“I’m not –”
“You like making scenes, don’t you?” he says with clenched teeth. “If you don’t come with me right now, I’ll make you such a star of your little striptease show that you’ll be crying about it for days to come. So we’re leaving, you and me.”
I thought I’d seen him angry but he’s furious right now. Furious, and I wonder if he was like this when he punched that guy.
If his cheekbones looked that sharp or if there was sweat dotting his forehead. If his shoulders looked as massive and mountainous as they appear right now, wrapped up in vintage leather.
“Okay. B-but…”
“But what?”
I don’t know. I have no idea what I was going to say. I had no idea that he’d react this way either. So violently.
I mean, I knew he’d react and maybe get angry, but I never thought he’d be on the verge of blowing up.
“I came here with my friends and –”
He bends even closer, his swinging chain almost hitting my chin. “You better pray that I don’t find out who your friends are or I’m going to bury them so deep in detention that they won’t be able to get out for the entire year. And not because they broke the rules and came here. But because they brought you here, in that t-shirt, looking like that.”
“L-looking like what?”
“Like a goddamn fuck doll.”
“I’m sorry?”
“If you didn’t want my attention, then you shouldn’t have taken your clothes off in front of me. You shouldn’t have worn that joke of a t-shirt.” He grits his jaw and almost smashes the tendons of my wrist with his hold. “So walk before I make you.”
My t-shirt got his attention?
Seriously?
It’s a normal white crop top, baring my midriff. Well, it’s off-shoulder too, but I always wear things like this. Usually underneath my chunky sweater, but tonight I wanted to make some asinine point that I can’t even remember right now. So I went without it.
It definitely does not warrant a reaction like this.
My outrageous actions do, sure. But not what I’m wearing.
I look at his seething features before looking down at my t-shirt. “You have a problem with m-my t-shirt?”
“I have a problem with your cocktease of a t-shirt, yes.”
I flinch. “But I wear this all the time.”
He doesn’t like that and the havoc he’s wreaking on my wrist with his fingers increases. “Well, consider this your first and only warning. You’re not wearing it anymore.”
“But I… What’s wrong with it?”
“What’s wrong with it is that every drunk guy within ten feet of you is looking at you like you’re a piece of meat. Like they wouldn’t mind getting their hands on some of that.” He jerks his chin at me and I’m starting to feel even more self-conscious than before. “Because you’re taunting them, flashing them your pale-as-fuck belly and that swipe of a belly button. That’s what you’re doing, aren’t you? Teasing them. Making them look at you. Stealing their attention. Don’t tell me you thought there wouldn’t be consequences.”
“I wasn’t taunting anyone. I was…”
Trying to make a point.
“Walk.”
“You don’t like that? Guys looking at me.”
I don’t know why I ask that but it simply comes out and his eyes narrow even more. He bends even further down until the rim of his cap is grazing my forehead. Until his lips are so close that when he opens his mouth to reply, I feel him writing those words on my skin. “No.”
"Why?
“Because I want you to keep being who you are. Who you’ve always been.”
“W-Who am I?”
“The little sister. The one who hangs out in the background and doesn’t get seen. The one who keeps her head down and doesn’t make a noise. And the one who definitely doesn’t demand my attention. So are you going to walk or not?”
He’s so freaking pissed off that I do as he says.
I walk.
I make my way out with him at my back as if he’s my bodyguard and we take the hallway in the back that leads out to the parking lot. A few people are lingering outside, but no one pays us any attention as we make our way to his bike. He’s still at my back, as if I need protection here as well.
By the time we reach it, I’m a panting mess. I have my arms wrapped around my waist and I don’t know what to do.
How to make them go away, the past few minutes. How to make it better.
All I wanted to do was give him a little hell for being so awful to me this past week and then make peace with him.
“Arrow?” I say in a small voice.
Without responding, he leans over the seat of his motorcycle and grabs his helmet, offering it to me. “Put it on.”
“Can we talk, please?”
His chest jerks up and down with a harsh breath. “Put it the fuck on.”