Page 33 of Tank
“The tea?” I was trying to pick something safe to talk about.
“My grandmother used to make it for me.”
I nodded slowly, hanging on to her every word. It was settling and terrifying all at the same time.
It was late and I knew I should go. I knew if I stayed she wouldn’t get any sleep. And from the dark circles under her eyes and the way her lids kept doing a slow blink, I knew she needed to rest. She needed me out of her hair. It wasn’t like I really wanted someone around me anyway. I wanted to be alone. I had plans. Plans that I was finding myself wavering on at the moment. The peace that I’d made just hours ago was starting to churn and I knew the longer I stayed there, the more my firm resolution would fade.
“No, you’re not leaving,” she stated with certainty. I wasn’t sure if she could read my mind or if it was simply my body language. “Tomorrow the sun will rise. And you will wake to see it.”
She stood, taking her mug with her, as she walked over and grabbed my abandoned tea. I was never going to drink it, so I didn’t even try to argue when she took it and set it in the sink.
I noticed when she walked away from me that she never fully gave me her back. Her head was turned like she needed to keep me in her peripheral. I started to think back, replaying all the times I’d been around her. Here in her apartment. Down in the bar. And not once could I remember a time when she didn’t keep me in her sights. I found it odd and I wanted to know why. Was it only me she did that with? Or was it the way she’d learned to survive?
“I’m not staying here. You need your sleep. If I stay, I know you will sit in that chair all night,” I said as I stood.
My feet felt rooted in place as she walked back over. She stopped two feet away from me and cocked her head to the side. Her eyes roamed over my body but it didn’t feel sexual. The tightness of her face made me desperate to know what she was thinking. Her head tilted back a little as her eyes skimmed over my face and finally settled on my own eyes.
“You’re tall,” she stated as if I didn’t know it.
“So are you,” I quipped back. One of her shoulders came up and dropped in a lazy way. “Are we done stating the obvious?”
My lips twitched and I almost smiled. Fuck, it was confusing. And I could tell by the way she was biting the inside of her cheek, she was holding one back too. I suddenly found myself wanting to know what that smiled looked like. I wanted to know how her face changed with it.
“Sure,” she said after a long stretch of silence.
“I’ll be goin’ then.”
She straightened, took a step closer to me, and narrowed her gaze at me. My brows furrowed in confusion. Her eyes had a strange glint in them and I remembered seeing it the first time I’d seen her. It still unnerved me just as much as it did then. It was freaky as hell and the fact that she didn’t blink, made it even worse. There was a swirl of emotions in her eyes like she was raging a war behind that melted chocolate color. What the two different sides were, I’d never know.
“Tell me something,” she whispered. My hand itched to reach out and grab her. To pull her into me. To feel the warmth of her body seeping into mine. I shook off the weird buzzing around me and focused on an answer. “Something that makes you happy. That sets you at ease. Something you could do right now.”
“Ride.” The word tumbled out with no thought.
I was a smart man. I understood what she was trying to get at. She wanted something that had nothing to do with the sadness that engulfed me. And I realized that it had been a long time since I’d been on my bike. A long fucking time where it was only me, the open road, and the wind to drown out the thoughts.
“Nothin’ as freeing as sitting on my bike watching the miles disappear under the tires. You?” I countered.
For a second she looked like a deer caught in headlights.
“Same,” she replied, shocking the shit out of me. An image of her straddling a motorcycle flashed in my mind and I couldn’t say it wasn’t hot as fuck. But before I could indulge in that fantasy any longer she opened her mouth again. “Something that makes you feel safe.”
“My brothers,” I said, leaving it at that. I didn’t feel like going into an explanation about the MC. This was a very interesting game. Though, I wasn’t sure where she was going with it. But hell, I was finding more out about her and that thrilled me a little more than it should have. So for the time being, I was going to stand there and let her ask the questions, as long as she answered them in return. “You?”
“Distance,” she replied. But I couldn’t help but notice that she drifted a little closer to me with each word. “Something that makes you feel calm, even though it shouldn’t.”
That gave me pause. It was a strange one. But my mouth opened and my brain answered for me.
“My sisters,” I answered and confusion marked her face. “They are chaotic. I have three. They are all different in their own ways. But they are so much alike, too. It’s like a damn tornado whenever they enter a room. They take after my mom, all of them strong in their own right. All of them not afraid to bust my balls for the smallest thing. I know it’s the way they show their love. So that’s why their chaos calms me. You?”
“That moment right before I pull the trigger. The stillness of the air around me.” Her answer was unfiltered. After being around her the small bit that I had, I knew enough to know that she always planned out her words. So this threw me a little. But I shrugged it off, thinking that practically everyone I knew owned guns. It wasn’t an uncommon thing. And I could see exactly what she was saying. I’d been there, I’d done that. Though, I didn’t think that I’d paid as much attention as she obviously had. “Your guilty pleasure?”
I laughed, hard. This would have been embarrassing for any man to admit. Or so I imagined. Thoughts of Diesel or Loch saying the words in my head out loud, almost had me doubling over. I thought back to my life and who it was that I had to blame for my answer. My damn sisters. But then again, if I’d had more of a life I would have never picked the damn things up in the first place.
Her eyes narrowed as her body straightened. If I wasn’t mistaken her face softened and she looked like she wanted to smile. Could it have been that my laughter did that? Deep inside of my black, broken heart, I desperately wished it was.
“You first,” I urged. I wanted to hear her answer before she either froze in complete shock or laughed so hard she couldn’t speak. God, I hoped it was the latter.
She licked her bottom lip, then drew it into her mouth. I watched as she slowly pulled it from the grasp of her teeth.
