Page 105 of Moonstruck at Midnight
“William?” I urged.
“Guille, I—” he said softly, with that dreaded frown of his before being harshly cut off by Thomas.
“Oh, this is only getting better.” Thomas clapped once and placed his hands inside his pockets. He was about to say something.Let him speak!
My heart fluttered, and my stomach warmed with the growing anxiety that craved to come up to the surface, but it couldn’t find its way out through the medication flowing in my veins.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” Thomas asked. William went silent again, his gaze fixed on me. It was sofrustrating. I wished I could stand up and shake the words out of him.
“For someone who memorizeswordsfor a living, you’re not doing yourself justice,” Thomas said to William, sauntering in my direction. “But don’t worry, I’ll help clear the air.”
“Don’t you fuckingdaretell her,” William warned.
Thomas sat on the bed next to me and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Blondie here, you see, is a famous movie star, babe. Not that I expected a girl like you to know such a thing,” he said, tucking my hair behind my ear. I flinched away from his touch. “Wouldn’t that somehow feel …beneathyou?” His tone was bundled up in a sarcastic and condescending package left for me to unwrap on my own. “This is WilliamfuckingSjöberg!”
Thomas burst out laughing—each gasp oozing with cynicism.
I shook his hands away from my shoulders becausewho the hell are you? I couldn’t recognize him. This wasn’t the guy I used to date.
Thomas rose to his feet. William’s face shifted from mad to dim and back. I couldn’t read his expression. But whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
“Now, this is what happens when you keep things from each other. Not a good way to start a relationship.” Thomas kept going with a smug smile on his face.
“I’m sure you knowallabout that,” William replied. He took his time when he said the wordall. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, trying to process the words being exchanged in front of me.
“Excuse me?” Thomas barked back at him. “Babe, come on. This is getting ridiculous. I’m sure we can talk things through. Just ask Lothario here to leave so we can fix this.”
“Get. Out,” I muttered.
“You heard her,” Thomas said with a gravelly timbre. I took a deep breath. Thomas was delusional or pretending to be, at the very least. Either way, my message was not getting through.
“Get the fuck out,Thomas,” I said louder this time. The menace of my tear flooded eyes was imminent. A blink was all it took for my face to become thoroughly drenched.
“Billie, you’re not thinking straight. The medication is not allowing you to—”
Louder.
“Get the fuck out!” I cut him off with a scream that made my head feel like a soda can that’d been shaken too much.
Aaron materialized himself a few seconds later inside my bedroom. He took a quick look at both William and Thomas before looking at me. Thomas faced Aaron, and everyone remained silent.
“So, who’s getting the fuck out?” Aaron asked with the scariest face I’ve ever seen him make. I’d never heard him swear in English before. Just a couple of times in Hebrew, but the impact of it was quite different.
Caleb appeared in the back of my bedroom, slowly pacing from one side to another, whistling while he waited for Aaron’s cue, enjoying the fact that someone, either way, was getting thrown out.
No one would answer Aaron’s question, so I gave him a hint and jerked my head to my right toward Thomas.
“Let’s go, Mr. Hill.” Aaron extended his hand in Thomas’s direction and swiveled his fingers, summoning him to come forth.
“No,” Thomas replied dryly with a deathly glare on the side.
Caleb stopped whistling and directed his predator focus on Thomas. My breathing felt ragged, and the walls began to close in on me.
“Why her?” Thomas yelled in William’s face, but he didn’t even flinch. “You can haveanyone! Any girl you fucking want. Isn’t that what you’re famous for too? You only want her because youcan’thave her. But she’s mine. Sowhyher?”
Mine.
William refused to engage with Thomas. And I was thankful for that.
