Page 17 of Flagrant Foul
The plan is for me to neutralize the threat, and as soon as Lockie finds himself somewhere else to live permanently, I’ll do the same.
In theory, it should be quite simple.
No idea. I’m in the hall with all my shit. He hasn’t opened the door yet.
Nate responds with a laughing emoji. The thing about Nate is that he finds almost everything Teddy does funny as fuck or completely adorable.
Bizarrely, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, so do I.
When my patience finally wears thin, I thump on the door again. It flies open so fast I suspect Teddy’s been standing at the threshold, hand on the knob, waiting for me to have the gall to knock again. The door crashes into the wall from the force he uses and bounces off it.
I bring it to a stop with my foot.
He’s wearing a shit ton of jewelry, dark-rinse jeans, and a tight black tank over a white one. I take care to soften my focus and avoid looking directly into his eyes. Softening my focus isn’t all that easy. It takes some effort, and if I do it a lot in one day, my vision goes a little blurry and I get a headache. It’s okay though. I’m used to it.
To avoid allowing my gaze to track down his body, I take in each piece of his jewelry individually. Two blackened silver chains fall to his sternum and three rings occupy two fingers. Right ring finger and pointer. He’swearing bracelets too. One on each wrist. They look like the kind of thing you’d buy at Ren Faire, or somewhere like that. They’re made of tourmaline that’s been tumbled. Black stones tied together with leather.
Most likely, they were sold to him with the express promise of warding off bad things.
Things like me.
The look is a lot, and all the trinkets glint as they fight for attention, making it hard for me to keep my focus soft. As if that’s not enough, when he moves, the white tank peeks out from under the black one.
It’s an almost inconsequential detail.
It provokes me.
I have no idea why anyone would wear two tanks on one day. It makes no sense. Why would you do it? Why? Surely, it only adds to the laundry.
I lose my concentration briefly and accidentally lock onto his nipples. They’re peaked. Hidden, but not quite. Outlines of two tiny pebbles are showing despite the two tanks.
Maybe that’s why he’s wearing them? Maybe he’s cold and trying to hide a nipple stand.
A memory from another time, another night years ago, swims to the surface before I have time to force it down.
It’s dark. Lights flash. Pale pink and pale blue. A mirror ball glitters. Shards of pastel color splinters. A pair of pink nipples strain toward me through a delicate mesh top.
Nope.
No.
I don’t go there.
I don’t ever go there unless I’m asleep.
I shake it off and remind myself of my mission: get in and get out.
Out of habit, I do a quick assessment of Teddy’s mood. He’s far from happy to see me and making no effort to hide it. His arms are crossed over his chest and a tight look of fury has been carved into his features. His chiseled jaw clenches when I smile at him, causing his cheekbones to hollow. Slanted eyes narrow, electric blue, as they take aim and spit fire at me.
I’m used to that too, but it’s not quite as easy to handle as the blurred vision.
He cranes his neck, peering into the hallway, leaving the rest of his body in his apartment.
“Holy fucking fuck,” he mutters when he sees the mass of bags and boxes that litter his hallway. “You actually brought your shit. What the fu…?” His voice fades and he turns on me the way men typically turn on me on the ice when they’re milliseconds from being red carded. “You can’t seriously be planning on moving in?”
It’s cute that he thinks I’d kid about something like this. “Course I’m moving in. I said I would.”
“Yes,” he says, closing his eyes and attempting to steady himself with a calming breath. Best I can tell, it doesn’t help all that much. “But there’s a difference between saying stupid things and actually doing them.”
