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My words cut off on a gasp when his thumbs hook into my belly button. The pressure of them is exactly what I sometimes feel for him.
It radiates down, to my lower abdomen, my core, my thighs and I’m all charged up. Just by his one touch.
“Nothing,” he growls again, and I feel it down to my toes. “That happened between you and me. Could’ve been avoided. Not one thing. Because I picked you. And I picked you because you were different. You stood out. You stood out to me. And I couldn’t stop watching you. Not for a single second. Your crazy pigtails that grew into your crazy blue hair. Your socks that grew into knee highs. Your dirty, smudged uniform, exactly like mine. The detentions you used to get for talking back to teachers. Your little outbursts, your little retaliations. And even though I never, not ever, came to your rescue, you still looked at me with your blue fucking eyes. There used to be this… this tiny ray of hope that Zach would probably do something. That Zach would be better this time. That he’d save you.”
Shaking his head once, he flexes his grip on my waist. “It used to make me mad. It used to make me feel fucking… protective of you. Like I wanted to crush everything harmful around you. And it used to make me feel bad about myself when I wouldn’t.”
He scoffs. “You don’t know the first thing about being cruel. Cruel is what I’ve done to you just because you made me want to change. Because you made me want to be better. And I didn’t wanna be better. I didn’t wanna change. I didn’t wanna be a different person. A person who’d save someone. A person who’d stand up for what’s right. I’m not that person. I refuse to be. I don’t care about the world. I don’t care about anybody. I don’t care about you. So nothing that happened between you and me could’ve been avoided. I would’ve found you and hurt you and let you get hurt, anyway.”
His words sink into my bones. Into my very marrow, and I’m burning with them. With his inflammable, incendiary tone.
With his pyrokinetic stare.
I’m burning to tell him that it’s not true. He saved Art, didn’t he?
“And you know something else?” he continues.
I shake my head, or at least, I think I do. I’m not very aware of anything but him in this moment. About the things he’s saying.
“Cruel is what I’ll do to you if you don’t stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” he whispers, threateningly. “Do you finally understand?”
When I don’t nod my head like he wants me to, the press of his thumbs on my belly button increases and I swear, I swear, I feel it down to my core in a straight line. That pressure.
Maybe there’s a nerve going from behind my navel down to my pussy and he’s found it without even looking.
“Do. You. Understand?”
He articulates every single word like I can’t hear him. I can. I’m just not comprehending anything.
Still, I jerk out a nod.
His reaction is to clench his jaw and let go of me. He steps back and away from my closed thighs and I’ve never, ever, in my life felt colder than I do right now.
It’s like he took away all the warmth with him.
I slide down the counter and watch him leave.
He takes lunging steps to the door but stops with his hand on the knob. He gives me his profile like he can’t be bothered to turn around and look at me, and I see his hard, angled jaw and his high cheekbones.
A prince through and through.
“And eat your fucking dinner.”
I’m working a dinner party tonight.
It feels more like a tragedy, however.
It’s an intimate affair, with only a handful of people: Mr. and Mrs. Prince; Mr. and Mrs. Howard, Ashley’s parents; and of course, Zach. Ashley isn’t here; she’s away at college.
Thank God.
Now for the tragedy. I don’t think anyone else notices this but I do. So they’re all seated around an antique-looking dining table with an ornate filigree along the edges and curved-at-the-bottom legs.
That’s not the tragedy. The tragedy is that Mr. and Mrs. Prince, along with Ashley’s parents, are seated together, as if in a huddle. They look like a nice group, men dressed up in tuxes and women wearing designer dresses.
And Zach, he’s seated all the way at the other end of the table.
It feels like there’s a line between him and his family and their friends. Not to mention, he’s the only one in this group with no fancy clothes on. He looks more like us, the staff, with his dark, threadbare t-shirt and spiky hair, than one of them.
I’m serving wine and trying to be invisible to them. So far it’s been successful. They are all absorbed in themselves, except Zach.
