Total pages in book: 212
Estimated words: 207966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1040(@200wpm)___ 832(@250wpm)___ 693(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1040(@200wpm)___ 832(@250wpm)___ 693(@300wpm)
I muttered, “Shower,” then shrugged off my leather cut, leaving it on the bed. After shutting the door to the bathroom, my eyes landed on four Band-Aid wrappers and what looked like an antiseptic wipe in the otherwise empty wastebasket. I stared at them while I took a leak. Her purple case was on the back of the toilet. After flushing, I flicked the lid open. It opened like a tacklebox, multiple sections filled with makeup. I moved it to vanity and took a closer look. In the top section was a clear zippered makeup bag with what looked to be white tissue stuffed into it. I hadn’t looked closely before when I opened this box. Now I could see what looked like a pencil inside that bag. I unzipped it. On closer examination I saw it was a retractable box cutter packed with squares of gauze, more Band-Aids, and individually wrapped antiseptic wipes.
Grinding my teeth, I put it all away, stripped, and got into the shower. I took time under the stream, braced on the tiled wall weighing it all out.
The fact she jolted when I interrupted her bath last night, then she hauled the shower curtain across for privacy. The drops of blood a few days earlier in the sink. Band-Aid on her inner bicep, an inconspicuous place on her body. Today, locking the door to the bathroom because why? Because I almost caught her the night before?
Those lines in the journal about nicks of a blade echoed in my brain. Should’ve made it dawn that she’s a cutter.
The girl’s got emotional issues that run deep. And no fucking wonder. I didn’t know a lot about her, but everything I knew so far … yeah, no wonder.
Did I want this baggage? After the bullshit hand I got dealt in my past, did I really wanna travel this road with the risks involved?
This kind of shit should warn me off, should make me see that this is not the girl I should claim, especially barely knowing her.
***
I threw the bathroom door open having left the water running, wondering what I’d catch her doing. I caught her with my cut. She had her nose to the collar.
She froze. I crossed my arms over my chest and jerked my chin up in question.
Her cheeks went red; she dropped it on the bed. “Love the smell of leather,” she muttered. “Sorry.”
I turned, shut the water off, and then stalked in her direction.
With a dark expression, I dropped the towel around my waist and reached into my bag for clothes. Her eyes were on me and not likely for nudity. More likely she was worried I was pissed off. If she wasn’t who I figured she was becoming to me, I might’ve been. A biker’s leather is sacred.
I pulled out a pair of her little booty short underwear from my backpack and put my nose to them. My eyes cut to her before I muttered, “I can sniff your clothes too. Too bad these smell like laundry soap instead of like you.”
She barked out a laugh.
Weight left my chest at seeing light dancing in her eyes after not seeing it for two days.
I exchanged her shorts for a pair of my boxer briefs, then yanked out my clean pair of jeans and my old Chili Peppers concert t-shirt, thinking on how to play things when she cleared her throat from her spot on the bed.
Our eyes met and I held her gaze, seeing a fuck of a lot of emotions there, but none of them resembling the humor of a minute before.
The emotions weren’t just about her sister, I suspected. Not only about her aunt or that conversation with her father. I had the strong suspicion this expression was about me, about her being wrong about where things were at with us. About the fact that she’s been trying to protect herself from thinking we’re gonna be anything and failing repeatedly, pulling back when she catches herself. And she’s grief-ridden, yet sharing headspace, I was sure, between the grief of her stepsister, the diagnosis of her aunt, worry about her safety, and whatever she was thinking or trying not to think about me.
She looked uncomfortable with my study of her.
The way I grew up, I know shame when I see it and my instinct told me she wore it like a shroud. What I’ve seen the last day or so along with how she’s tried to hold back, finding out she cuts herself feels like confirmation. In my experience, nobody who deserves to feel ashamed has this look of deep shame in their eyes.
Before meeting her, all I knew was the few tidbits I’d heard about her in locker room style talk from some of the club brothers, which said absolutely nothing about her character, only about the fact she was a sweet lay.