Page 46 of Their Broken Legend

I climb into the car and fold my arms over my chest, focused on the people smoking on the verge, moaning carelessly—commonly—about their nine-to-five.

The engine hums to life, lights flick on, and Stacey begins the trip home. What just happened in the bar is ominous, causing suspicious energy to brew between us.

My head floats from the booze, the nerves along my temples and at my lower neck that pulse from dehydration or lack of sleep—I don’t know which.

Tucking my hands beneath my arms, I keep them there as they vibrate—Ihidethem there as they tremble.

CHAPTERFOURTEEN

kaya

The next morning,I’m asleep on my stomach when I’m roused by giggles outside my stale motel room.

Recognising the high-pitched cadence belonging to my sister, Natalie, I groan, awaiting her knock on the door.

The night before with Xander hammers into me, hitting me with images. Him and me. His touch, his taste.

“I want to do dirty things to you.”

“It would mean something to me.”

“It means nothing.”

“You’re such a liar, Kaya.”

“Goodbye.”

I engulf my face with my palms, and wait for Natalie to knock, to snatch me from this brutal reverie, but then she giggles again—no knock proceeds.

What is she doing?

I sit up, the single sheet bunched around my waist. Frowning at the closed door, my eyes momentarily catch on the small cracks in the plaster behind it.

Caveman!

I climb to my feet. Rubbing my eyes, I wander in rabbit pyjamas across the single studio space. Preparing for the daytime light to suffuse my sleepy room’s space, I seem to squint in preparation before opening the door to—

Natalie is blocking the entrance, her arse to me, flicking her mousy-brown hair around, hips slanted to the side, a little rock to her pelvis. And Xander’s standing on the other side of her, a backpack over one shoulder. Somehow, the blue in his eyes is enhanced by the flare of multi-coloured bruising across his features. His eye is swollen, but it’s not ugly.

“Oh,”—Natalie peers back through a curtain of her short hair, the glimmer of disappointment at my early awakening merely a flash before she turns back to Xander and beams— “sheishome. I thought she would be at some random guy’s house—”

“Natalie!” I groan.

Ugh.

Bitch.

She sways past Xander, long fingers sliding salaciously across the curve of his muscles. “I’m two doors down.”

“Thanks, girlie,” he says, eyes glued to me, a soft smile on his luscious lips, the calloused lower corner visible as a hardened pad that weakens my knees. I don’t know why.

“Hey, Woman,” he acknowledges me.

I don’t smile back at him, crossing my arms over my breasts, supporting the parts of me that hurt, yearn, and hammer away for his attention. For that calloused lower lip to do‘dirty thing to me.’

I clear my mind by clearing my throat. “I thought you made yourself perfectly clear last night.”

“I’m not here for a social call,” he states, rounding me and welcoming himself inside my room. He pulls the bag off his shoulder and riffles through it, saying to the contents, “I was an arse last night, Kaya. I was shaken from the blackout, okay? But I woke up this morning. Felt normal. I just needed to sleep, but that doesn’t excuse the way I spoke to you. For that, I’m sorry.”

---