Page 61 of The Encore’s Crown

I leave that one for almost a full minute before deleting it too.

He should come to me. He should be the one unable to stand the silence. He should fucking care that this is our last night on the same continent. At 1:58, I realize I’m done waiting for him to become someone with basic communication skills and slide off the bed. The hotel carpet feels cool beneath my bare feet. I pause at the mirror, take in the sweatshirt hanging to mid-thigh, my clean face, hair still damp at the ends. I’m not dressing up for him tonight; I’m just going to tell him exactly what I think of his behavior and then leave.

Probably.

I open the door carefully. The corridor is silent; lights dimmed for the night. I head toward his room full of a quiet fury. I glance at my watch, I know it's late, but I'm beyond caring about disturbing his annoying ass. At two in the morning, I stop outside Kiri’s door and raise my hand to knock.

Chapter 26

Allowed To Touch

Natalia

Iknock softly.

Nothing.

Knock again.

Still nothing.

My anger spikes and I knock a third time, louder. A thud comes from inside, then a muffled curse followed by footsteps. Finally, the door opens a few inches. Kiri peers out at me with one eye half shut. His hair is standing in every possible direction. One side flattened, the other sticking up like he’s been electrocuted. He looks like I woke him up from sleep, real, actual sleep. I'm mad at the concept, that he has the nerve to be able to sleep when I can't.

He’s wearing black sweatpants and nothing else, his chest creased from whatever position he fell asleep in, the art of his tattoos displayed perfectly on the canvas of his body. My brain, being a fucking traitor, immediately forgets why I came here at the sight of him. I'm quickly losing a tug-of-war against my own hormones and it's pissing me off. Blood rushes to parts of me I try to pretend don't exist.

He looks a little destroyed, but the room behind him is worse. Clothes are everywhere; there's an open suitcase on the floor and food containers from Rithy's deliveries abandoned on the desk. A towel over the back of a chair. The bed torn apart as if he climbed into it and barely moved afterward. He blinks at me.

“Nat?” I push past him before he can stop me.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Uh, sure, come on in,” he says as he closes the door slowly.

“You're such a dumbass.”

His face shifts from sleep-confused to guarded.

“Did you wake me up to call me names? Because I'm well aware—” he mumbles, rubbing a hand over his face.

“You jumped into an angry mosh pit. What if you'd been crushed?”

“I wasn't.”

“That's not the point.”

“It's not?”

“No, the point is you can’t just throw yourself into thousands of people like your body is disposable!” I shove his shoulder in frustration but he doesn't move at all. He just stands there like a block of perfectly muscled stone.

My voice carries more bite than I mean it to and something wounded passes behind his eyes. He shuts it down with a shake of his head.

“The kid was getting stepped on. What'd you want me to do?”

“Wait for someone whose job it actually is?”

“He didn’t have time for everybody to finish reviewing their job descriptions.”

The answer is simple, but the way he says it, it's like that just settles everything. Maybe for Kiri, it does. I stare at him, livid and sick with admiration at the same time.