His eyes come back to me as I sit on my bed, not moving. “What are you doing? Get dressed. I want to go out.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. We’ll work it out when we get there.”
I groan and pull myself off my bed then head over to my closet. I pull open my underwear drawer and start pulling things out. With a nice pair of panties and a new bra between my fingers, I go to close the drawer when Slade’s hand comes down, stopping me. “What’s this?” he questions, making my eyes bug out of my head.
How could I have been so stupid?
His hand dives down into my underwear drawer and anyone else would assume he’s some kind of pervert wanting to get a look at my panties, but I know what he’s really here for.
He finds the stack of drawings hidden under my bras and tears them out, gawking as he realizes they’re mostly all of him.
I scram, more than ready to avoid this topic of conversation that he’s no doubt going to question me about. “I have to shower,” I yell, racing out of my room and leaving him with the drawings that have kept me company every moment since starting at Aston Creek High.
I glance back over my shoulder as I break through the door to see that he hardly heard me speak as he’s too busy flipping through the drawings. There was one of him with Damian from my first day of school making their way down the corridor toward me. There’s one of him that same night out in the darkness as he told me to leave. One of his body tinged with my blue calligraphy ink, and one of him holding me tight against the wall of this very room with my knife held firmly against his throat.
The drawings go on, some completed and some only just started, but judging by the sheer number of drawings compared to the few weeks I’ve been here, it’s damn clear what’s been on my mind. Hell, I don’t doubt that come tonight, after I finish drawing the memory of his mother telling me that Slade is Lucien’s son, I’ll be drawing something from our night together, making sure to capture the intensity of his eyes as he looked at me, something I don’t ever want to forget because I know that in my lifetime, I’ll never have a man look at me like that again.
Not being able to handle the emotions rushing through my body, I scram for the bathroom.
I stand under a hot shower, scrubbing my nightly activities away, though realizing that it’s probably pointless, something tells me that I’ll be doing it all over again today.
I wash my hair, wasting time as I try to gather my thoughts and when the water begins to run cold, I realize that it’s time to face the music.
Slade and I are doing this. It might take a little while to get used to and it might just be the scariest thing that I’ll ever do, but from here on out, I’m his girl.
After quickly getting dressed, I run the hairbrush through my hair and get my makeup sorted. I hate leaving the house without it. Not because I have any self-esteem issues or something to cover up, but simply because I like it. I like the way it makes me feel, I like the way it makes me look, and I love the way that to me, it’s another form of art that I get to indulge in.
Making my way out of the bathroom, I duck into my room to throw my clothes in my laundry hamper only to find my room empty and the sound of a basketball bouncing against the driveway out front.
I turn on my heel and as I stalk out of my room, I find the drawings on my desk, each of them displayed proudly instead of being hidden in my underwear drawer. It also doesn’t go unnoticed that each of them has been placed into chronological order, making me grin like an absolute fool. He was paying close attention, proving that I wasn’t just a nobody to him. All along, I meant something more and that thought thrills me.
I make my way out to the front door, passing a very smug Shay and a very grouchy Ben. I do my best to ignore them and make my way out front, sliding my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, realizing that I probably won’t be home until late tonight.
Slade launches the ball high above his head as Blake does his best to block him. The ball sails in a perfect arc towards the hoop and despite how good Blake is, he’s still got a bit to learn, all of which he can learn from Slade. The ball drops through the hoop and Blake stretches out his long arm to collect it.