“What the hell?”
“Spite is ugly.”
“You think a lot of things are ugly,” I snap. “Selling drugs is ugly in fact.”
He smacks me again. I whimper despite myself.
“Okay, get off me.”
“Not happening.” His voice is calm, controlled. “Still massaging.”
I sink deeper into the couch cushions, giving up. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re defiant.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“No.” His hands are working the knots in my lower back now, thumbs pressing deep. “It’s an observation.”
I close my eyes. Let the tension bleed out of my muscles. His hands are surprisingly gentle now, working methodically across my back, my shoulders, down my spine.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, voice muffled by the cushion.
“Doing what?”
“Being... nice.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just keeps massaging.
“I’m not nice,” he finally says.
“Then what are you?”
“Interested.”
That word again.Interested.
I want to ask what that means. Want to know why me, why now, why any of this. But I’m too tired. Too drained from the party, from the fight with Axel, from everything.
My eyes start to drift. The rhythm of his hands, the warmth of the trailer, the exhaustion pulling at me like a tide.
“Don’t fall asleep,” he says.
“M’not,” I mumble.
But I am.
I feel myself sinking, consciousness slipping away. His hands never stop moving, and it’s the most comfortable I’ve felt in days.
Maybe weeks.
Maybe longer.
The last thing I register is his voice, quiet and low.
“Stubborn girl.”
Then nothing.
