Page 127 of Mama Si's Paradise

My arm froze, the towel barely touching his skin when I looked up at him, mortified.

Holy shit, he was going to kill me for real now…

Then Grey said, “Good.”

I swallowed hard, thinking he was just joking. Thinking he was going to start laughing any second, then cut my head off or suck the blood out of me until I was completely dry.

Didhe even laugh? Or even smile? Or give any expressionwith that perfect face other than the one that said he was both bored to death and murderous at the same time?

A good minute passed and I was still alive. Grey hadn’t killed me yet and he didn’t look like he was about to.

I turned back to cleaning the blood off his leg with a small sigh.

We were in front of the open fridges, so their light enabled me to see his wounds with clarity. It was bad. It wasreallybad, but I didn’t think it was bleeding anymore the way it did while he was standing.

“A woman did this to you?” I wondered because those looked like claw marks. Or really sharp teeth. Maybe a dragon? “And what were you looking for in there? What are those?” All those glass containers on the fridge shelves were lined with paper towels so I couldn’t see what was inside.

“Meat. Rabbit meat, specifically,” Grey said.

I looked up at him again, the curiosity burning a fucking hole in my chest. He was looking at me, too—but like he couldn’t decide in which way to kill me yet. I was struck again by how impossibly beautiful he was, especially from down here, even with all that blood and dirt on him.

Or maybe it wasbecauseof it?

I turned to the wound again, cleaning more and more blood. I could have sworn the cuts weren’t as deep now as they had been a couple minutes ago.

“You’re afraid of me,” Grey then said, and my muscles jumped and my hand shook.

Talk about solid proof…

“I’m not,” I forced myself to say.

“So, what are you thinking?”

What am I thinking? I’m thinking about how you can’t decide which way to kill me yet, and I’m still not running away!

I licked my dry lips. “I’m just wondering if you ever laugh.”

He paused for a second, eyes unblinking, body perfectly motionless. And I realized, he hadn’t moved a bit since he sat down. Not even a little, only his head.

“When there’s a good joke to laugh at, sure,” he said—again, voice low andcalm.Not at all like he normally spoke.

“I’m afraid I don’t know any good jokes,” I muttered, cleaning his ankle next. Blood still trickled down two of the biggest wounds, both on his calf that looked fucking shredded, but was already getting better.

“Bad ones?” he said, and I was actually taken by surprise. I genuinely didn’t think he had that many words inside him to speak with.

My lips remained sealed as I continued to clean him up for a moment.

“Why rabbit meat?” Why specificallyrabbit? And how many kinds of meat did they have in these fridges?

Grey said nothing, only watched me as I cleaned his leg as best as I could. His wounds were still open. I no longer saw his bones, but they were still open.

Then I thought of something silly Annabelle had told me once when she was shitfaced. We’d been hanging out on the stairs of the apartment building one night, like we usually did when Brandon was away at one of hiswork conferences.

Annabelle had thought it was the funniest joke in the world, and it was so bad that I’d laughed with her all night.

“What do you call a fly without wings?” I suddenly asked, and Grey looked perfectly confused. “A walk.”

Silence.

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