by Max Henry
“Let’s go inside, then,” I cede. “Some time to wind down would be the sensible thing to do.”
He shakes his head slowly. “Sensible would be taking you home to your father and having him lock you away so horny fuckers like that can’t take advantage of you again.”
I chuckle at his amused smirk. “Why aren’t you then?”
“Because I was young once too, Belle. I know what it’s like to need independence.”
I reach for the handle, the air in the car suddenly too thick around us.
He huffs a heavy breath and reaches for his door as well. We rise from the car as one and I make my way towards the brightly lit building before he’s had time to lock the vehicle. He still manages to catch up without breaking stride. Stupid height difference. Zeus holds the first door open for me, and I pass by, doing the same for him on the second. We line up together behind a sleep-deprived-looking mother with a toddler in pyjamas. Zeus turns his head to look down at me and gives an amused smile.
“What?” I lift a hand to my hair. “Do I need to go freshen up?”
He chuckles. “Depends who you’re trying to impress.”
“God, is it that bad?” I wipe under my eyes again for added measure.
Gentle fingers turn my face to his. “You look fine.” He drops his hand and nods toward the restaurant that hosts no one other than a pair of young farmers still in their dirty work clothes. “Go save us a table.”
Not like there’s a rush on. I do what I’m told anyway and pick a booth seat beside the wall that backs on to the kitchen area. Sauce is still splattered over the table. Great. I mean, honestly, is this how people leave their dining table at home? I rise again, passing the farmers to get a few serviettes, and note that their previous rowdy banter has stopped. They watch me as I return, wipe the table, and bin the dirty paper napkins. I catch the eye of one of them and he smiles before his lips fall sharply south. The heat at my back tells me exactly what the problem is.
“Where are we sitting?” Zeus’s deep voice rumbles in his chest, directly behind my head.
“Over here.” I break away and scoot onto the bench seat, expecting he’ll take the other side.
Zeus slips in beside me, effectively blocking me from the farmers’ view. “Caramel,” he announces, presenting me with a gooey sundae. “Your favourite.”
The table before him sits empty. “What are you having?” I ask.
Amusement flickers in his eyes. “Nothing.”
“I thought we were having something to eat.”
His lips curl up at the corner. “Does it look like my diet has space for a sundae?”
I roam my gaze over the bulk of him squeezed in between the seat and table. “I’m sure one wouldn’t hurt.”
He shakes his head and reaches for the hem of his T-shirt. My hand falters on the plastic spoon as he tugs the shirt up to his breastbone and reveals perfectly sculpted abs. The damn things bulge out at the top—the separation between each one evident, even whilst crunched over. “I start eating shit, and these puppies disappear.” He slaps his palm against them twice before dropping his shirt back down.
The man has a point. I can also see why he’d want to keep them. “Fair play.”
Zeus’s chest rises and falls slowly. He brings his arms onto the table and clasps his hands before him while I eat my sugary sin. I steal a look at him every so often as he stares into the distance, evidently lost in his thoughts. I don’t know his exact age; I’m not sure Dad’s ever mentioned it. But the rigidity to his structure, devoid of any youth, confirms he’s every part the man I appreciate he is.
And I’m eighteen.
Don’t do it, Belle. Don’t go there. I need to get my thoughts squared away, make myself think of him like an uncle, remove any attraction from the equation. I’m a schoolgirl—although not for much longer—and nothing he’d be remotely interested in. But with every sneaky glance his way, my heart falls a little more hopelessly in lust with this man. He’s exactly that—a man. He’s confident and sure in himself without the teenage hang-ups boys my age bring. Boys.
Fuck—why did Dad tell him he could move in?
I swirl the spoon around the remaining caramel sauce at the bottom of the plastic cup, utterly disgusted with how hormonal I am. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you?” I hold out a walnut-sized dollop on my spoon, wiggling it a little in Zeus’s direction.
He breaks his concentration and looks down at me. “I’m sure.” That devastating smile returns.
“Go on....” I arch an eyebrow, wiggling the spoon some more, desperate to return our relationship to the teasing, fun way it used to be before I realised what love truly is.
He chuckles and turns in his seat to face me. “You trying to ruin me, Belle?”
I tip my head to the side. “Ruin you how?” Is he prepping for a bodybuilding contest or something?
“Making me less desirable to other women.” Zeus’s eyes widen after the words leave his lips, the realisation of what he’s alluded to clearly hitting home. “I... I didn’t mean it like that.”
Swallowing thickly, I choose to be the adult in the situation and ignore his faux pas. “I doubt that would happen after one mouthful.” I thrust the spoon his way. “Entertain me, Zeus. Show me you’re human.”
He smiles and leans forward, those full lips parting to envelop the white spoon. I’m transfixed to the way the plump flesh pulls over the plastic surface, a drop of caramel stuck to his bottom lip. He leans back, gaze holding mine as he slips his tongue out and catches the drop of gooey sauce.
“Good?” My word is a breathless whisper.
“Too tempting. I could have more.”
I slam the spoon into the plastic cup, eager to repeat the intensity of the moment, but his hand falls over mine and stills it.
“Time to get you home, Belle.”
I can’t break my gaze from his flesh on mine, his fingers wrapped around my shaky grip on the spoon. His thumb twitches and strokes mine in a single, slow sweep… and then he’s gone. He pulls away and slips out of the booth seat with a stealth that betrays his size. I pass him by, eyes to the floor, and bin my rubbish. He’s already at the exit holding the door open when it dawns on me that we’re the only ones remaining in the place. I’ve been so caught up in him, in his proximity, that I never noticed the other customers leave.
We walk in silence to his car and I stand awkwardly by the passenger door while he unlocks his and gets inside, leaning over the centre to unlatch mine. I pull the heavy door open and drop into the seat, closing it securely behind me with a thud as I count out the seconds between my inhale, exhale, doing everything I can to act cool, calm, and collected. Zeus watches me the entire time I straighten out the twisted seat belt and click it into place, jamming my hands between my knees when I’m finished. Start the damn car already.
“Things got a bit confusing for you just now, huh?” he asks.
For you. The arsehole. I huff out a sharp breath and cross my arms over my chest. “That would be right—blame whatever is going on between us solely on me, why don’t you?”
“I never said that.”
“It was implied.” I stare petulantly out the window and refuse to acknowledge the fact he hasn’t even put the keys in the ignition yet. “Can you please take us home before I tell you something else I shouldn’t?”
He slots the key in, twists it, and brings the car to life. We reverse sharply out of the parking spot, and leave a strip of rubber as he rockets us with more force than necessary through the empty lot towards the driveway. His hands flex on the steering wheel in my periphery as we idle at the roadside, waiting for a lone car to pass.
“If it’s any consolation,” he bites out, “it was confusing for me too.” My heart swells, and then deflates with what should be an audible pop on his next words. “Whatever you think you feel about me, whatever you think I feel about you—none of it matters.”
“Why?” I bite my lip to save from crying again. Destroyed by tw
o guys in one night—lucky me.
“Because something like that,” he says, damn near growling the word, “could never happen. Understand?”
Great. Just fucking great. “Loud and clear.”
TEN
Zeus
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I scrub a hand over my face as Belle heads down the hall to her room. John isn’t home yet—thank God. Shit. When did my hands start to shake?
What the fuck were you thinking, idiot? Telling a teenage girl that yeah, she wasn’t wrong, lines got muddied back there? So much for being the adult, you dropkick.
Her door closes hard as she barricades herself in her safe haven. Do I go say something? Would that be even weirder? Deny, deny, deny. I need to act normal, as though I didn’t just look at my best friend’s eighteen-year-old daughter and wonder why she thinks of me as more than a family friend.
Because fuck—turns out I think of her as more than a kid.
A kid. I need to remember that. Yes.
Light spills from the fridge as I search for something to dull this ache in my brain. The whole night turned out fucked. I was supposed to kick back, relax, celebrate the fact I still have a job come Monday, and forget that my soon-to-be ex-wife is out fucking the guy who made our relationship that way. But then John got kept late at work, and I thought nothing of agreeing to get Belle.
How hard could it have been, right?
I’m sick. Isn’t that what they call men my age who find teenagers attractive? She’s legal age. Still… God, I’m so fucking confused.
Foam spills from the can of beer after I crack the tab, the bitter taste welcome on my tongue as I suck the aluminium rim clean. I tip my head back and shotgun the whole fucking thing, retrieving another before I toss the first empty in the bin and head toward the living room.
My heart seizes at the sound of Belle’s door opening, her soft footsteps padding in the opposite direction before the bathroom door shuts. My thumb tracks a slow path around the rim of the can as I wait with bated breath to see if she’ll return to her room when she’s done, or come talk it out some more. Although I’m not really expecting her to do anything but hide away like any normal teenager would, avoiding conversation and even eye contact for the next week or however long it takes her to get over it.
Only I don’t really want her to get over it. I want to understand what was going through her head when she looked at me like that. What exactly was she thinking?
Come on, Belle. Come talk to me.
I down half the second can before the bathroom door opens and her footsteps track in my direction. She pauses at what I assume to be her bedroom door, and I hold my breath while I wait for the click of her latch.
Yet it doesn’t come.
Eyes closed and my hand firm on the can to ground myself, I lean back in the armchair and wait.
“Zeus?” Her voice is barely a whisper, soft and comforting in the darkness.
“Yeah, Belle?”
“Can I ask you something?”
I open my eyes, thankful, so fucking thankful that she chose to thrash it out, talk through whatever the fuck that was, because sure as shit it wasn’t just an ice cream. “Fire away.”
“Do you still think of me as a child?”
Fuck. Maybe talking with her wasn’t such a great idea? “Why are you asking me this?” I pinch the bridge of my nose, eyes closed tight as I wait on her reply.
“Because who else do I ask when your answer is the only one that matters?” The soft scrape of fabric suggests she’s seated opposite me now. “I want to know if you still look at me like a kid, or if you see that I’m pretty much an adult now.”
I open my eyes to find her watching me with a worried frown, hands jammed between her legs. She’s changed, dressed now in her pyjamas: a pair of long black cotton pants and a pale blue tank top. Thank fuck she’s kept her bra on.
“You’re a young woman, Belle,” I say on a sigh. “You gave up being a kid when you learned how to take care of yourself.”
She huffs a bitter laugh. “Awesome job I do of that, huh?”
“You’ve done it just fine, for years. Since you were barely a teenager. You can cook, clean. Hell, you could even organise to get yourself to school when you wanted to go,” I tease. She smiles. “You can take care of yourself.”
“Unless I’m in situations like tonight.” Her lips fall to a flat line, her eyes distant.
My free hand fists on the arm of the chair as I down the last of my second beer. John mentioned something in passing about trouble he had with Belle while I was inside. Something to do with a bunch of kids at her school bullying her when they found out about why her mother left, spreading lies that—as they always do in school—became gospel.
“What exactly happened tonight, Belle?” I frown. “How did you even get in that situation?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She stares at the floor.
I point to the bruise on her neck—the hickey. “That tells me it does.”
She slaps a palm to the darkened flesh, her eyes wide. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit. You know what your old man will say about that. So I’ll ask you again, Belle, what really happened?”
She pulls her legs up before her, tucking them inside her arms. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew he would be trouble. I know he doesn’t actually like me, but I let him convince me anyway.”
Breathe, Zeus. It’ll pass. I spread my hands over the arms of the chair, burying my fingertips into the fabric. “Did he…?”
“Rape me?” she asks, wide-eyed. “God, no.”
Thank fuck for that, because I was about ready to head back inside for the rest of my sentence. “It seemed as though you didn’t want it to happen, though.”
“I did.” She turns her head to the side and sighs. “Just for all the wrong reasons.” Her face twists in disgust. “Damn it. Why am I telling you all this?”
“Because you have to tell someone,” I say carefully.
“He knew I was drunk, and that’s what makes me so mad about it all. He should have known I’d feel differently sober.”
“Not as brave?”
“Not as rebellious,” she drones. “God. I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot.” I lean forward, drawing her attention back to me as I reach across the gap between us and prod her in the side of her stomach. “You just need to learn to listen to this. Always. Fuck what anyone tells you, fuck what you think other people reckon; your gut instinct always knows best.”
“Is that what you listened to when you beat the hell out of someone?”
Her question takes me by surprise. Not because she’s raised a fair point, but because the hurt in her eyes tells me she’s angry that I served my time inside. I never considered the fact she might feel betrayed, upset by it all. Never gave it a single thought in all the years I sat in my fucking cell wondering what everyone I knew was doing on the outside.
“You really are pissed about it.” I lean back, resuming my position in the chair with my arms on the sides.
“Dad never told me where you went, so I figured it must have been bad,” she states. “Who was the guy you assaulted?”
“We’re talking about you tonight, Belle.”
“I don’t want to talk about me anymore,” she snaps.
I could kill that little fucker. “I do.”
“Don’t.” She shakes her head, dropping her legs so that they’re folded before her. “Not yet, anyway.”
The pain is too raw, I get that, but we haven’t reached the critical moment yet: when our relationship deviated from the familiar path back at that damn McDonald’s.
“Fine. Later,” I yield. “How about you tell me what made you ask if I see you as a kid, then?”
Say it. Say the words for me.
“I just wondered, is all. I’ve thought about it a bit lately, and what you said in the car sort of brought it back to the forefront of my mi
nd. I mean, is that how everyone sees me? Especially Dad,” Belle admits, looking to the floor. “He wants to dictate everything I do, but I should be allowed to make more choices on my own, you know?”
“You still live under his roof.”
“I know.” Her gaze lifts, and fuck me if it isn’t the most maturity I’ve ever seen displayed in those eyes. “But for how much longer? I’ve finished school now. Shouldn’t I be learning how to be more independent?”
“I guess he’s not ready to give up protecting you, yet.” I know I’m not. The empty can creaks in my hand as I take the frustration coursing through me out on its weak structure. “You said my opinion was the only one that mattered, though. Why?”
“Work that out for yourself, Zeus.” She holds my gaze, strong and sure.
There’s nothing immature about her at all in that moment. Nothing.
“What are your plans now school is done?” I opt for a change of subject. I get the feeling she could dance around defining this relationship of ours all night.
She shrugs. “Honestly?”
“Isn’t that why you came to talk to me? For an honest conversation?”
She hums a funny little “hmph” before answering. “Yeah.”
“So, what is it you want to do?”
“Tattoo.”
Totally not thinking of her with those hands on my skin. Nope. Not at all. “I figured.”
“So why ask?”
She’s daring me to admit the truth now. Clever way to turn it around, Belle.
“I don’t know.” I rub my forefinger and thumb over closed eyes before rising from the chair to bin the can in my other hand. “Are we done here?”
I catch the slight cock of her head in my periphery. “I guess.”
Yeah, I’m an arsehole for cutting her off, but if she won’t discuss the real issues at hand—like the fact her baggy pyjamas haven’t stopped me from visualising how her naked body looks underneath—then she and I have no business hanging out. I’m no better than that jackass at the party who couldn’t keep his goddamn hands to himself.
