Page 41 of Riot Act
PRES
I haven’t spent a huge amount of time inside Riot House—just a few drunken nights when they’ve thrown one of their notorious parties—but I do know where Pax’s bedroom is: Second floor. Second door on the right.
I cross the vast entrance and head for the stairs, trying to quiet my very busy brain. It has a lot of thoughts and feelings about me being here right now, and none of them are particularly good. I can’t bring myself to care, or listen, or do anything other than continue forward on this reckless path.
As I climb the stairs, loud, thrashing death metal meets my ears, coupled with the harsh rattle of machine gun fire. The wall of sound is coming from Pax’s bedroom. I come to stand in front of his door, pondering how hard I’m going to have to knock for him to hear me. I try out a fairly loud, firm rap, still polite, laying my knuckles against the wood. My wrists hurt. My ribs really fucking hurt, but I stand my ground. The aggressive music and the blaring gun fire doesn’t stop. Time for more drastic measures.
Instead of using my knuckles this time, I make a fist and use the flat of it to hammer against the door as hard as I can. Three loud, explosive knocks—DUM, DUM, DUM!—fill the empty landing. Immediately, the music and the sound of heavily artillery cuts off dead. There’s a loud crash on the other side of the door, a dull thump, and a lot of muffled swearing. Then the door flies open, and Pax stands there, wearing nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants, hanging low on his hips, and a foul expression on his face.
The expression does not improve when he sees who’s standing in front of his door. “Jesus Christ. I thought it was the fucking police. What are you doing, knocking on someone’s door like that?” He shakes his head. “Just…what the fuck are youdoinghere?”
I wait for the panic. If I’d found myself in this position a month ago, I would have thrown up on myself and fled the scene like a common criminal. The panic doesn’t come. “Are you going to invite me in?”
He crosses his arms, wearing a perplexed frown. I try not to look at all of the ink. Let’s face it. I’ve never been able to study his tattoos in person before. I’ve always bolted before I’ve had the chance. What Ihavedone is flicked through google search images of his ad campaigns a thousand and one times. I’ve studied the depictions of the angel and the demon on his neck, just below either ear. The three saints getting high on his right arm aren’t new to me. The snake coiled around his other arm. The intricately drawn mandalas, and sacred geometry all across his chest. The crucifix above his right hip. Every little scrap of ink on his torso is familiar, each piece pulling at my attention, begging me to stare…
“Why’s your face so red?” Pax growls. “You run here or something?”
“No. I came in the car.”
“Cool. Well. Thanks for stopping by but I’m kind of busy.” He goes to close his bedroom door. Actuallydoesclose it. I note the dressing taped to his back and over his hip as he turns, squirreling away that detail. I’m not upset by his coldness, or by the way he dismissed me. Best of all, I’m not even remotely embarrassed that I came here. I wasn’t tongue tied in front of him at all.
Wow. Well, isn’tthata development.
Smiling to myself, I turn and head back down the stairs, back the way I came. I hit the sixth step when Pax’s bedroom door swings open and he appears again, this time with a vape pen in his hand. A cloud of smoke trickles down his nose, curling around his face. Through the thickness of it, his eyes are intense, liquid as mercury. “Seriously, Chase. What the fuckareyou doing here? I have to know.”
“I just wanted to check something.”
He holds a hand up in the air. “And? What the fuck did you have to drive over here to check?”
I contemplate a lie. I think I’d get away with lying to him now. He’d never be able to tell. But this strange new courage in my chest urges me to tell him the truth. What would be the harm in that now? “I wanted to see if I was still afraid of you,” I say. The confession comes out easily. A couple of weeks ago, I’d never have been able to say this to him. Never. I’d have been too petrified of facing him to manage actual, intelligible words, but today I don’t seem to be having any trouble at all. This moment, right here, might just be the most liberating, freeing moment of my entire life.
I am no longer afraid of Pax Davis. I realized that when I convinced him to kiss me back in the hospital.
Am I still insanely attracted to him?
Absolutely.
Am I still replaying that drunken night in the forest, when Ialmostfucked him, every single time I close my eyes?
Hell yeah, I am.
But I can bear my attraction to him now. Those memories don’t make me want to run and hide in a dark closet, whimpering into the crook of my own elbow anymore. I can exist alongside them quite happily, and that feels like freedom to me.
Pax watches me for a second, then draws on his vape pen. He laughs as he blows out another cloud of smoke, pointing the pen at me. “I take it by the naïve smile on your face, you’ve decided that you’re not.”
“I have.”
Something cold and hard flashes in his eyes. Something not particularly friendly. “Alright, Firebrand. You’d better be on your way, before I decide to test your theory.”
His words have no effect on me whatsoever. None.
Holy fucking shit.
Before, I would have cowered at the implications of his tone. Standing on the stairs today, I’m nothing but calm. I’d go so far as to say I’m almost…entertained? My confidence spills out of me when I say, “You could try, but I’m pretty sure my fear of you has been permanently cured, Pax Davis.”
The words leave my mouth, and that toying look on Pax’s face evolves; his expression loses its playfulness, sharpening until his smile is a weapon. A knife. A cutting blade with an edge so sharp it could draw blood. “All right, then. If you’re so sure.” He hits the pen again, turning his back to me and heading back inside his room.
This time, he doesn’t close the door behind him.
