Chapter 17 Jasmine #2
With a hoarse thanks, I sit up in bed, inhaling the bitter scent as I reach for my phone. A flood of notifications waits, my stomach swirls with a mixture of apprehension and… excitement.
It’s only been hours since I last saw Ezekial, barely a day for the others, yet it already feels too long.
Like weeks have passed, like the thinning threads are tugging harder than ever before.
I smile again at the ridiculous chat name as I click it open.
Sai: Nah mate, if you’re gonna spend the day with her, I wanna take her.
Kane: No.
Ezekial: You both know this isn’t up to us, right?
Me: Good morning. Take me where?
Sai’s typing a response but two messages pop up.
Ezekial: Stop, Sai!
Kane: No.
Sai’s moving dots disappear. I laugh, imagining whatever he was about to say.
Ezekial: Amon and Kacey have agreed to meet again.
Me: That’s great!
Sai: So... can I pick you up? Please. Pretty please. I’ve been so good, Red. I haven’t called you baby once.
Me: You mean pick me and Kacey up, right?
Sai: Yeah. Course. Totally.
Me: How’s Julien?
Silence. No three little dots. I’m about to remind them of their agreement: no more lies…
Ezekial: He’s resting, for now. I’ll stay with him this morning.
Okay, vague, but still an answer. The others don’t add anything, but that’s fine. I’ll see Sai face-to-face, and he’s the weakest when it comes to keeping his mouth shut.
I get ready quickly, but Kacey’s already gone by the time I leave my room. A note, scrawled on a torn piece of paper, rests propped against a mug covered in smiley faces.
Wanted to get in early :)
She’s a terrible liar.
And when three jolly little knocks sound at the door, I don’t need to guess the culprit.
I open the door, and there he is, leaning against the frame with that dimpled smirk. Déjà vu hits me, pulling me back to when he stood outside my door at The Inferno, telling me I called to him.
When I was wearing nothing but a towel…
“Why do I have a feeling we’re thinking the same thing, Red?” His smirk carries a teasing drawl that crackles down my spine. “I mean, I like this—” he points to my outfit, a simple black skirt and jumper “—but I liked the towel a lot more.”
I ignore the flutter in my chest. “Let me guess, you’re the reason Kacey left early?”
He scrunches his nose, head tilting side to side. “Asked? Suggested? Proposed? Maybe bribed her with a bigger atrium? Tomayto, tomahto.”
He’s a menace, but Goddesses, he makes it look good.
“So, you’re telling me my friend sold me out for more space?” I arch a brow, trying to sound offended.
“Hey, Kacey is on team Samine. Don’t disappoint her.”
I fight hard not to let my lips curve. “Samine? That’s the nickname you’re going with?”
“Oh, that’s not the nickname, Red. That’s the full thing.” His smirk sharpens into something deadly, as he leans lower against the door frame. “The shortened version’s much better.”
“And what’s that?”
“Mine.”
I roll my eyes, run my tongue along the edge of my teeth, pretend that Sai’s low whisper doesn’t crawl under my skin.
Not at all.
Not one bit.
I sigh. “How original.”
“You like it though,” he drawls, all smug.
I glare up at him, his eyes a blinding ice-blue as his smirks deepens, both dimples ganging up on me.
“Think we could go somewhere before work?” he suddenly throws out.
I scoff. “Let me guess, your bedroom?”
He dips lower, lips too close to mine. “Well, I wouldn’t oppose…”
I duck under his arm and slip out, the door nearly catching his face as I pull it shut behind me. He only laughs, turning around to face me again.
“And where would you like to take your friend, Sai?” I purposefully say his name, knowing it’ll make his markings hum.
The intricate lines are on full display this morning, standing out beneath the thin black t-shirt he’s chosen. It’s barely a t-shirt. I can practically see through it… see the hard lines of his stomach and the hot light burning beneath. The same light I’ve touched…
“Coffee. That’s it.” He lifts his palms in surrender, already knowing I won’t buy his innocent suggestion. He steps closer. “I know you love that shit, and I happen to know a good coffee place.”
I’ve already had a coffee. I could easily tell him that, tell him that another so soon will mean even less sleep tonight… but I don’t. Because there’s a soft hopefulness in his gaze I can’t bring myself to kill.
He’s trying to do this right, his version of right, and it’s probably so hard for him. Knowing what he did to me, how it hurt me, how betrayed I felt.
I mustn’t be guarding my emotions as well as I thought, because his smirk begins to fall, and that hopeful light in his eyes dims.
“Unless… you don’t want to.” He shuffles his feet, shoulders slumping, his whole aura bleeding dread and… nerves. “I know I was the worst one, Red. I know.”
Hearing him repeat those words, my words, ones I spat in fury and darkness, doesn’t bring me the satisfaction or revenge I once thought it would. It’s the opposite.
Sai just stands there, looking completely hopeless. He doesn’t move closer, barely looks at me, body angled away.
When I don’t reply, he steps back.
His eyes stay lowered. “And I know I don’t deserve to ask, but I’m going to anyway.” He wets his lip, shrugs like he’s trying to hype himself. “But will you… do you think you can ever forgive me?”
Could a heart actually break? Can it fracture bit by bit? Because that’s what it feels like now.
The hopeless look on his face, the despair in his voice. I’ll do anything to soothe it.
Before I realise, I’m stepping closer. “I’m starting to,” I tell him. And I mean it. “It just takes time, Sai.”
But really, the truth is, I’ve already forgiven him.
He didn’t need to know that, not yet. But I forgave him when the ache of missing them became unbearable.
I forgave him when I saw the way he looked at me, in the meeting and every moment since, like I’ll disappear if he stopped.
I forgave him when I felt his loss—the hollow despair when he thought I was gone. Twice. That ache, that desperate need to fill it…. how he would have done anything to stop it.
He should have told me what I was to him, he shouldn’t have let our relationship evolve without the truth between us. But if the one thing that could stop that pain, that unbearable ache, was literally beneath my fingertips… would I have been strong enough to resist? To resist him?
If I’m honest, I’m no different from him, and I don’t know what that makes me.
“I’m so sorry I messed this up, Red.” He looks so breakable in that moment, and when his sad eyes finally lift to mine, another crack tears through my chest. “Say whatever you want, I can take it… just don’t send me away. Please.”
Hearing him like this, soft and broken and pleading, undoes me.
“Sai.” I edge closer, but he buries his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t be standing here with you, right now, if I wasn’t already starting to forgive you.”
His markings pulse a little.
“It doesn’t erase what happened, what you all did still happened, but each day it gets easier.” I step a little closer. “The more time I spend with you, the more I see the real you…”
“So… there’s still a chance?” His blinding gaze pins me, desperation burning there.
I know he’s holding himself back, that the only reason his hands are shoved into his pockets is because he wants to reach for me but doesn’t think he can.
I smile softly. “Depends how good this coffee is. Come on, I haven’t had one yet.”
That lie is worth it just to see his smile, a single dimple breaking through, markings erupting all at once, as he finally pulls out his hand, holding it towards me.
I take it.