Page 64 of Heartstruck at Dawn
“I didn’t mean to hurt her. I swear,” Tobias insisted. I stared at him, trying to make him suffer as he waited for my verdict. A few seconds stared back, waiting for my answer too. “So? You’re not going to kill me, right?”
“Who’s killing who?” William asked from behind me. He startled me. Like he always did. There he was, all … male, smelling like autumn and citrus, wearing a green cap backward, black fitted joggers, and a white t-shirt, of course—torture in an image.
“Well, as long as Tobias’s speech wasn’t an acting exercise or a line taken out of some script, he’ll live,” I said, still looking at Tobias. “Butyoucan take a number.”
“What did I do?” William complained with a laugh. I glared at him from the corner of my eye.
“So that’s it? She fucking hates me?” Tobias asked with a grimace. He seemed genuinely disappointed by the situation, bordering on bitter.
“Cecile feels terrible right now, okay. She doesn’thateyou, but I don’t think she wants to see you anytime soon.” She did sayI hate him, but I knew she didn’t. I perfectly understood where she was coming from. It was anything but hate, but things get blurred up like that sometimes. It’s a confusing, dangerous, thin line. Sometimes you have to look down at your feet to see exactly on which side of the line you’re standing.
“Fuck,” he muttered, brushing his messy, light brown hair back with his fingers. I guess he did like her a lot. My trust issues and my protective instincts were sparking up and getting in the way, but I had to give Tobias the benefit of the doubt.
“I’ll go see how she’s doing.” I stood up. “We’ll talk later.”
“Please apologize for me, will ya?” Tobias said, his eyes sad but hopeful. “I’d do it myself, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now.”
I nodded.
“You could learn a thing or two from your brother,” I said to William, poking his chest as I walked past him to see myself out. He followed me to the door. I could sense his towering presence behind me—all six-feet-four-inches of him.
I spotted the photograph he took of me during Midsummer with Emily Dickinson’s quotes facing front hung on the wall right beside the door.What? I missed it when I arrived.
I quickly looked away and pulled the doorknob.
“I like reading it every day before I leave the apartment,” William said, pushing the door shut. I turned around, and the corded muscles of his arm were on display beside me, his palm firmly placed against the door—an inconvenience.
“My number’s up. Time for you to scold me next. What did I do this time?” No smile, no gestures.
Is he out of his mind? How did he not register the fact that I saw two girls coming out of his apartment last night? Two!
“I wouldn’t know where to start with you. We could be here all day. So it’s best if I don’t go there.” I turned around and went for the doorknob again.
“I want you to,” he said in his usual deep voice. “And that doesn’t sound like a half-bad idea. You here—all day. With me.”
That freaking voice.
“Nathan’s waiting for me.” I looked at my watch. “We’re probably going to the movies.” A lie. I just wanted to hurt him, although I didn’t even know if he cared or not. But it wouldn’t do me any harm in trying. “It will be the first time I go in almost seven years. Can you believe that? I guess that surely counts as a first. What do you think?”
William ran his tongue over his teeth, and his face went red. He smiled an angry smile that had my name on it.
So,hedoescare?Or is it just his ego?
There was only one way to find out, and that was by poking him with a wooden stick.
“You know, yesterday I tried tequila for the first time. I also had my first margarita ever,” I tossed in, looking up to meet his fierce and untamed blue eyes with a small smile. “It was soscrummy.” I said scrummy in a British accent as a reference to Nathan just to piss him off. It worked.
“Guille”—his Adam’s apple moving as he swallowed down the venom—“stop.”
No.
He didn’t get to say my name like that. Like he owned it or something.
“Nathan’s also my first pretend boyfriend,” I carried on. “I’m sure Tobias can tell you about it. It’s a cute story.”
“I know all about that. I knoweverything.” He took a deep breath, staring at me like a hawk, refusing to budge. I leveled his gaze, not planning to look away. I could do this all day.
I was not backing down. Not until I left him burning in rage. The same I felt when I saw the photographs of him and Erin, when I found out he was a liar, and when I saw those two girls coming out of his apartment when he said he wanted to drop the event and take me to CJ’s party a few hours before that.
