“Hello?” It’s a whisper. I couldn’t speak any louder if I tried to. I see the outline of a man rounding the corner and start towards me.
Even though I should feel like someone’s lured me into an abandoned house for someone to take me, I don’t. I know I have nothing to fear at this moment. “Why are you here?” I ask, already knowing who it is.
“The club owns this place.” Zane says as he steps in closer to me.
“Okay, then, why am I here? It doesn’t need to be cleaned.”
“I think you know why.”
“Wait, Elias told me he set this up for me.”
“Partially.” He nods his head, agreeing with me as he moves closer to me. “He came to me.”
“Why?”
“He’s worried about you.”
“He has no reason to be.” I lie straight to his face, but by the look he has, he doesn’t buy it.
“You sure about that?”
“Why would he have any reason to be?”
My heart thuds in my ears as I feel him lift my hand and remove my glove. It seems like time slows down almost so that I won’t be able to miss a second of disappointment spread wide across his face. My fucking punishment; I suppose. My body can’t move fast enough to stop him. He pulls off the glove and lifts my hand up, looking down at it, causing the energy in the room to shift.
“Is this what you want?” The pain weighing his voice down. The water blurs my vision as I look up at him, shaking my head, but not being able to admit out loud what’s happening. “Then why?”
“It’s not as simple as what I want.” My sob breaks through between the words.
“Then explain.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?” I can hear his patience with me fading.
“Because you won’t like it.”
“More than I won’t like you getting married?”
Slowly, I nod my head. He responds with just a glare. The surrounding temperature changing, even though I know in reality it’s not that it’s me. Beads of sweat form on my forehead and I see him noticing.
I try to focus myself, pushing down any uncomfortable feeling that I have. “Are you okay?” He finally asks, breaking my concentration.
I push past him, rushing to the kitchen and double over into the sink, throwing up everything that I’ve been able to consume in the last hour. “Tatum, are you o—” He stops mid question and I don’t even need to look over to know his eyes are gaped open.
“Fuck.” He gasps. And there it is, the answer to his question, slapping both of us in the face.
Cupping water as it streams from the faucet, I rinse my mouth out before I look over at him and press my lips into a line, in at attempt to control my feelings, and wiping my mouth with the backside of my hand.
“It’s not that simple.” I whisper again. This time he doesn’t argue with me, just nods his head, telling me he understands. I move over to the small bag that I brought inside and left in the kitchen when I walked in the door and grab a toothbrush, cleaning the awful taste out of my mouth.
“Let’s go somewhere.”
Not until he talks do I realize how close he’s standing to me.
“Where?” I can’t help but laugh as I look over at him.
“Anywhere you want to go, as long as you talk to me.”
