Page 75 of Green Flag
“Don’t start,” I said, pulling away further, but the damn duvet was under the mattress, keeping me prisoner.
“You look repulsed for someone who wants to make him jealous,” he said and I almost had to stop the angry blink.
“I don’t.”
He pulled his attention away from the screen and gave me an incredulous look, his brows sky high so that his silvery scar winked at me.
“He has something I need.”
“So I’ll get it for you.”
So bloody sweet.
“You can’t.” He looked back at the TV, and I knew I had to explain. “Everyone thinks he’s this bad guy,” I told him. “But he didn’t deal drugs and I was legal when we slept together.”
“Right…” he said, lips pursed in clear disagreement..
“The legal age of consent is sixteen in the UK,” I told him.
“Can’t say I’ve ever had to search that up because I’m not a fucking creep.”
He wasn’t a creep, I wanted to argue. He hadn’t planned it. He’d tried to fight it. We’d waited until I was legal. It wasn’t like that. But if it wasn’t like that… why was I still trying to convince people? Even myself?
Luca’s face stiffened, and then he glanced down at me before his eyes drifted, deep in thought.
“What is it?”
He cleared his throat and sat up, completely ignoring the fight now. “Would you say we slept together?”
I laughed, but it felt like more of a defensive reflex. “I mean we sleptbesideeach other.”
“You know I don’t mean that.”
My swallow made his eyes soften slightly. “No.”
He was quiet, his attention no longer on me or the screen. For the first time in his presence, it didn’t feel like a comfortable silence. There was too much going on in his head.
“Did he touch you today?”
The question seemed to come from nowhere.
My startled attempt at lying only made him breathe in deeply.
“Where?”
“Just my arm,” I said, eyes unfocused when I tried to look at Luca’s comforting hand on my thigh. “It didn’t hurt.”
His posture didn’t soften. “Do you think you could defend yourself?”
Me? I might have thrown a good cowboy boot in my time, and I’d definitely spiked someone’s eye with a shot of tequila before, but physical violence? One to one?
“So that’s a no.”
“I had you there, didn’t I?” I asked, voice whimsical. “My knight in shining armor. A hero.”
“So you appreciate he’s the villain?”
“He’s done his time,” I defended and our attention was taken by the gasp from the TV. Red shorts had black shorts on the floor, straddling his back, holding his arm captive at an awkward angle.
