Page 68 of Forged in Flames (Made of Steel 2)

"You need to get to class," he said, but he didn't move off of me.

"I can't go to class today. There's no point. I can't focus on anything. We need to find Julie."

"You have to go. It's better if you pretend like everything is normal."

"There's nothing normal about my life. It's just a sequence of one disaster after the next."

He just stared down at me. He loosened his grip on my hands slightly, but still didn't move. "One day you might look back at your life and realize that spending a few days with me wasn't such a disaster."

"I didn't say being here was a disaster. That wasn't..."

He leaned forward and pressed his masked forehead against mine. "You didn't have to."

"V."

He lifted his forehead off mine and stared down at me. He parted his lips like he was about to say something, but immediately closed his mouth again. He climbed off of me.

Without his touch, I was suddenly cold. It felt a lot like our borrowed time had just ended. And even though it already felt like my heart was torn into a million pieces, it still hurt. "You're not a disaster," I said into the silence that had settled around us.

He stopped in the doorway. "Go to class. Pretend to be Eli's girlfriend. I'll see you tonight." He closed the door behind him.

After quickly getting ready, I searched the apartment for V. But he was gone. He was probably out looking for Julie. He was trying to fix my life that I had called a disaster. And I hated that he thought he was a part of that. He wasn't a disaster at all. He was the hero that this city so desperately needed. I just wasn't sure he was the hero I needed. I shook my head. That was the whole problem. A part of me thought that he was what I needed. And I didn't understand what that meant.

***

Kins sat down next to me with a huge smile on her face. The smile almost looked insane, like she had done something diabolical. A knot started forming in my stomach. She had accepted the fact that Eli wasn't the vigilante when I had told her. I thought that we'd agreed for her to drop it. She wasn't still searching, was she?

"Hey, what's up?" I said, dreading the answer.

She leaned on the armrest that separated us. "Double date. Tonight. The Tavern on the Green."

"Sounds fun. Who's going with you and Patrick?"

"What do you mean who's going with me?" She slapped my arm. "You and Eli of course."

No way. "Oh, no," I quickly said. "Shoot. We can't tonight. We already have plans." And technically we did. Eli was supposed to be helping me figure out what the hell Don was planning.

"Eli already agreed. Whatever you two already had planned is officially rescheduled. You're coming with us."

Damn it, Eli. "When did you even have time to ask him?"

"This morning when he was getting dressed." She raised her eyebrows at me.

"God, Kins, what is wrong with you?"

"What? I told you that just because I'm in a relationship it doesn't mean I can't appreciate a fine male specimen. From a distance."

I laughed. "You're ridiculous."

"No, Eli's abs are ridiculous." She smiled at me as I rolled my eyes. "But seriously, tonight is going to be a blast. And you have to dress up. This place is fancy." She gave my Converses a disapproving glance.

"They look cute with a sundress," I said.

"Not really. Oh! We should go shopping after classes today."

"I don't have time to do both." Had I seriously already committed to this double date?

"But..." she stopped protesting when the professor walked in. "We'll talk about it later.

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