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“And where exactly is that?”
“Georgia,” I say with a shrug, unsure if that will even mean anything to him.
“Georgia? I’ve never heard of that. Is that in Anolas?” he asks, and I have to bite back the urge to scream in frustration.
It’s not his fault you followed the floating fire things into the woods. He doesn’t deserve your anger. I remind myself, taking a deep breath in an attempt to push off my rising panic.
“I don’t think so.”
His lips pull down in a frown before he pulls the book back, dropping it in his lap.
“Well, just another thing for us to look into,” he says, and I get the feeling he’s trying to make me feel better. “Good thing I like to read.”
“You mean for you to look into,” I say, unable to stop the playful, almost teasing tone. I’m so used to the guys and riling them up that it’s damn near hard-wired into me at this point.
“Nope, you can help.” He turns toward me, resting his back against the bookshelf behind him and kicking his shoes off before stretching out on the bed.
“What am I going to do? Rub your feet?” I ask, pulling a face at the idea. It’s not just his feet, though it’s feet in general.
“Ew, no,” he says, matching my face of disgust with one of his own as he pulls his feet away from me. It’s the most expression I’ve seen on his face since I met him, and between that and the way he pulled back as if afraid of me—the beastless prey—I can’t stop the laughter that bubbles out of me.
“What’s so funny?” he demands, sitting forward to look around the room like he might have missed something, and that only makes me laugh harder. I try to stop, but it doesn’t work, and I fear if I don’t let it all out, I might end up crying instead.
I’ll take the crazy girl who laughs over the baby who breaks down when times get tough any day.
“Oh, you were joking, weren’t you?” He doesn’t sound like he knows for sure, though.
All I can do is nod as I gasp for breath.
“Yes, very funny,” he says, though it sounds like he might think the exact opposite.
He tucks himself back against the bookshelf and flips open the book on his lap while I take the next few minutes to pull myself together.
“I’m sorry, it wasn’t that funny, but I couldn’t stop,” I say, feeling as though I owe him an explanation.
“The body has a strange way of knowing what it wants and needs even when it doesn’t make sense to us,” he says, and he’s right. I can’t deny I feel a bit better now.
“So, if I can’t read, how will I help?”
He doesn’t answer me right away, and for a moment, I worry I might have upset him. Before I can apologize again, he puts me out of my misery.
“Talk. Tell me about you, about where you come from,” he says without looking up.
“Won’t that make it harder for you to concentrate?” I can’t help but ask because if I were trying to read and research, the last thing I would find helpful would be someone talking to me about useless information.
“No, not at all. Something happened, and we need to figure out what that something is. Knowing more about you might help me put pieces together that we didn’t even know were on the board.”
He says it like it’s the most obvious thing, and I’ll admit I can kind of see the logic in it. Either that, or he’s trying to spare my feelings. Maybe he’s simply giving me a task so I don’t feel as bad for being useless with the books.
Either way, it’s all I have to offer, so I don’t have much choice.
I lean against the bookshelf opposite him, mirroring his position. Thank the gods for my small size because even with me being short, we barely fit like this, our toes probably an inch from touching.
I’m unsure what to say or where to start. I watch him as his eyes flick back and forth across the pages of the book and almost lose myself in his eyes. It’s such a strange color but somehow fits him perfectly.
At first, it’s strange, talking about myself as he reads. I’m unsure what to share or if he’s even listening, but it gets easier after a while.
I tell him about growing up adopted and meeting the guys, but skip the parts that are harder to explain, like being abandoned in the woods and Harlow trying to barbecue me. I tell him about the guys and school, sports, and the classes I liked and disliked growing up. My favorite teachers, my job, books I enjoyed, and a few of my top animes I’d found with the guys.
