Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
I swipe at my face, horrified at the amount of moisture that comes away on my palm, while I balance Peach Lips with the other hand and arm. Through my hazy vision, I watch the side door open in the hallway, and a dark, shadowy form appears. Black on black, but even his washed-out, tear-stained, blurry, three-headed, six-armed image is horribly attractive. It’s really him. Facial hair gone, glasses gone. His usual dark scowl? Also gone.
“Why?” I’m not going for a preamble or small talk. We’re getting straight down to it. “Was it a power move? I was just trying to make things right before I left. I know I messed things up for you at work, so I wanted to do what I could to fix it. And I wanted to know about my rebranding. I couldn’t wait.” I’m aware this is all coming out blubbery and hiccupy and nonsensical, but I keep going anyway, slurping back tears. “I decided that whatever happened over the sandwiches was a peace gesture. I thought things were spiraling. Up. Spiraling up. Why would you spend almost half a million dollars paying my medical debt?”
There’s no shift in the façade he likes to give the world. That hard face, the one without expression, the piercing dark eyes that could discern anything like a living lie detector and a laser beam all rolled into one handy retinal package. He doesn’t soften at all. He’s not scowling, but his face naturally rests hard. He just stands there, black on black, swimming in my eyes, saying and doing nothing.
Maybe he has no idea what to say.
What words are appropriate anyway? Thank you? I don’t know if I’m thankful. I don’t know if I’m beholden. I don’t know if any of this is appropriate or what we’re even doing.
No. I trust him. I trust this is not something that demands repayment of any kind. Trust comes so very uneasily to me, and I can’t say why I’m putting my faith in that, but if I had to bet my bus house on it, I would.
“T—thank you,” I splutter. I wave Peach Lips’ paw at him and make a little baby voice. “Thank you from Peach Lips and for the animals too.” I want to ask if he has any idea how much money he’s dropped today, but that would be highly inappropriate. He knows, duh. How could he not? “There’s like two hundred and twenty billion dollars of medical debt in this country. I—I thought I’d be paying my debt forever. I don’t even know…what to…to say.”
He’s still across the room. He hasn’t moved. It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. He’s in sexy robot mode, and it’s about all I can take. “This is the part where I get really cheesy and tell you that you don’t have to say anything,” he says.
“No!” I shake my head furiously. “You can’t be nice. Not this level of nice. You’re going to make me want to hug you, and if I do that, then all bets are off.”
Still zero reaction. Nothing. I’m not even crying anymore—belated realization here—so I can tell he’s utterly stoic.
“We weren’t betting on this or anything else.”
Fuck. I need to control my gaze. If I stare at this wonderful man who pretends he’s all hardness, unfeeling, soulless, and slightly monstrous when in reality he’s hiding a heart of pure damn gold, I’m going to stare and stare and stare. If the fire from my eyes burns off his clothes, I’m going to be in serious trouble.
People were so mean to him. So. Mean. And I let them be. I was kind of mean too. I made assumptions. Is it because, deep down, I’m just a shallow, mean troll too? How could I never have considered that some people are scowly and stoic because they’re shy? Introverted? Some people need to protect their squishy centers by having hard exteriors.
Unless it’s not real. I don’t think that’s true, but the only way to get Thorn to respond is to offer up our normal sparring. “This is all a cover act, isn’t it?”
Slight flinch. One blink. I notice these human reactions because I’m staring. And staring hard. There’s going to be flames soon, but I might have miscalculated their location. They might come from me.
“You hide the best parts of yourself away so no one else gets to see them, but they’re there. Just like all the contradictions. You’re so rich that you never have to work another day in your life, but you do. It’s all you do,” I continue.
“That’s not a contradiction.”
“Are you staring?” I ask.
“I’m looking at you, yes.”
My mouth goes dry, and I start to tremble. I have to walk Peach Lips to a cat post in the corner of the cook me straight onto a TV show and like eight different magazines kind of professional kitchen.