“So what is he doing allowing his sweetheart to go where she doesn’t belong, wearing something she shouldn’t?”
I grab his wrist then and dig my nails in. “My darling doesn’t control me. I can do whatever I want. I can…”
He licks his lip then and I trail off.
“Because if it was me.” He presses that thumb in the middle of my lower lip, tugging at it. “You wouldn’t be setting foot out of your room like this, let alone frolicking around town in the middle of the night.”
“If it was y-you?”
He nods slowly. “If it was me, I’d keep you reined in. A girl like you needs that.”
He’d keep me reined in.
If it was him.
If he was my boyfriend.
That’s what he means.
He means that if we were together, he’d keep me on a leash.
He’d keep me bound like I’m an object or a pet. A fuck doll like he called me back at the bar.
A doll who’s blinking up at him and whose lips he’s playing with, whose wrist he’s holding captive and whose nails are digging into his wrist.
“A girl like me?” I whisper.
“Raw, natural and stunning.”
Did he just… Did he just describe me the same way I described this bridge?
He did, didn’t he?
Something blooms in my chest. Something like flowers. Gardenias, the symbol of secret love.
“I… You…”
He puts pressure on my chin then. “If you were mine, I wouldn’t let you ride around on that bike of yours in the middle of the night either.”
“My bike?”
“Because you do that, don’t you?” He swipes his thumb on my lip, an impatient movement. “When you think everyone is asleep, you sneak out of the house. You take out your bike and you go on rides. You ride for hours and come back at the break of dawn.”
Yeah, I’d do that.
I’d take my bike out for a ride. I’d come here or go to my other favorite places and stay out for hours. But I’d be careful not to wake anyone up. Leah would’ve been furious.
But I didn’t know that someone was awake. That someone knew about my nightly excursions.
“Y-you know about that?”
“Clearly, not everyone was asleep.”
“But you never said anything.”
“Maybe I was keeping your secret too,” he whispers with grave and gorgeous eyes.
I don’t see it coming – what I do next.
Maybe it’s the fact that he called me stunning and he’s been talking about me being his. Or the fact that he just told me he is my secret keeper.
He’s been my secret keeper like I’ve been his.
Whatever the reason is, it makes me close the remaining distance and let go of his wrist. It makes me put my hand on his bicep and tilt up my neck and go in search of his mouth.
It makes me kiss him. Or try to.
Because he stops me at the last second.
He lets go of my hand, the one he had in his hold all this time, and grabs my hair in a fist, pulling me back.
With a low, dangerous tone, he tells me, “It’s time to go back.”
I need a smoke.
Which is a surprise because I just smoked outside of Dr. Lola Bernstein’s building before going in for my appointment.
My second appointment, to be precise.
Yes, I’m back. Unfortunately.
I talked to my manager and he said that the big shots on the team management won’t change therapists. She’s supposed to be the best at what she does so I have to stick with her.
And so I’m sitting on her pink couch again, watching her adjust herself in her armchair – purple armchair – as her tinkling bracelet bangs in my head like a gavel.
Hence, the need for my second smoke.
It’s pretty rare, actually, for me to want to smoke again. I’m not a smoker, or at least not a regular one.
I only need it when I’m trying to relax before an important game or something.
I started back in high school, junior year. I had a big biology test and practice was brutal that week because we also had a big game coming up.
A few of the players were smoking outside of the school after practice and something about how they were standing, all relaxed and loose, smoke coming out of their mouths like they were expelling all their stress in the form of a gray cloud, made me want to try it too.
I was ready to dismiss it after one puff though.
Addiction of any kind is bad for the game. It had always been drilled into me, first by my mom and then by my coaches.
I would have too, dismissed it, I mean. If it hadn’t led to a series of coughs, alerting everyone who was watching that this was the team captain’s first drag. You can’t have your reputation questioned or the players won’t follow you.
So to shut up their derogatory laughter, I took another drag.