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I blink, unsure if he’s joking or not. “Like… Like the holy—”
“No, baby,” he says with a laugh. “These Saints ain’t gonna be found in your church books. They control the entire lower city. Just know that they’re dangerous, and you don’t need to know a damn thing more about them.”
“Then why did my brother draw that?” I demand, pointing to the garish design.
He withdraws the drawing from his pocket and inspects it with an unreadable expression. Is that recognition in his eyes? It’s driving me crazy that I can’t tell.
“It was Hale’s,” I say, hoping to trigger a response. “I thought it was a random drawing at first—”
“But now you think I have something to do with it?”
I nod, feeling my chest tighten. His silence is torturous, lasting an eternity.
“I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t mean anything you’d understand—” He returns the pack to me. “He probably saw it on some graffiti.”
“You didn’t know him? His name was Hale.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t ring a bell. Now what?”
I should be used to pain and disappointment by now—but I’m not. Both suffocate me until I find myself blurting out, “Ireallywant to forget.”
“Oh?” He puts out his cig directly on the floor, leaving a mess of charred ashes and even more tufts of smoke. I sense him leaning closer, but he’s hesitant, giving me more than enough time to turn away.
“There are plenty of men who might take that statement the wrong way,” he says.
“Like how?”
Something unreadable flits across his gaze. “In ways a good girl like you would never consider.”
His tone is neutral, but the subject is dangerous, one Colton and I rarely discussed, though not for lack of trying on his part. Sex was that scary, sacred thing I wasn’t supposed to think about until marriage.
But now. With Daze…
Those dangerous thoughts I never entertained take on a greater, crueler significance. A good, rule-abiding person wouldn’t let her brother die.
“Maybe I’m not good,” I counter.
“Is that so?” He leans in as if daring me to flinch.
I don’t.
He doesn’t kiss me. He comes close enough to. Close enough for my lips to flutter in anticipation, still smarting from his smoke.
Mere centimeters away, he stills. “You’re not my type.”
His voice rasps. It’s like he’s trying to remind himself of that.
“What? Too blond?” I wonder, though, for some reason, I’m not insulted.
He wants an escape too, but I’m not his poison of choice. To prove it, he eyes me up and down, daring me to call him out.
“How old are you?” he asks, frowning.
“Twenty-three.” I cock my head. “And what are you, like thirty? A bit too old to be hitting on random strangers.”
As if I know the protocol for flirting. Colton was chosen for me, and I’ve never questioned our eventual union. I’m not even sure why I am now—but here we are.
“If I decided to flirt with a stranger, it wouldn’t be you,” I add.
