“Why’s the door locked?” I ask him.
“You’ve been running from me,” he says.
“I’m not,” I lie, wondering how he even knows when he’s been too busy with his awesome life.
“And I’m not letting you run from me again.”
His words hang in the air menacingly and I ask, “Letting me?”
“Yeah.”
I frown at him. “Isn’t that… criminal?”
“Is it?”
I exhale sharply. “Yes, it is. You can’t lock a girl in a closet against her will. Just because you don’t want her to run.”
Something like amusement passes over his features. “Right. I think I heard about something like that.”
“You –”
“But also, I don’t think I’m holding her against her will. Am I?”
I swallow and grab hold of the edge of the shelf tightly. “Why don’t I scream and you can find out if it’s against my will or not?”
It only makes him smirk. “Why don’t you? Let’s see if it reaches your brother and he comes to save you.” He flexes his fist by his side. “I’d love to give him a matching bruise for last Friday.”
My heart jumps. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t I?”
“No. Because… Because you apologized to him that night,” I remind him, trying to tamp down shivers at the thought of him keeping that promise to me. “You kept your promise.”
“And that means what?”
“It means that maybe you’re not as bad as they say you are.”
“Yeah, no. I’m exactly as bad as they say I am.” He spreads his hands as if in a magnanimous gesture. “I’d be happy to show you if you like. All you have to do is scream.”
I study him for a long, careful moment before saying, “How did you even know that I was here?”
“I saw you dancing through the window,” he says.
“You did?” I ask, surprised.
“Uh-huh.” His eyes grow heated, and all my ire seems to be on the verge of melting. “You were spinning. So fast. And I stopped.”
“Why?”
He licks his lips and I’m reminded of how excited he looked that night when I danced for him.
When he called me a fairy.
God.
God.
He called me that, didn’t he?
I’ve been trying not to think about it. Not to think about his words, the words no one has ever said to me before.
Fairy.
“Because apparently when you spin, I stop. When you dance, I have to watch,” he says in a low, slightly rough voice.
And suddenly I feel the same way. As I did that night.
All hot and restless. My limbs buzzing.
“I sucked,” I say.
He frowns. “What?”
I’m not sure if I should tell him this. But I’m going to.
I don’t know why but I have to tell him the truth.
So swallowing, I whisper, “My routine. I can’t do it. I-I mean, I can. But I’m screwing it all up.”
His frown only grows. “Someone tell you that?”
I shake my head. “No. Everyone has been super kind so far. But I-I’m supposed to hold this pose, a developpé écarté devant, at the end for like eight counts before coming down on my knees, but I could only do it for like four or something. And even then, my calves were shaking, and do you even know how big of a crime that is? Not being able to hold straight and still. A very big crime. Huge.”
It is.
And if they don’t kick me out then I’ll just quit myself because this is a disgrace.
For some reason, his lips twitch. “I don’t think anyone would notice how long you stood on your toes.”
I narrow my eyes at him, at his amusement. “Why not?”
“Because they’ll be too distracted at the sight of you down on your knees.” He tips his chin at me. “Especially in that.”
All of a sudden it hits me that I’m in costume.
I’ve been wearing this for three hours now and I completely forgot. I completely forgot that this is the first time Reed is seeing me in this.
A white leotard and a light green tutu.
Not to mention, I also have wings.
They are heavy — although after wearing them for so long, my shoulders have gone numb so I don’t feel their weight anymore — and made of white fur. They’re slung over my shoulders with white ribbon-like strings and rustle across my spine and arms.
Like a fairy…
I’ve been wearing leotards and tutus all my life so until he looks at me from top to bottom, I don’t realize how revealing it can be.
How tight the costume is and how it fits me like a second skin. How it highlights every lithe muscle, every delicate bone in my body.
How exposed I am.
Even more than I was back in the woods.
And before I can stop myself, I say, “It’s my tutu.”
When he lifts his eyes back to my face, they’re the darkest that I’ve seen them.
Liquid and fiery.
“Yeah?” he rasps in an almost indulgent tone.
I bring my trembling hands forward and trace the frilly fabric. “It’s like a skirt.”
“And what are those?”
He points to my feet and I look down. “Uh, they’re called pointe shoes.” I chuckle as I look up. “You know, people say that ballerinas have the ugliest feet. They’re all swollen and bruised and cut up and –”
“People are stupid.”
“But –”
I stop talking because something makes him move.
I don’t know what it is but he straightens up and I’m wondering what the chances are that he’ll stay put where he is, by the door, when he starts walking toward me.
It’s not a big space so by the time I gather my wits to ask him what the heck he’s doing, he’s already here.
He’s already touching me.
Not me, per se.
He’s touching my wings. Or one of them actually.
Standing over me like a threat or something, a delicious, gorgeous threat in a white hoodie and a pulsating bruise, Reed reaches out and brushes a finger along the edge of my wing. Crazily, my spine arches up at the touch. As if he’s touching my skin instead of my fake wing.
His eyes drop to my bowed body and if he couldn’t see the shape of it before, he can sure see it now.
He can see the bones of my ribs, the hollow of my stomach. My really small but jutting out breasts.
“What are these wings for?” he asks, bringing his eyes up to mine.
“F-for my character.”
“What character is that?”
“I’m a fairy.”
Somehow his eyes grow all heated even as a slight lopsided smile pulls up his lips. “So I was right, huh?”
“I –”
He rubs the fur between his fingers as he continues, “You are a fairy. You dance like a fairy.” His eyes flick over my face, my bun. “You look like one too.”
I lose my breath for a second.
I also lose my heartbeats. My rational thoughts.
That’s the only explanation for why my legs stretch up and I get closer to him. “I’m a stupid fairy though.”
“How so?”
“Because I fall in love with my enemy. In the song.”
“Your enemy.”
“Yes, a human. He’s supposed to hunt fairies.”
“And what about him?” he asks, his fingers still playing with my wing and his eyes going back and forth between mine. “Does he fall in love with you too?”
“Yes.” I swallow, my own fingers fisting my tutu. “Or I think he does. But he’s lying.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s using me. He wants to trap me and bring me back to his family. I’m supposed to be his first hunt.”
“What a fucking asshole.”
“Everyone warns me about him. All my fairy friends and my family. But I don’t listen to them. I think he’s a hero.”
“But he’s not, is he?”
“No, he’s the villain in my story.”
A fire rages in his eyes, hot and so vivid that it burns me. “Yeah, I know something about villains.”
My heart twists in my chest for some reason. “His name is Romeo.”
“Romeo.”
“Yeah. In the song.”
“And you must be Juliet then.”
I nod. “I’m actually Juliet.” Then, “My name. Calliope Juliet Thorne.”
“Calliope Juliet Thorne,” he repeats in his rich deep voice.
Also smooth.
And it feels as if instead of plucking at the edges of my wing, he’s swirling the ends of my nerves with his long fingers. And he’s doing it somewhere in the small of my back so that my spine bows for him even more.
He appreciates my efforts too.
He runs his eyes over my stretched-out body once more.
“And you’re Reed Roman Jackson.”
“You know my name, huh?”
“It’s not a secret. Your full name. Girls chant it pretty often. Like a prayer.”
He smirks. “Do they?”
“Yes,” I answer, slightly irked. “They also call you Romeo.”
His eyes narrow. “What?”
I nod. “Because everyone knows that Roman is just another version of Romeo.”
“Yeah, bullshit.”
It’s my turn to smirk at his irritation. “It’s okay. They do it with love. But you should be careful.”
“Of what?”
“Of coming anywhere near me.” I raise my eyebrows. “I’m Juliet, remember? Our names are tragic. Shakespearean. We’re bad luck together. So maybe you shouldn’t lock me up in a closet and should stay away from me instead.”
“Or what?”
I eye his bruise then. “Or you get beaten up by my brothers.”
“I told you I can handle myself.”
“You know –”
“Besides what does Shakespeare know anyway?”
"What, Shakespeare knows everything.”
“Does he?”
“Yes.”
He cocks his head to the side as he says, “Well, how about we do something about that then?”
“Do something about what?”
“Our names.”
“What?”
Instead of giving me an explanation, Reed moves his eyes away from my face and focuses on my wings. My white fur wings that are suddenly growing too heavy and too light all at the same time.
“How about I call you by my name and you call me by yours?” he asks huskily.
“Your name.”
“Fairy,” he murmurs, his eyes coming back to my face and burning me alive yet again. “I get to call you Fairy.”
I swallow.
Fairy.
He wants to call me Fairy.
I don’t… I don’t know what to say.
So I just repeat his words. “You want to call me Fairy.”
Instead of answering me though, he roves his wolf eyes over my face once more before stepping back and taking his touch away.
“See you around, Fae.”
With that he begins to leave.
As if he didn’t just obliterate my breaths, my balance with that one word.
Fae.
A second later though, he stops and fishes something out of his pocket. Keeping his eyes on me, at my heaving, shuddering body, he puts it on the shelf by his side.
“Almost forgot about it,” he says. “It’s for you.”
It’s hard to drag my eyes away from his penetrating ones but I want to know what he brought me. It’s an envelope, purple and pretty, and looking out of place in this dark closet.
“What is it?” I ask, glancing back at him.
“An invitation.”
“To what?”
“A party.”
“You’re inviting me to a party?”
“No.” He explains, “My sister is. It’s Pest’s birthday this weekend. She wanted me to give it to you. I’m just the messenger.”
Finally he leaves, and this time he doesn’t stop or turn back.
Tempest.
His sister.
The girl I met at the game last week and who dragged me to his party.
I’ve been thinking about her, wondering if I’d get to see her again. I really liked her.
And now as her brother is unlocking the door and leaving, I’m thinking about the fact that he calls her Pest. And how he came here to do her bidding, to give me the invitation, which I’m pretty sure she must’ve bugged him about until he relented.
And God I have to go to him right now.
Snatching the envelope and clutching it in my hands, I run after him.
He’s almost at the edge of the stage and I call out, “Roman.”
He stops then.
Slowly, he turns around and looks at me.
I know that I should let him go. I know that I shouldn’t have stopped him.
I know that doing this is foolish. And maybe I am that.
Foolish.
But I don’t care.
Staring into his piercing eyes, I hug the envelope to my chest and say, “If you call me Fae, then I get to call you Roman.”
Tempest and I are awesome friends now.
Best friends even.
It didn’t take us long to become that. In fact, I think we became good friends as soon as we met at the game. But our friendship was sealed at her birthday party.
Which I made sure to attend and which wasn’t an easy thing to do.
I knew it wouldn’t be.
I knew my brothers would freak out. Already me going to that one party has created so much drama and now I wanted to go to another one.
But I was going and I wasn’t going to lie about it.
So I told them and, well, it didn’t go well.
Definitely not with Ledger, who kept grumbling about it for that whole week, pacing and stomping and cursing.
We had four family meetings about it. Four.
So family meetings are a tradition in our house.
Conrad established it long ago, so whenever there’s something that might be important– from where to go on vacation over the summer or Ledger getting a new truck to switching from whole wheat pasta to spinach pasta – we all get a say.
I think it’s his way of keeping all of us in the loop and functioning as a family.
So that whole week, leading up to the party, there were long discussions over dinner where Ledger would just curse and say no to everything. Stellan, who would join us over the phone, would try to reason with him and tell him that I’m not a child and at least I didn’t lie like the last time.
While Shep, again over the phone, would make stupid jokes all the while siding with Ledger.
Until Conrad put a stop to it all and declared that Ledger would go with me.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I don’t trust where you’re going. So if you want to go, Ledge will go with you.”
That seemed to satisfy all my brothers and so that was how I went to Tempest’s birthday party, with Ledger – and some of his friends, who he invited along without even telling me – as my bodyguards.
Which was fine.
I mean, it was an overkill but I understood where Ledger was coming from. The party was going to be full of people from the Mustang camp and he wanted some of his own friends there.
I was just glad to go and to hang out with Tempest, who was glad to see me as well.
Together, we made every effort to forget the fact that our brothers and their respective friends were glaring at each other from across the room. Or that tensions were running high.
At some point during the night, our brothers made a pact: sisters are off-limits.
Meaning they would continue to fight and be at odds with each other but none of them were allowed to bring their sisters into it. So Reed can’t use me to provoke my brother, and Ledger can’t use Tempest to provoke Reed.
As weird as this pact was, it came as a relief.
Because I do think that Tempest is into my idiot brother and I don’t want her being used in the name of their stupid rivalry.
If a pact keeps her safe, then I’m all for it.
Besides, I do want to be her friend.
And ever since her birthday party, Tempest has been coming down from New York every weekend to hang out with me at my house and she always looks for ways to talk to Ledger.
Who always looks for ways to avoid her because she’s a Jackson.
And he hates all Jacksons.
Especially the one by the name of Reed Roman Jackson.
Or just Roman.
Not that I’ve gotten a chance to call him that after the first time.
Because while Tempest is trying everything to tempt Ledger, her brother is trying everything to stick to the pact.
Yup.
Who would’ve thought that Reed would be so good at keeping promises?
At school, he goes about his normal business.
And by business, I mean he always has girls around him. He’s always surrounded by his friends who also happen to be the loudest of all, attracting all kinds of attention. At practice and at games, he provokes my brother and my brother retaliates and vice versa. They stay on opposite sides of hallways and the cafeteria like they always have.
Most of all, he ignores me like he’s always done.
He passes by me in the hallway without sparing me a glance. If we happen to find ourselves in the same place at the same time, he hardly knows that I’m there. In fact, when I go to his house to see Tempest like she comes to mine to visit me, he’s never there.
I know it shouldn’t bother me, but it does.
That’s the only reason why I’m letting Tempest do this.
She’s got it in her head that I’m perfect for her brother.
I’ve told her a million times that I’m not. Her brother isn’t even interested in girlfriends. Not to mention, my brothers – Ledger specifically – would kill him if I ever got involved with him. But she hasn’t listened so far and up until now, I’ve shot down all her ideas to get me closer to Reed.
Until today.
I mean, this isn’t a plan to get close to her brother per se. Her brother isn’t even home; I’m at Tempest’s this Saturday afternoon.
A Gorgeous Villain Page 7