“I wouldn’t have picked it.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“How many questions are we up to?” It occurs to me that neither of us seems to have been counting.
“I’m not sure. You go.”
“It’s not twenty. I know that much.” I lean a hip into the counter, and cross my arms.
“Maybe, but I’m out of questions for now. I’ll save mine for the next round.”
I nod as he walks over to the remaining shopping, and pulls a few items out. “Fair enough. What do you do for a job?”
He stops unpacking for the briefest second, but I see the tension knot in his back as he carries on.
“Butcher.”
“Oh.” Hadn’t picked that, but it would explain the arms. “How long exactly have you lived next door?”
“Long enough.” He glances my way when I wait for more. “I can’t remember.”
His answer doesn’t wash, but I decide to press on. “Who are those people in the photo in your hall?”
He places the can of corn in his hand on the counter, and slowly turns to look at me. A frown pinches his brow. “Going straight for the personal ones, huh?”
“And asking a woman her age isn’t?” I laugh.
He doesn’t. “Next.”
I bite back the words itching to roll off my tongue; the complaints reminding him that he said he’d share everything I wanted to know. Memories of anger and fear still cling to my skin. I’m not quite ready to go back there yet.
“Brothers, or sisters?” I figure asking him the same thing he asked me would be a good thing to go with.
How wrong am I?
His narrowed glare causes every hair on my body to rise. I sidestep out of the wake of his anger after he looks away.
“How about we get this stuff in the cupboards, and then you can decide what we’ll do with that chicken for dinner?” he says.
Evasion: 101. Change the subject.
“Fine.”
I arrange the oranges and apples he bought into a large bowl I locate in the pantry. Bags rustle, and packets hit the back of the shelves with too much force behind me. I map out a mental safe-zone around where I stand, and ensure my work is confined to that space. The irritability that radiates from him singes every time I get too close.
A packet of pasta slides out of the cupboard he tossed it into, and he picks it up. The plastic wrapping flies into the shelving, and the bag splits open. Spaghetti lengths cascade off the counter, and into the space between the fridge, and cupboards.
“Fuck it!”
Every muscle in my body tenses. “Look, I’m sorry for asking the wrong thing, okay? Until I know anything about you, I don’t know what’s off-limits.”
“Shut it, Jane.”
He leans into the heels of his hands braced on the edge of the counter, and hangs his head.
“I didn’t mean to get you angry again. I’ll just, um, go to my room or something.”
“I said to shut it, Jane.”
“I just feel like I need to apologize—“
“Shut! Up!”
Whoa. Officially too much for me to handle right now. Fat, unwanted tears slide over my cheeks, and my nose becomes a veritable tap. Being in the same room as him terrifies the shit out of me when he’s like this. Why the fuck couldn’t he have shown me this side of him before I chose to come here?
I cry at the fear which courses through me. I cry at the injustice of leaving one asshole for another. I cry at my stupidity of daydreaming that we were something. What fucked-up fantasy did I honestly think I could carry off? Did it not occur to me that he’d see right through my pantomime sooner or later? Realize what a nut-job he’d taken on? Send me packing?
I should go, yet my feet won’t engage the ‘walk’ signal my brain gives off. My legs are disconnected from my body right now. My brain screams ‘run’, but my legs reply ‘hell no’. I’m that much of a failure that I can’t co-ordinate my own movements.
Hopeless.
Malice sighs, and turns to look at my puffy, snotty state. “I’m sorry, Jane.”
I stare. Does he think ‘sorry’ is enough?
“What can I do to make it up to you?” He throws his hands behind his head, and like the mind-fucked slapper I am, I lose my thought patterns in the hard swell of his chest.
Beyond hopeless.
“I . . . I don’t know.” Somehow I manage to steer my brain back in the direction of my flight instinct, and lo-and-behold, my legs work this time.
Each step I take comes faster than the last, until I jog around the corner of the bedroom door. Rocco enters, hot on my heels, and sits at my feet as I flop onto the bed. What the hell do I do? Stay? Go? Scream? Cry? Fight? Or give up?