Page 31 of Wicked Temptations
He grabbed a bag of those weird, spicy dried chickpeas from the shelf. They were the same ones I bought every shift because they were the only thing that didn’t make me feel sick before performing.
“You eat those too?” Why couldn’t I stop talking?
“Yeah. They’re good.” He looked at me, something cautious in his expression. “You?”
“Same.” I reached for my own bag. “Only thing that settles my stomach when I’m running on too much caffeine.”
“Huh.”
That was it. Just huh. But the weight of it sat between us like a confession. This small, stupid thing we had in common that had nothing to do with work or sex or the complicated mess we’d made of whatever this was.
He shifted his basket to his other hand. I noticed the way his forearm flexed, the definition of muscle under golden-brown skin, and had to force myself to look away.
“I should probably grab some waterproof shit,” he said. “For the makeup.”
“Setting spray helps. The theater brand, not the drugstore stuff.”
“Yeah?” He looked genuinely interested, and I realized we were having an actual conversation. About work. About normal things. Like regular people who didn’t spend their nights trying to one-up each other while guests screamed around them.
“Yeah. Holds through sweat better. Rain, though...” I shrugged. “That’s going to be rough no matter what.”
“Looking forward to it already.” His smile was wry, tired, and matched his sarcasm. I caught myself wanting to see more of that expression.
We stood there in the middle of the aisle, baskets in hand, rain hammering against the store windows. I should leave. Say something dismissive and walk away, maintaining the distance we needed to stop us from fucking each other like animals.
“I should—” He gestured vaguely toward the checkout.
“Right. Yeah.”
Neither of us moved.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as someone’s cart squeaked past the end of the aisle. An announcement played about a sale on chicken, which would have interested me normally. Now I didn’t care. All these normal, mundane sounds that had nothing to do with strobes and smoke and the persona I wore like armor.
Ash looked different here. Softer, maybe. Less sharp and dangerous, more human than hunter, younger than me despite his size. I’d seen him in regular clothes before, coming and going from shifts, but that was always brief and hurried and still existed within the realm of work. This was unabashedly him. I was seeing a version of him that existed outside the park and the dynamic we’d built.
This is a bad idea.Getting attached. Thinking about him outside of work. Wanting to know what he did with his days,what he watched on TV, whether he drank his vanilla coconut energy drinks now or saved them for before shifts.
“See you tonight?” His voice pulled me back.
I blinked to clear my head.
“Yeah. See you tonight.”
He nodded, turned, and walked toward the front of the store. I watched him go, noting the way he moved even without the tactical gear, without the performance aspect to his stance. It was just Ash in a t-shirt and jeans, carrying a basket of the same weird shit I bought.
I stood there for another minute, holding my coffee and chickpeas, trying to figure out why my brain was going in circles.
Terrifying.That’s what this was. The realization that he existed beyond the person who challenged me on stage, beyond the body I’d fucked in a dark car. Beyond the first dick I’d craved in years. He was human. Someone who got up at ungodly hours and needed caffeine to function and bought snacks like everyone else in the world.
He was someone I could actually like if I let myself.
Fuck.
I was in so much trouble.
***
The changing room smelled of ozone and wet concrete. Rain hammered against the small window near the ceiling, turning the world outside into a gray blur. I sat at my usual spot, unpacking my kit, trying not to think about the grocery store or the way Ash had looked in that t-shirt or the fact that I’d gotten myself off in the shower afterward with that image burned into my brain.
