Page 20 of Paradox
Resting a hand back on the wheel. Eden looks out the windscreen from the corner of his eye, and a few seconds later I’m flying into his side when he swerves around another stump.
“Ow! Ow! Shit!” I scream, frantically batting at my neck then clamping my hand over it.
Eden slams on the breaks but catches me before I hit the dash.
The cigarette has fallen from his hand.
He stomps it out with his boot, and at the same time grabs the collar of Teks jacket, tearing it aside with so much force it ends up halfway down my arm.
He opens the back window, reaching into the truck bed.
“Fuck. Fuck,” I hear him mutter, but I don’t care what he’s doing.
It’s too hot in here.
The smell of the smoke is making me feel like I’m on fire.
I need to get out.
With no regard for the pillow covers I jump out of the truck.
“Wait,” Eden calls out—grabbing my wrist before I’m fully out of the cab.
I shake out of his grip. “Let go of me!”
He clambers across the bench seat and follows me out. “Get back here.”
“You fucking burnt me!”
“Stop moving.”
“It hurts.”
“No shit.”
I dodge free of him again, only to start shaking my hands as I pace around the truck. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“It’s not like I did it on purpose.”
“You’re so full of yourself, you may as well have.”
“Don’t pretend like your little dick wasn’t getting hard over it.”
“Fuck you!” I scream as loud as I can, and clamp my hand back over my neck. “Oh god, it hurts so much.”
“So stop touching it.” Eden tears my hand away from my neck and drags me back to the passenger door by the nape of Tek’s jacket. I try to get away again, but he grabs me by the hair and forces me back. After pulling the jacket off completely, he tugs my head to the side, revealing my neck to him. Mumbling a string of profanities, he reaches inside the cab, returning with a bottle of Crystal Geyser in his hand. He clenches the lid between his teeth and unscrews it.
Icy water runs down my neck, and the second it hits my chest, I jump away.
“Stop being a child,” he growls—pulling me closer and pinning my body between his and the truck bed.
Again he pours the water over the cigarette burn, and it’s so agonizingly slow that I’d prefer the pain of the burn over this.
It feels like an hour before the bottle is empty and Eden is stepping away from me.
His breath is just as deep and adrenaline fueled as mine is, but as I look at him, he’s looking at the ground between us. And then I see it; he’s wet too. The old black t-shirt is clinging to his chest, and the right leg of his jeans are several shades darker than the left.
Turning away from me, he undoes the flannel from around his waist, tosses it on the truck’s hood, and takes off the t-shirt. Most of his back is taken up by two Japanese Koi fish swimming in opposite directions and curving in towards each other. One is gray scale and the other is an intense orange, and they mark the dividing point between black and bright.
