Page 72 of The Hallows Queen

I peer up at him, directly into the blackness of his gaze. “You trust me.”

He grins. “Yeah.”

I kiss his lips once, then smile at him, deciding to share one of my own nightmares instead – mainly to show him that I trust him as well. “My dad is going to die.”

“He could get better, baby,” he says, brushing a thumb over my cheek.

“He’s not going to. The cancer is getting worse. They told my mom today he has six months… if that.”

He stares at me through the darkness, and a few moments pass between us in silence before I feel his muscles relax and his chest deflate. “If my dad died, I probably wouldn’t care.”

I openly flinch at the words, feeling the pain behind them, and he stiffens again. “Why?”

He shakes his head, looking away. “He’s a bad person.”

Running my hands down his back, I try to comfort him into relaxing again. “Hayden – you can talk to me.”

He rolls from on top of me, lying on his side again to face me. “I know.”

“It’s worth the risk,” I whisper, putting my nose on his again as I repeat his words from earlier tonight. I feel his mouth spread into a smile, then he leans forward to kiss me. His hands find my hair, and he controls my head as he moves his lips with mine, pulling it back so I open my mouth for him.

With his tongue in my mouth, he grips the strands to elicit moans from me, gathering them with his own lips while we feast on each other.

When he pulls back, we’re both breathless.

Closing his eyes, he speaks. “When I was eight, I watched my father kill my mother.”

My lungs burn painfully as I hold my breath, waiting for him to keep talking. But he doesn’t; he just exhales and inhales shakily, his hands digging into my hair while they shake.

“He was drunk. They were fighting. We were heading home from some function, and he lost control of the car. She was in the front and went through the windshield. I was in the back. I crawled over the broken glass and watched her take her last breath while he made a phone call – covering it all up, probably. He just ignored the fact she was dying, that she was bleeding out on the side of the road while his son held her. Cops showed up, and it was ruled an accident.”

We lie there, breathing each other’s air for a few minutes, then he finally opens his eyes and speaks again. “When I was twelve, he went on a work trip to New York and never came back. I found out when my nanny was fired via email that he had moved, left me here in Luxington to take care of myself. He’s only come back a handful of times for appearances, to make the world see the narrative he’s written – that he loves and cares for his only son, when he doesn’t, that he’s present, when he isn’t, that he’s my father, when really, he’s a deadbeat who abandoned me.

“I confronted him when I was fifteen. He had come to town because I got suspended from school and the headmistress needed to have a meeting with him. I asked him why. Why did you leave? Why do you pretend you don’t have a son?” He exhales a shaky laugh. “Do you know what he said? He said every time he looked at my face, he saw my mother, and then he beat my ass.”

I tense, feeling my eyes watering with emotion.

“I don’t care anymore – that would mean having any emotion toward him at all. I just accept the fact that I’m alone.”

I think the cloak of darkness makes him a little more comfortable, so I’m glad this conversation is happening in the dead of night, curled up in the warmth of my sheets, where nothing can hurt us.

“Hayden,” I say, running a hand up his face to pull his attention to mine. “You aren’t alone.”

His tattooed chest presses against mine, and he uses the hands he still has buried in my hair to pull me into him.

“This is real, right?” he asks, his voice a shaking whisper. “I know it’s fucking crazy, I know we just met, I know that you’re my teacher, and I know it feels fucking impulsive, but this is real, right?”

“It feels real,” I say, the hand I have on his face cupping his cheek.

He nods, then chuckles. “I’ve never been with anyone before.”

My brows pull down. “What?”

He laughs a little harder, his chest shaking against mine. “I’ve never done this. I’ve never had feelings for someone before.”

“How’s that possible?” I question, not quite understanding his words.

“I don’t know. I figured I just wasn’t wired that way. I’ve never wanted to be with anyone, I’ve never felt claim over someone like I do with you, I’ve never felt happy because of another person outside of the moments of pleasure they can give me.”

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