KAYLA
Today is my rare day off. I’m not working my waitressing job; I was planning to spend it with Freya and Alex for a couple of hours and then do some drawing. But considering yesterday evening, I’m in no mood for socializing, so now I have only the drawing part left.
I make myself some matcha tea—because I never got a chance to drink the delicious goodness that Freya hooked me on—swipe my pencils and a notebook off the table and head outside.
I’m sitting in my little chair, soft gusts of wind tangling strands of hair as I’m submerged in my drawing, when I hear the powerful engine of a big car roaring closer and closer to me. It’s surprising because only three people know where I live, and I’m not expecting any of them.
When Justin’s truck appears on the unpaved road, I curse mentally. Who the hell told him where I live? I know Freya and Alex wouldn’t do that, and the other person is Marina, who would die before she shared a breath of information about me with him. The feeling of being safe in my home, something so precious to me, slowly dissolves into thin air.
Justin parks next to my car and slowly gets out, wincing as if being here is causing him physical pain. I roll my eyes at his theatrics and keep drawing. He makes a show of taking his sunglasses off and looking around with disgust.
“Nothing seems to change for you,” he announces with a scowl and strides toward me.Asshole. There’s nothing I can tell him that’s not going to end with a fight. He seems too eager for one, and that’s precisely why I keep my mouth shut. He plants his annoyingly tight butt on the chair next to me that I keep for my tired feet after long shifts.
“What are you doing here, Justin?” I ask him without taking my eyes off my task: drawing horns on my anime design. How fitting.
He’s quiet for a few moments, and just when I nearly lose hope of getting anything out of him, he answers. “You need to end your friendship with Freya.”
“Sure,” I shoot back sarcastically. I flick my eyes at him for a moment before I resume drawing, pressing the pencil harder into the paper, making the horns thicker and darker. He throws his hand out and covers the drawing, smashing the pencil across it in the process. It flies to the grass. I finally make eye contact with him. “Get. Your. Hand. Off.”
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, but you’re bad news. You need to leave them both alone.” His voice is low and menacing. It’s meant to hurt. And it does.
“Is it that they don’t want me around, or you don’t?” I lift my gaze to catch his.
He holds my eyes, and confesses after a few loud heartbeats, “I don’t.”
“Good thing, then. Because I don’t care.” I move to pick up the fallen pencil from the ground, and he follows my lead. Now we both are on our knees.
“Look, I was Alex’s friend way before you were in the picture. Our friendship takes precedence over yours with Freya.” He grabs one side of the pencil just as I grab the other.
“Without Freya, you wouldn’t evenhaveyour friend, now, would you?” I pull the pencil from his hands. “And Freya is more my friend than yours.”
“Freya wouldn’t be your friend if she knew the truth about you,” he growls, and his voice takes on a threatening tone. “Like the whole town does.”
That does it.
“Get the hell out of here,” I snarl. I stand, resisting making an extra hole in him with the damn pencil, and turn on my heel to walk back to my trailer.
I step inside and am about to close the door when Justin shoves his way in. Suddenly, the space feels smaller. It’s enough when I’m alone, but with him in this confined space, it feels suffocating. “Get out of my house!” I point at the door.
“‘House’?” He makes a show of looking around and chuckles evilly. No-no-no, no one’s talking shit about my house. Especially not him, Mr. Born-with-a-Silver-Spoon-in-His-Mouth.
“Out, Attleborough! Now!” I yell. Ineveryell. Ever. Well, very rarely, let’s put it that way. I’m a level-headed person because I grew up with two histrionics in the house, so I try my hardest to be the opposite of that, resolving conflict with a simple, even-toned conversation.
Well, fuck that. The time for that is way in the past.
He moves forward as I move backward. There’s not much space, so in three steps, I’m cornered against the wall. His presence is looming. He puts one hand on the side of my face and leans closer. His arm is so close to my face that I can see the fine hairs on his skin and blue veins on his bulged muscles. “We both know you’re no good for people. You’re toxic. You need to make up an excuse and finally leave this town for good. Do us all a favor.”
“Fuck you,” I hiss. Did I say I had a crush on him? I hate him. That’s it. That’s the fine line between hate and love everybody keeps talking about. I see it clearly now, right there, that damn line blazing red, and I’m so stepping over it.
“Oh, you wish, don’t you?” He smiles and inches closer, half-leaning his body on me. He trails his nose along my cheek, and I hate myself for shivering. We’re in the same position we found ourselves in back at the diner weeks ago, only now I don’t have an escape. He cornered me in my own home, and I’m apparently less than eager to push him away, it seems. Why aren’t I pushing him away?That’d be the right thing to do, I tell my body. I feel weirdly too warm and too sticky. I pull my wits together and decide to follow my own advice, so I lift my hands to shove him off me, but he easily grabs them both in his large ones, folding them behind my back and using them to pin me against the wall. His fingers linger on the top of my ass, brushing along the curve ever so lightly.
“You smell good.” He presses his nose into the slope of my neck and inhales deeply. “So fucking good. Like strawberries and fucking sin,” he murmurs, and it feels like he’s talking to himself, not me. He nuzzles his nose under my ear and nips at my skin, and I let out an embarrassing whimper. It seems to sober him up because he releases me and rushes to take a haphazard step back. I don’t know where to avert my gaze, so I look down. I mean to focus on the floor, but my gaze catches on his pants. His dick straining against them, ready to burst through the zipper at any moment. I can see the outline through the denim, and I feel my face flare.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” He adjusts himself, noticing where my attention is fixed. “It’s a normal reaction to any pussy.”
And just like that, the spell is broken. I grind my teeth, nearly breaking them down into dust. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Justin, I really don’t. But you need to get the hell out before I call the cops.”
“Oh, you like doing that, too, don’t you?” His tone becomes menacing, and he leans closer again, trying to intimidate me with his closeness. “You like calling the cops, huh?”
