“What?”
“The apology.” He frowns as I keep going, “I-I think I blew it. It was the worst apology ever. Like, ever. I mean, I didn’t expect him to forgive me right away or you know, even be nice to me or anything like that but…”
His eyes are probing. “But what?”
“He left with another girl, Reign.”
His biceps flex on either side of me, his eyes flashing with anger.
And I think… Ithinkit’s on my behalf.
With racing breaths and a strange lightness that he’s on my side, that he can feel my pain, I spill the rest of the story. “He left with a girl and… and he knew what he was doing. He knew he was hurting me. He… I didn’t make an impact on him. I didn’t reach him like I wanted to. I didn’t —”
“You did.”
“No, I didn’t. He barely talked to me. He barely looked at me, let alone talked to me.”
“He did.”
“No, hedidn’t, Reign,” I insist. “You weren’t there.”
“He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“He… What?”
What did he say?
My heart thuds then. “H-how do you know?”
No answer is forthcoming.
But then I don’t think I need one. I think I already know.
“Were you…” I swallow, rubbing my thumbs over the thick vein of his neck. “Watching me? W-with him.”
Nothing.
Except a pulse on his jaw.
A tic.
And again, I don’t need him to say it. I know it.
“Why?” I whisper.
His pulse is pounding under my fingers. My pulse is pounding too.
Other than that, he continues to hold his silence.
He continues to stare at me with glowing, flashing eyes.
“Because you were protecting me,” I state.
And I state it without anger, without the outrage that I’d felt last night.
It felt like an insult. An intrusion.
Because it came from him, this protection.