Page 67 of The Road to Ruined

He presses his lips to my neck, and I sigh, relaxing a little. But there's something about how he says it—something not quite innocent, like the things he used to say to me at Rancho San Flores. And it's not just that he's letting me know he's always watching…it's like he's trying to remind me who did leave me.

Then, he kisses me, threading his fingers in my hair as his tongue slips past my lips into my mouth.

"I made coffee," he says. "And lunch. It's probably after three now."

"In the afternoon?" I ask.

"Yes," he says. "Your clothes are over there on the chair."

He kisses me again, and then climbs over me and slips into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I sit up and flip on the light on the table beside me. Layla's pink suitcase, the one I took from her closet to pack my clothes for the tour, sits on an armchair in the back corner of the room, partially unzipped and still overflowing with clothes.

Another relic from that brief past life—that blip on the radar that recalibrated my brain. I'm almost afraid to open it.

Sebastian steps back into the room, pulling on those black boxer briefs and black pants—the labelless ones filling the closets and drawers.

"I'll see you downstairs." He doesn't complete the masked killer costume, leaving the room shirtless and maskless. "You look beautiful covered in bruises, Teagan."

I don't know what to say. He turns, leaving the room, and my eyes settle on the deep, angry scars on his back as he goes.

Once I hear his footsteps on the stairs, I clean myself up in the bathroom and then kneel beside that suitcase. On top of everything sits one of Luca's hoodies. It's white—he looked good in white. I remember wearing it around the hotel one morning when he went to the gym after spraying it with his cologne. I bring the collar to my nose and inhale.

It's been months, and I can still smell him. That hollow spot inside me hurts again.

I put on a pair of underwear, a bra, and some black denim shorts and then pull the sweatshirt over my head.

When I walk downstairs, Sebastian lowers his newspaper and looks at me, raising an eyebrow at the oversized hoodie.

"Don't say anything," I say.

"It's 105 degrees, but okay," he says. "By the way, Icanread with the mask on—just saying."

Ignoring him, I sit down at one of the barstools.

He made pesto and mozzarella sandwiches. What the fuck kind ofTwilight Zoneis this?

And they're good, too. Either that, or I'm just starving.

"Is it okay?" he asks.

I nod.

"There's kiwi in it."

"You're hilarious."

"You know, if I'd known showing my face would get you to shut up, I would have taken my mask off earlier."

I shrug, staring down at my plate. "I'm just…taking it all in."

He moves into the kitchen, takes out a mug, and fills it with coffee. "Here," he says.

But when he sets it down in front of me, it splashes down the front of the white hoodie.

"Oops," he says. "My bad."

I look at him and scowl. "You did that on purpose."

"No, I didn't. Why would I do that?"

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