We stare at each other.
A minute passes.
Then another.
“Are you just going to stare at me all night?” she asks.
I shrug.
She rolls her eyes, but there’s something softer in her expression now. The anger is fading, replaced by exhaustion.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks quietly.
“Doing what?”
“This.” She gestures between us. “All of this. You could have anyone. Why me?”
I lean back, let my head rest against the couch. “Because you’re interesting.”
“Interesting,” she repeats, like she’s tasting the word. “That’s it?”
“That’s enough.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Then, “What do you want from me?”
“I told you. Everything.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I turn my head to look at her. “It’s the only answer you’re getting.”
She stares at me, searching my face for something. I don’t know what. Trust, maybe. Or proof that I’m not as bad as she thinks.
She won’t find it.
“You’re terrifying,” she says finally.
I shrug.
“And dangerous.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t care that I hate what you do.”
“Not even a little.”
She laughs—short, humorless. “You’re unbelievable.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Another silence. This one longer.
She finishes the water, sets the bottle on the floor. Pulls her knees up to her chest, wraps her arms around them.
“My brother’s going to hate me forever now,” she says.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
