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My cheek as well. This is the first chance I’ve had to inspect it properly, and it doesn’t lookbad. Okay. Maybe it looks a little bad. A vivid red gash just below my cheekbone, three or four inches long that will probably scar.
Worth it.
It’s not the first time I’ve thought it, and it won’t be the last.
So worth it.
I’m embarrassed to have to go out like this. There’s no way people aren’t going to look at me andknow,but honestly, some part of me is delighted. It feels like evidence that last night really happened and that they wanted me enough to mark me up and claim me as theirs.
I reach for my phone, figuring I ought to work out directions to get back to the hostel I wasmeantto be staying to get my stuff—most importantly a change of clothes.
There’s a note stuck to the back of my phone case, and I stare at it for a long moment. Trying to wrestle back the way my heart immediately soars. It doesn’t mean—
There’s hardly anything written—just two phone numbers. Signed with Elias and Caelan’s names, and that’s enough to make a grin break out on my face. They wouldn’t have bothered unless they wanted me to call them, right? They want to see me again.
I really do need to get going, so I only allow myself a small moment to celebrate. But I flop back onto the bed, clutching the phone to my chest. It’s ridiculous to be so damn excited over a phone number, but I’m fuckinghappy, okay?
My fingers shake slightly as I enter the numbers into my contacts. Even more so when I send a quick text, thanking them for leaving breakfast for me. I kind of want to thank them for everything last night, but that seems a little forward.
Thank you for fucking my brains out. Please do it again sometime.
As much as I laugh at the ridiculousness of my thoughts, I really hope I get to spend more time with them. If I was bad about crushing on them before, I can’t imagine how awful it’s going to be now, knowing what they’re really like and capable of.
I’m addicted to them already. Maybe dangerously so, given what they are.
Long-term arrangements, huh?
I can’t wait to see them again.
ChapterSix
Returning to reality on Monday is surreal.
I spent most of Sunday in a blissful haze. I’d meant to do some generic sightseeing since I usually don’t make the effort of going to LA often, but the whole concept of it seems so utterly mundane after being with Elias and Caelan. How the hell am I meant to think of anything apart from them?
It’s not the sex, although that was certainly mind-blowing too. It’s more theactual goddamn demonsthing. They’re more extraordinary than I ever could have dreamed. The whole world feels richer, more unfathomable, and more beautiful for having met them. And as if that weren’t enough, they’d liked me. I think. They had liked me, right?
Even if it was just a groupie thing, take a random fan to bed for the night for a bit of fun, they didn’t need to do the whole wining-and-dining thing. Or take care of me so well afterward. Or give me their numbers.
It feels almost narcissistic to think I could be of any interest or appeal to beings likethat. But they’d been so easy to talk to, so fun to be around. I thought I’d sensed a connection, more than with anyone I’d met in years.
The proof of that is evident when I return to school and work.
I cover the love bites on my throat as best I can. It’s too hot for a turtleneck, but I wrap a lightweight stole around my neck and cover the remaining bruising with concealer. The gash on my cheek I leave, though. I don’t like the idea of getting makeup on it, and Elias did such a good job of applying the wound closure strips that I don’t want to mess with them. I’d rather not disturb it and accidentally start it bleeding again.
Besides, I’m almost proud of the injury, what it led to, and what it means. I don’twantto cover it.
No one asks about it anyway, and that’s exactly my point.
There are people I’m acquaintances with—lab partners, a study group, and people who kept saying we’d hang out outside of class—but nothing ever got arranged, and then the offers stopped. Either they don’t care, or they don’t feel close enough to say anything about an obvious injury.
It’s disheartening to go back to the absence of connection after how amazing the weekend was. And it sets an uneasy pit gnawing at my stomach. I’m not good at keeping up relationships. I thought I’d hit it off pretty well with a lot of people here at school and there was the potential for friendship, but then nothing came of it.What if the same happens with Elias and Caelan?
I catch sight of my reflection, the vivid red gash across my cheek, and I remember what it was like to be with them. My chest flutters with too much joy to care too much about concerns like that.
Grace, however, notices the injury.
My first shift back at the lab is on Tuesday afternoon. Grace is taking her lunch break as I arrive, and she catches me as I pass the break room.
