Page 17 of Smoke and Mirrors

I shrug. “Maybe… kind of… I’m not really sure. I barely know him.”

Max smirks. “I may be old, but ain’t that the point of dating? Getting to know someone.”

I shake my head. “It’s different. He’s…” I want to say dangerous, deadly, “… standoffish. He’s different like there are secrets inside him that eat him up from the inside out.”

Max nods as if he understands, but I’m really not sure how he could.

Kace is an enigma. He’s the unknown, and I’m not even sure that if we got close, he would share himself with me, anyway. I think you can feel when a person just isn’t ready to let someone in, and with the vibes I get from Kace, I’m not sure he’ll ever let anyone in.

There’s chemistry between us, I feel it burn through me whenever he’s near. It’s a magnetism I can’t explain.

“Maybe you need to trust him,” Max says solemnly, his eyes once again staring out the windows onto the street.

“What do you mean?” I ask curiously, tilting my head slightly.

“If you’re scared of him, he will feel it. And people who are scared can do unpredictable things. We, as human beings, know when someone doesn’t trust us, and it makes us wary, it keeps us from showing our true selves out of fear of the reaction. If you don’t trust him, he can’t be sure that once he shares a piece of himself with you, that you won’t run or use it against him.”

My heart races as I take in his words. “You sound like you know from experience,” I murmur, still trying to soak in everything he’s said.

He turns back to me, his face returning to the mask he wore when I first sat down with him. “Trust has to be earned. You both have to give a little to get there.”

I open my mouth to ask another question, but a hand on my shoulder halts the words. I look back to see Cindy smiling down at me. “We’ve got to see some other patients now.”

I nod before turning back to Max. “It was really nice to meet you, Max. I hope I’ll see you again soon.”

I stand from my seat, and Beau rises from his place at Max’s feet.

Max gives him one last pet but doesn’t turn to look at me. “You, too, Lily.”

I walk away with goosebumps on my skin and not entirely sure what just transpired.

Max has a story to tell, I know he does. I just hope one day he will share it with me.

Chapter Five

LILY

It’s the middle of the night, and I can’t sleep. My mind keeps wandering to next door thinking about Kace, trying to figure out who the hell he is. Max’s words keep ringing in my head.

Trust him.

But how do I do that? How do you trust a man like him?

I settle on watching infomercials. There’s a great deal on one of those nutrition extractor blender thingies when a dull thud echoes through the hall. It sounds like something fell against the wall in the hall outside, which is odd because it’s three in the morning. Standing up, I hear a slight groan murmur from the other side of my door. I jump as my heart springs into my throat, and my skin prickles with nervous tension.

“Holy shit!” I race to the kitchen and grab a butcher’s knife. I never use it for anything, I just think it looks cool, but I’m glad to have it now. Moving across to my door, I hear the groan again, and so I take a deep breath as my heart races so damn fast I feel a little nauseous. For one second, my mind screams at me, telling me I’m being stupid, that I’m that girl in the horror movie who runs toward the danger instead of away from it. But something drags me toward the door, that magnetism I can’t fight. Pulling the door back, I peek out with the knife right up by my face and glance out into the hall to see Kace hunched over against his door.

Opening my door fully, I step out slightly to see if he’s okay. His head snaps to the side looking at me with such a harsh glare, it shocks me for a moment. Then, when he sees it’s me, his body slumps, and he relaxes.

“You’re a surgical vet nurse, right?”

Furrowing my brows at not only how the hell does he know that, but why is he asking me, I reply, “Yeah.”

He turns holding his arm, and my eyes widen as I take in all the blood oozing from the wound he’s holding over his bicep.

“Shit.” I race over to him and look down at his arm to see there’s a lot of blood. Luckily, I’m used to animal blood, and I don’t get woozy in any way. “I’ll go get my phone. You need an ambulance.”

His hand comes out grabbing my arm, and when the warmth of his skin touches mine, something shoots through my flesh. A spark? A jolt? I’m not sure, I’ve never felt it before, but something ignites a fire inside of me, and it makes my breathing hitch a notch. Butterflies flutter in my stomach, and my head starts to spin a little.

---