Cruel Intoxication (Underground Kings 4)

I think it is. She’s only ever been looking at me for guidance, and now she’s looking at Quinn. It’s a big deal, and it’s happened quick. Jolie is stronger than she gives herself credit for.

Quinn has this hopeful smile on her face, waiting to see what Jolie is going to ask her, and Jolie pauses, glancing back at me for reassurance.

I nod, telling her to go for it.

“Do you like this?” she says softly, holding a teal blouse to her torso.

“I love it! Oh, you know what would look really great with that top? I just saw the perfect bottoms. Give me a sec,” Quinn rummages through the rack again, taking Jolie’s shyness and uncertainty of her in stride. She grabs a pair of black skinny jeans that are a bit distressed along the thigh and holds them out to Jolie. “What do you think?” she asks Jolie.

“I love them!” Jolie gasps, snatching them so excitingly that the way she took them from Quinn is almost rude. “Look, Owen, do you like it?” she asks me again for my opinion, and I’m starting to wonder if she cares about her own.

“Do you?” I ask like I always do, loving that damn grin she has on her face. I can tell she likes it. She doesn’t even have to say it. What’s gotten into me? A week ago, I couldn’t fathom thinking of another woman or moving on. I’ve never met anyone, out of all the people I’ve come across in the last twenty years, who’s ever made me feel like this.

A tendril of guilt ropes around my heart, tightening it to the point that it takes my breath away. I feel like… It’s stupid, but I feel like I’m cheating on my wife.

My wife who hasn’t breathed in twenty years. A wife I haven’t seen, who is bones in the ground, and all I can think about is how I’m cheating on her emotionally.

I’ve been dead inside for twenty years, and now I know what it’s like to be awake.

But what about Annabeth? I can’t… I can’t just leave her behind.

“I love it,” Jolie says, bringing me out of my confused state.

“Hmm? What?”

“This top and jeans, I love it.” She places them across my arm and having her near me takes away the confusion and second guessing.

“Good. Good, that’s real good, Jolie.” I stand there and watch as she floats around the room, grabbing anything and everything she can. Her green eyes are wide with life and energy, the most I’ve ever seen since she’s been with me.

“You’re allowed to be interested.”

“Huh? What?” I spin left and don’t see anyone. I turn right and jump when I see Heaven next to me.

His arms are crossed, and he’s staring at the girls laughing, all but Jolie. She looks like she wants to laugh but is afraid to.

“To want. To be attracted. To wonder what it will be like.”

I scoff, not understanding what he thinks. “Wonder what it will be like to what?”

“To move on, Owen.”

“Oh. I… I … don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not… It isn’t…” Every excuse I try to come up with fails to leave my mouth because the excuses are a lie.

I am wondering what it will be like to move on.

“I don’t know.” I exhale. “I don’t know, Heaven. That’s all I know, and that isn’t much, is it? How do I go about wooing someone who just escaped so much trauma? And how do I get over my own?” I never talk to Heaven about this sort of thing. Heaven isn’t the serious kind of guy, so it’s hard to have conversations with him.

“You just do,” he says simply as if it’s that easy. “I think you’re already doing it, to be honest.”

“I saved h

er,” I argue. “It’s nothing more than that.” Lie. It’s more than that to me.

“Liar,” he calls me out. “It’s more. You don’t want it to be more because of what she’s been through. She looks at you like you hung the moon, Owen.”

A stab of hurt cramps the muscles in my chest from his words. “She only looks at me like that because I saved her. I’m the one she trusts because I saved her. I’m the first man she’s seen in a year and a half who hasn’t hurt her. That’s all.” Even if I look at her like she’s the woman who saved me from my own damnation.

“Maybe she did at first; I don’t know. But look at me and look at you; I’m fucking hot.” He nudges my side, laughing. He’s kidding, but his words fucking get to me.