” I admit, glancing at Konnor, who has his hands in his pockets, his broad shoulders filling his black shirt.
He’s tall. Gorgeous. When we entered the museum, the girls at the counter forgot what they were doing, instead making eyes at my date.
Then in line, two girls in front of us kept finding reasons to turn around and bat their lashes.
I understand; he is over six feet, with a jawline that could cut glass, and green eyes that are almost unreasonably green, and dimples on both sides. I understand it completely.
“It’s over here.” Elise and Jax head back the way we came, Jax saying, “We’ll catch up after I’ve seen the wall of crazy-eyes.”
I close the gap between Konnor and me. “Are you feeling bad about your choice of first date?”
He grins, his cheeks dimpling. “I’m not gonna lie, I think I could have done better.”
“Well, you’ll have to take me somewhere sickeningly sweet for our next date.”
He lifts a brow at me. “Are you asking me out again?”
I blush. “Yes.”
“Well, okay. But don’t take me anywhere weird.”
I giggle. His eyes drop to my lips, and I close my mouth over my tongue because I always poke it out when I laugh and it’s not very classy.
He frowns. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Hide your tongue.”
I poke my tongue out at him.
He sighs. “Perfect.”
We walk into a different part of the exhibition, no longer paying much attention to the scenes around us.
It’s so quiet in here that our footsteps are audible.
Not just ours, but everyone’s. Soft, like shuffling—it’s eerie.
There are corridors, intentional and sharp, made from curtains and moveable boards.
I can’t see other people, can only hear them.
And I swear the speakers are breathing. “This entire place is an experience. Is it always like this?”
“It’s notorious, but I swear the last time I came it was bright and lively. There was a mini golf course, and I was going to do that thing where you show the girl how to swing the club.”
I loop my arm through his as we walk, his hands still in his pockets, our footsteps in sync, our eyes on each other rather than the displays. “I’m really good at mini golf—you may have been embarrassed,” I tease. A lie. I’m not good at sports at all. Is mini golf even a sport?
“Good thing we came today then.”
I nod, my cheeks aching from smiling at him. “Good thing.” I can see he hasn’t been drinking. His eyes are brighter, but also somehow warier. Less volatile, more vulnerable. I barely know him, but I’m crushing hard, and I’m proud of him for not drinking before our date.
We weave around a narrow corner and enter a room filled with art.
I read the sign: Prison Art Program. My eyes follow the paintings on the walls, trying to understand the man or woman who painted them.
Not all crimes are violent. Some are a means to an end.
Some are desperate. Some are hopeless. Some final.
Warmth caresses my cheek, and when I glance to the side, I find Konnor staring at me, reverence in his gaze. I blush. He grins.
“Sorry,” he says, perhaps for staring, but he doesn’t look away, holding me with his gaze in a way that isn’t calm but isn’t aggressive either.
“There is artwork on the walls, Mr Slater.”
“Looking at my favourite piece right now.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Corny,” I mutter, eyes still on the displays.
“You love it.”
I do. I revel in this gorgeous man’s ability to speak his mind, however corny or cliché.
“Can we skip to the end of the date?”
I blink at the art, then turn to look at him. “What happens at the end of the date?”
His eyes drop to my lips, and a flutter moves through my abdomen. I didn’t think about kissing him… Well, I did, but I clearly didn’t give it enough attention and planning, because my heart is racing. He steps towards me, eyes caught on my lips, and my smile flattens.
“Here?” is all I can manage.
He takes another step, his potent energy moving into me. “We are alone. Surrounded by weird art painted by criminals. What’s more romantic than that?”
I giggle, and he sighs as if that sound physically relieves something inside him. “Your giggle… it fucks me up.”
He takes another step, and now I have to crane my neck to look into his beautiful green eyes, can feel the heat from his breath on my lips. God. I part my mouth to breathe deeper.
I place my hand on his chest to stop him from moving another inch. “I haven’t kissed anyone in a long time…”
“I’ll still find them.”
I lift a brow. “What?”
“Hunt them down.”
I giggle again, and his eyes roam my face.
He exhales hard. “When you laugh, it moves everywhere, Blesk.” His hand lifts slowly, his thumb settling on the corner of my eye, and my belly flips with excitement.
“Here.” His touch moves down to the crease beside my lips.
“Here.” Then he drags his thumb across my lower lip, and I think I moan.
No, I do—I actually moan. “Here,” he rasps, clearly as affected as I am by being this close.
I shouldn’t kiss him.
I look at his lips.
He had a girlfriend only yesterday.
His lips look soft.
Really shouldn’t do this.
I edge closer.
Okay, kiss me.
Please kiss me.
He leans down, and I lift to my tiptoes, lips tilted, needy for pressure from his, but then someone enters. His eyes leave mine and hit the person by the door with a force that must knock them backwards.
“Sorry, ah—"
Konnor holds his hand up to the person behind me. “It’s fine.” He takes a single step away from me. “Duchess.” He holds his hand out for me to take, and I thread my fingers through his, press my palm to his, and feel a bolt of lightning that unsettles and excites me at the same time.
“Duchess? I could get used to that.”
He guides me into another area where we take mugshots, laughing and smiling.
It prints out two, a serious one and our funny one, and we use ink to put our fingerprints on the bottom.
I give him mine, and he gives me his, and I now have a picture of Konnor Slater from our first date.
I look at it. God, he is gorgeous. Not in a subjective way, no. This man could turn a straight man.
“Have you ever been arrested?” I look up from his mugshot as we enter a room with a cell, staged like a prison bedroom.
My feet slow. I wish they would stop. I wish I could stop.
The single bed. The single bed, and the walls, and the bars, and the images come so fast I can’t hold on to any of them, just the feeling, just the cold and the dark and a little boy’s voice and a little girl’s hands and a key.
My pulse is deafening.
I spin. Konnor has gone white.
“Let’s go.” His voice is strangled.
He reaches his hand through the open door to the cage. I take it. The moment our skin touches, the blood leaves my body. No. I look down at his hand. No. I know this hand. I turn it over in mine. No, no, no, I don’t want this. I press my fingertips to his, and my vision tunnels. I drop his hand.
My eyes snap to his face, and someone else is standing there. Someone who has seen a cell like this before. He can’t be. Green eyes. He can’t be. Dimples. That’s impossible. How did I forget those dimples? My body vibrates.
I run.