Page 173 of The Wicked
“Then seek—”
I could tell he suppressed a groan. “I have repeatedly told you why I can’t seek help. Repeating myself is not something I am fond of.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll drop it.”
“Thank you, Sport.”
“Why do you call me that?”
His brows twitched, and his gaze dropped from mine.
Silence fell between us.
“Are you gonna answer or—”
“You challenge me. You’re sharp-mouthed; you don’t fold easily; you keep me on my toes. You’re just as stubborn as me. You’re a little thing, yet a big force of nature. You’re like my personal kind of sport. Except I don’t like to play, I just derive pleasure from watching.”
Like it had the time he kissed me, the little glitchy stutter attacked my chest to the point that my response was a simple “Oh.”
“Hm,” he hummed, eyes still on me, and I wanted to ask him why he was staring, but his phone screen lit up with a vibration and a text sound.
My gaze flickered to it, but I couldn’t see the texter.
He looked down at his phone but didn’t pick it up. He just brought his attention back to me.
“So tell—” He stopped when his phone blared up again. Three times consecutively. He sighed and then picked it up.
I watched him unlock the device. It was shielded from my view, but I watched how he typed back to whoever texted him.
I frowned again.
Was it Casmiro…
The sound of him sending the text filled the space between us.
It wasn’t even up to a second before the sound of a response from the texter came through.
He was typing out another reply.
Elio’s face gave nothing away, and it only fueled my curiosity.
The back-and-forth continued for about a minute before he dropped the phone.
“Cassie?” I asked.
“No.”
“Angie?”
“No.”
“Who was—”
“I’m curious to know you, Zahra,” he cut me off.
My gaze went to the phone again, unable to detach my mindfrom how he had wholly stopped our conversation to text this person.
If it was Cas…
