Page 21 of Captured Heart

“No way. How can you tell?”

“See how she moves her head like she’s got a melody playing. And then her fingers move like she’s playing that melody on a piano. She does that, then goes back to scribbling.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say, but my voice betrays me with a laugh.

“Not ridiculous,” he counters. “Accurate. Watch.” We both look over, and she does exactly that. Plays an imaginary piano for a few seconds before scribbling down the note. “Told you.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Alright, Sherlock. What about me?”

He smirks faintly, the closest thing to a real smile I’ve seen from him. “You? You’re easy.”

I scoff. “Excuse me?”

“You’re a planner,” he says, his tone softening slightly. “Meticulous. That’s why you keep looking at your watch, even though you said you’re being spontaneous today. You’re probably already thinking about how to make up the study time you’re losing right now.”

Heat creeps up my neck because he’s right. “That’s kinda cheating because you knew that about me before we even sat down. You gotta give me something of substance if you want me to believe you.”

“You really wanna know?”

Something about the way his tone drops and his eyes darken puts me on edge, and I think twice before I respond. “Yes.”

“You don’t like change. You drink iced coffee every day. It’s cold out today, but you still ordered ittwice.”

“I dropped the first one when I bumped into you, remember? That’s why—”

“Doesn’t matter. It still tells me it’s an ingrained habit. The car you drive; it’s sentimental to you, right?”

I’m gobsmacked, stunned into silence for a few seconds. “Uh...yeah. It was my grandad’s. After he died, I couldn’t let it go. It still smells like him, you know.” I draw in a shaky breath because it’s unnerving how he figured that out. “How did you know that?”

“Your watch, your chain, your clothes, even the sneakers you wore to the gym yesterday—those are indicators that you...or your family can afford the finer things in life, so the only reason you’d be driving a car that’s basically a relic is because it’s sentimental to you. Correct?”

I only nod.

He doesn’t skip a beat and continues with his detailed assessment of me. “You’re smart, but somehow, that makes you feel insecure. Someone said something to you, something like...you talk too much or...you only talk about your schoolwork. I don’t know, but it was something like that, and it offended you so much that now you’re very careful about what you say.”

Blinking a few times, I try to recompose. I feel so exposed, and the cold, clinical way he said that reopens the cuts Jason left me with. After a deep breath, I swallow hard and decide to tell him what happened. Judging by how quickly he summed me up, it’s not like he won’t figure it out, anyway. “He said I was boring.”

“Who did?”

The hint of aggression in his voice makes it sound like he wants to hunt down the scoundrel who would dare say something so heinous to me. Either that or it’s my twisted pre-2005 rom-com imagination leading me astray again.

“My ex.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“Yeah. He told me that right after I caught him naked with two cheerleaders.” I shrug and pretend as if it doesn’t affect me. “It was brutal, but not devastating. Those are the only scars I have now, and they’ll heal ev—”

“They’re not, though,” he cuts in. “I know a knife wound when I see one, and you’ve got one on your left thumb. How’d you get that?”

“I was nine,” I reply cautiously because this conversation is taking an eerie turn. I was talking about emotional scars, but him bringing up this physical one makes me a bit uneasy. It’s like he’s noticed every little thing about me. “My mom asked me to chop some vegetables for dinner. The knife slipped, and I had to get three stitches here.”

He nods. “The burn on your right forearm?”

“Lab accident. Last year. Bunsen burner.”

“And the back of your neck? Looks like laser removal.”

He leans forward and his hand slowly moves around me to stroke the spot at the base of my neck. My hairs stand on end, goosebumps skittering down my arms. I’m not sure if it’s his closeness or the intensity of his gaze that makes my pulse race manically beneath my skin. His woody cologne pervades the air between us, and I struggle to take in air.

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