Page 25 of Click
I don’t line dance.
I also don’t make a scene. But the way that guy looked at what’s mine made me want to shove that bottled IPA he was carrying down his goddamn throat. Instead of committing murder, I took her out of his reach.
Now she’s all mine.
Glancing every couple of seconds in my rearview to make sure she’s keeping up with me, I finally pull into my long driveway. It feels like a victory stretch when I turn my ignition off and hop out of my car. Mak pulls in right behind me, and I open her door just as she turns off the engine. Giving her my hand, I help her out of the car and escort her through my front door.
“Wow,” she says, looking around.
“You want something to drink or anything?”
She’s already making her way over to a bookshelf stocked with a variety of spicy reads and a few outliers like the autobiography she’s plucked off the shelf. “You read all this?” She pulls another one out—this one’s got a half-naked couple on it with a full moon in the background.
“Nah. I just collect them for the covers.” I lean against the wall and cross my arms over my chest. “I took the photos for each one.”
Mak gawks at me. “Really?”
“Really.” I slowly prowl over to her. “I won’t lie to you, Mak. Not even to impress you. And what you see is what you get with me.”
I hate that I let that fly out of my face, but whatever. It’s true. I’m not a muscular, zero-body-fat, six-foot-four hunk of manly man like that guy at the bar. I’m also not good at hiding my emotions. Or my insecurities, as it seems, around her.
She bends down and pulls out a comic book. “Did you do this too?”
“Nah. That was just art I had to have.”
“Hmmm.” She flicks through the pages. “Zombie Tramp.” She looks back on the shelf. “You only have three?”
“I’m not really into comics.” I shrug. “But these ones looked cool, so I got them.”
Mak runs her fingers over the comic character’s tits. “I think if I had a rack like this, I’d wear this same outfit.”
“You’d look hotter than her in that outfit, for sure.”
“Awww, Carson, are you saying I’m hotter than a decaying corpse with winged eyeliner?” We both start laughing and she slides the comic back in its place on the shelf. “Your house is really cool. It’s so different from your studio.”
“That was the point.” I make my way across the living room, loving that she’s following me. “My head never turns off and I crave different things, including atmospheres. Work is all urban, clean lines and neon lights. Home is eclectic, old, and stuffy.”
“It’s not stuffy. It’s comfy.”
I light the fireplace and rub my palms together. “Glad you think so.”
She plops down on the sofa and curls up like she lives here. “Thanks for earlier.”
I make sure to keep my expression impassive as I sit next to her. “You’re welcome.” I want to ask if I’ve overstepped. I want to explain myself. I want to find out what that guy was saying to upset her. But I don’t pry. And it no longer matters. She’s here with me and this is where she’ll stay for as long as she wants.
“That was my ex.”
So much for it not mattering. “Oh yeah?” My throat’s closing up. Jealousy coils in my belly again and it makes no sense. Why am I feeling like an animal who wants to mark his territory?
“He’s a total douchebag.”
I sense there’s more she wants to say and is afraid to. I don’t want her to keep things from me only because she’s afraid of my reaction. She doesn’t owe me an explanation or her backstory. We’re nowhere near that level of intimacy yet. But if her anxieties impact our dynamic, then I want to know about them so we can work through it.
“I take it he’s not good with the word no.” It’s all I can bring myself to say. I’m honestly scared of what she’ll tell me next. My mind’s racing with situations and none of them are okay.
Mak brings her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “He’s very… persuasive.”
“You mean he’s coercive.”