He was the sadist to my masochist, and we were a match made in heavenly deprivation.
How fucking proud daddy dearest would be if he’d known what he’d orchestrated.
Picking a passing dandelion between my fingers, I asked, “What’s the worst kind of pain you’ve ever been in?”
James paused in thought for a moment.
“I’ve had my nose broken, but I wouldn’t say that was the worst pain I’ve been in.”
“Then you haven’t answered the question.”
Silence carried between us like the breeze, lifting flyaways from the core of my picked flower and drifting them to disappear in the glint of burning sun. James’ voice had vanished just the same in face of my question, letting the quiet beats instead tell the story of his pain that brought him to silence.
If his physical pain wasn’t his worst, that only left one culprit.
“Your heart's been broken, James,” I stated softly.
And in the hard swallow visible in his throat, I knew I was right.
“We’re not talking about this.”
“Who was she?”And was it the she from his nightmare?
James snapped to me, heat pushing out of him in a flash of angry fire. “Are you fucking deaf? I said we’re not talking about this.”
“Damn.” I reared back, smoothing down the hairs on my arm that had risen against his heat wave. “Touchy subject, got it. She must've meant a lot to you."
James kept his mouth tight, and I brought the dandelion to my lips and blew. White flyaways bristled between nature’s wind and mine, my eyes crossing together to watch a few stragglers twirl in their newfound freedom.
Free. Flying. Disappearing for good. A poetic beauty I longed for.
A spike of dizziness plunged through my forehead, and I squeezed my eyes shut to make it go away. The wash of unease poured through me from head to toe, limbs tingling and empty stomach rolling in on itself.
“How long were you two together?” I asked, my voice squeezing between clenched vocal cords trying to hold back sloshing bile.
Reyes peeled off his sunglasses, tucking them into the front of his shirt. “What happened to not wanting to know me? I thought we had a deal.”
“After we get out of here, yes. Deal’s back on. I don’t know you past an asshole agent, and you don’t know me past a bratty assignment. But for now, I’m fucking dizzy I’m so hungry and hot, and I need you to keep talking to me so I don’t pass out in some ditch.”
I tried to hold the severe pierce of his stare, but the nausea swirled up to my head, messing my wires around to falter my vision. A strangled whimper squeezed out as I pinched my eyes closed, breathing deep through the terrible fucking sensations and just focused on putting one mangled foot in front of the other.
A sigh blew out in a weighted gust next to me.
“We were together almost four years. Engaged for two of them.”
The revelation shocked my eyes back open. “Holy fuck. That’s no chump change.”
“No, it isn’t.”
The longest relationship I’d managed was four weeks, and even that was taxing.
“How’d you meet?”
A heavy coat of resistance lathered annoyance across James’ features. Without his sunglasses on, I could see every flicker of regret, every lingering second of hesitation that floated through his eyes.
“We worked together,” he revealed, voice low and clipped.
“Inter-office romance. How taboo.”