Page 37 of Deceit

“You’re an observant little thing, aren’t you, Emmy Lou?” The warmth of his voice, no matter how shitty he’s about to get with me, sends the butterflies in my stomach scattering and knocking into each other. “If my lack of response to your text messages didn’t give it away, you found a way to come anyway.” He stops when his chest is only but a tiny gap between us, seizing my full and utter attention. “Go home.”

Rounding my body, he dismisses me without a care and begins for the door issuing outhierto my furry buddy.

Comein Russian.

He’s leaving.

My coming here means nothing to him, and neither do I. No matter how many times I’ve thought about him doing this to me, it still hurts.

“Blieb,” I snap, clearly out of my damn mind.

Stay.

Armageddon listens—holy shit—and sits back down at my side, pending his next order.

I can feel the swelter of Bishop’s glare at the back of my head. If it could pierce out laser beams, he’d be all set. He really would be the most dangerous man alive.

“What do you want, Em?” His tone drops, and here it comes. The irritation that always ensues between him and I when we converse.

My body steels and waits for it, ready for the harsh words and unattached sentiment of my crowding his space. That I’m such a waste of space in his eyes, worthy of none of his time.

“You stood me up.” My jaw begins to tighten to lock away the tears and emotions from forming in my throat. “The least you could’ve done was tell me you weren’t going to make it.”

“Was that another thing you came here for? An apology?”

I almost scoff because we know it’d be a cold day in hell before that occurred.

Just like me wishing I could banish him so far from my brain that I could move on without feeling empty.

Everything about us—Bishop and I—is beyond hopeless.

It’s a fool’s dream.

“You can’t do that.” My voice is barely audible, but I’m not able to raise it. The fight in me is fleeting and almost gone. “You can’t just take off and not tell anyone. You’re family...whether you want me to be or not, but I’m here for you. I’ve always been.”

The last sentence of mine is admission, something I’m working hard on. That my “pushy” manner can come off, as Bishop calls it, “annoying as all fuck”.

So I try to express myself without being bossy or too much.

Nonetheless, sometimes I let my emotions spread thick, coating my good sense, and it comes out wrong.

The sheer heat of Bishop’s chest suddenly rests against my spine, and I draw my eyes shut. “I didn’t pick you to be in my family.” He whispers it close to my ear, causing my whole body to shutter at his proximity and the way his words taunt my dying fantasies. “And we’re over. You don’t get special privileges.”

“Doesn’t make me any less.” I demand myself to inhale, seizing a long and needed hit of oxygen to keep my lungs moving.

“Yes, it does, Princess. Because now…you’rejustlike everyone else.”

“Fuck you,” I sneer through my clenched jaw, trying to hold on to my calmness that’s diminishing by the second.

“I have.“ Bishop’s breath hits the column of my neck, and I swear if I didn’t have so much adrenaline coursing through me, I might pass the hell out.

This is too much.

I’m annoyingly attracted to his jaded way of thinking. How he’s so negative when I’m so optimistic.

He enraptures me, and I didn’t choose this, buthedid.

And I was delusional to believe he’d think of me more as anything else, especially after what he did after he broke up with me.

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