Page 46 of Hide and Keep

Rubbing his face, Crue shrugs and mumbles, “I didn’t want to get my hands dirty, too.”

He did. He cleaned my handsandmy nails for me.

“You could’ve kept them to yourself. Or did you skip over that part in yourBodyguarding for Dummieshandbook?”

He glances down at the phone abandoned on his lap and makes a noise in his throat.

“I needed to know if you tried to leave.”

That’s why he was holding my hand? Not because he wanted to?

Something crashes against my ribs from the inside.

Nothing he’ll ever do while being on my father’s payroll will be because he actually wants to. Not talk to me. Not protect me. Nothing.

“What did you use? To clean my hands.”

“Spit with a little bit of elbow grease.”

“Youspiton my hands?”

Crue doesn’t answer.

Why doesn’t that gross me out as much as it should? Truthfully, it doesn’t gross me out at all.

“How’d you clean my nails?” I ask quieter, genuinely curious.

“Same way you did.”

Our eyes both fall to his hands just as he curls his fingers into his palms.

“You don’t have long enough nails.” He probably couldn’t even scratch me with those nails, they’re so short.

Again, I’m met with silence.

How did he clean my nails? And why? Nothing under my nails would’ve gotten on him from holding my hand.

“Alarm’s off,” Crue says, nodding at Edwin shaking out a rug at the bottom of the staircase.

I don’t move, just watch the hundreds of pieces of dust spring off the rug as they float through the air in all different directions.

“Do you have classes today?”

I nod without taking my eyes off the airborne particles, wishing I was one of them.

“I’ll walk you inside.”

Getting out, he heads straight for the manor, his back entering my vision and stealing all of my attention…until he turns to face me and catches me staring.

Hardening my features, I point at the passenger door.

“What?” he mouths.

“It’s not working!” I yell with more hand gestures.

He pulls out his key fob and begins the trek back to his Bronco.

The locks click into place, then unlock again.

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