Page 111 of Ominous: Part 1
“No.”
He kisses my shoulder again, open mouthed, and my entire body shivers in his arms. “Okay,” he says simply. “But you can make it work for tonight.”
21
Eli
Watchingher perched on the edge of the kitchen island, flipping through a business magazine of Dad’s while I drop frozen pineapple juice into the blender, it’s like I can still feel her claw marks down my legs. The scratches still burn, and it makes me smile a little.
She has her ankles crossed, and I splash juice on my white shirt when a giant lump of pineapple plops into the swirl of coconut rum and ice.
Because I’m not paying attention.
Because I’m staring at her feet.
She has pretty feet, and I’m not even a foot person. But they’re small, blocky kind of, nothing delicate about them. Her toenails are painted, a blue color, and as I set down the empty juice can and inspect the damage on my shirt, I wonder what it is about her that makes me notice things as trivial as her fucking toenail polish.
Except I don’t really have to wonder for long.
“Shut up.”Those words echo in my head. She said it to me nearly a dozen times. She fought me in the water, but when she got back up, when I let her go, she said nothing about all the inappropriate things I did to her while I held her down. She was mad, and a little scared, but not mad enough to leave and not scared enough tonotbe sitting her fine ass on my kitchen counter right now.
I wonder if anything happened, to make her this way. What her life was like before me. Or maybe she was just born on the dark side.
“Are you going to keep staring at your shirt or are you gonna make me my drink?”
I can’t stop smiling, but I don’t look up, white cotton still pinched between my fingers as I take in the droplets of juice splashed yellow on the fabric. “You’re supposed to sit there and look pretty, not run your mouth.”
A stunned silence fills the room and I finally release my shirt, looking over at her.
Her feet are resting on one of the stools, pointed and arched, and she’s wearing my T-shirt, a Trafalgar one that hits her just past mid-thigh.
Seeing her looking at me with her lips parted, the magazine still between her fingers, splayed open against her lap, and shock in her wide eyes, I can’t help but think she looks so goddamn innocent.
I know she isn’t, despite what she said about me being her first kiss. Her mind is twisted, and she doesn’t just keep it all in there. She’s told me some pretty dark shit most people wouldn’t dare say out loud.
But I meant what I told her before.
She’s innocent to me.
I don’t know if it’s just my male brain talking, like I need her to be pure or something, but I don’t think so. I just… know the things I’ve done. And I know as wicked as she might have been, she hasn’t done those things.
It scares me, imagining her having all of my secrets and choosing to turn around and run with them clenched between her fists.
She’s temporary, for that reason.
No one stays.
No one smart, anyway.
“Pardon me?” she says, her voice rising at the ends.
“Oh, don’t start with your manners now.” I grab the top to the blender, still smiling as I fasten it on, locking it in place. I snag the juice cup between my fingers, a napkin with my other hand. I wipe up the mess, and toss it all in the trash can, hidden in a drawer beneath the counter I push back closed with my hip. “I know you’re a filthy little…”
I stop, my chest tight.
The words get choked in my mouth, and to avoid having to fill in the gap, I put one hand on the top of the blender, press the button with the other, the loud whirring of crushed ice and rum slinging through syrupy sweetness cutting off any chance of conversation.
I don’t know why I couldn’t say it.
