“How old were you?”
“Sixteen,” he answers. “I was never meant to be part of the infiltration mission. But Da wanted me to join at the last minute. He said it was about time I became a man.”
Jesus. His father sounds like a real piece of work.
“I’m too… light-hearted for his taste. I make too many jokes. I never take things seriously enough. I think that was his way of forcing me to grow up.”
“Did it work?”
“Please,” Cillian snorts. “My sense of humor is my superpower. I refuse to lose it. Sometimes, I think it’s what keeps me from going insane.”
I can’t help it—I lean in closer.
There’s something about this boy, with his light blue eyes and his blond curls.
He looks like he should be on the covers of magazines. But there’s depth to him. A whole labyrinth of secrets left to be uncovered.
And I realize with a start that I want to be the one to uncover them.
“What?”
“What?” I ask, realizing his blue eyes are trained on me with amusement.
“You’re staring.”
“I am not.”
He sighs dramatically. “It’s my fault. I’m spellbinding you with my fatal charm. It’s inevitable, really. Strike what I just told you—humor isn’t my superpower. This is.” He gestures between us to prove his point.
I promptly slide as far away from him on the bench as I can.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I scoff.
“No, no. I don’t blame you,” he laments. “After all, you’re only human.”
I start laughing. That helps keep the blush from my cheeks.
Because the honest truth is that he’s not that far off.
“Stop it.”
“What?” Cillian asks honestly. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“You can see what in my eyes?” I demand.
“You want to kiss me,” he says with a long-suffering sigh. “I guess that’s my lot in life. Women look at me and all they see is a piece of meat. They don’t care about what’s on the inside.”
I punch his arm and get off the bench.
“Hey, where are you going?” he asks, following behind me.
“Away from you and your suffocating ego,” I retort, though I can’t keep the laugh out of my voice.
I walk around the edge of the pond, but I can feel Cillian at my back.
I stop and turn around so abruptly that he walks into me. The collision sends me stumbling backwards.
I’m about to trip over a low hedge and go ass over teakettle into the pond…