A truck rushed by behind me, lifting up a cloud of dust, but I got right into it. “What’s going on with Knox? Why are you so scared of him?”
Jade shrugged, never meeting my gaze. “I told you. He’s stalking me.”
“No. You said youthinkhe’s stalking you. But that’s not the whole picture, is it?” Jade kept her head down, her long hair swaying lightly in the warm wind. “What happened with him?”
She smiled, chewing slowly and playing with her fork. “Why are you so interested in my love life, misogynist? I’m obviously here because of my father, so what’s it to you what happened between me and Xavier?”
Finally, she looked up over her sunglasses, her beautiful eyes defiant and challenging. A jolt of excitement ran through me, but I refused to acknowledge it.
“You’re in my custody, so I have to know the level of risk.” I presented her with a bullshit reason. NASA wouldn’t be able to locate the beach house, let alone dumb-fuck Knox.
“How about you tell me your name first? Or do you like it when I call you misogynist?”
No. I didn’t like it. Mostly because it was so far from the truth, the insinuation alone offended me. I pondered what to tell her. We didn’t want to give her our names, so I decided to throw out a name I knew she’d never recognize. “Sasha.”
But Jade chuckled, shaking her head and sipping on her mango drink. “No. Your name starts with an A."
My jaw almost dropped. Holy fucking shit, how did she find that out?
"What's your actual name?"
"How the hell do you know that?” Astounded, I sat there calculating if she had already figured out who we were.
"I'm observant.” She shrugged between bites of her jerk chicken, momentarily trailing her tongue over the length of her thumb. My gaze flicked to the action involuntarily. Her tongue was pink, gliding so effortlessly on her skin, licking up the spice. It was wrong, and bad, and absolutely un-fucking-necessary to want to see that again. “Is Sasha a nickname for your actual name or something?"
The more she ate, the more she relaxed.
And so did I. "My name’s Alex."
Maybe that was a mistake—telling her my real name—but really…what was she going to do about it?
"Alex,” she said slowly, letting it roll off her tongue. “And you also said Sasha. Why are there two names?" Oh, no, no, it didn't work like that.
"I gave you my name, that's all. Now tell me.”
"What do you want to know, exactly?"
"What the fuck happened? Why did you cry at the mention of his name?" I rushed the words, her delay tactics getting on my nerves. Even when she wasn’t talking shit, she still managed to have the upper hand.
Jade put her fork down and looked around the table, searching for the right words. “Xavier…” she paused, slowly removing her sunglasses. “Xavier was abusive.” She nodded just as the information seeped into me. “He wasn’t always like that. Only the last six months or so and, um…” She looked to me as if I could complete her sentence, but I could barely remain sitting after that little detail. “He just…just didn’t treat me well. And it was very difficult to leave.”
Well,fuck.I breathed through it—a blind rage that I didn’t remember experiencing before. The midday sun blasted on us, but it was like a bucket of ice was dropped over me.
“What does abusive mean?” I sat there with my arms crossed, looking at this delicate young woman, imagining all kinds of vile things in my head. “Did he hit you?”
Jade shrugged again, alarmingly composed with her next words. "Not all the time."
Not.
All.
The
Time.
So he did hit her.
“He didn't beat me to a pulp or anything, but..." My brain was hungrily trying to catch up with the words she’d used. "But there were incidents. Plus, he sucked in bed,” she added with a fake chuckle, as if humor would protect her from the bomb she just dropped.
