Cue the tears. More fucking tears. How is it that I was with Keenan for several years and felt only a fraction of this hurt? Pike didn’t even betray me like Keenan did, yet I feel so torn apart. How will I get over him?
Just seeing him downstairs, looking like a total wreck, I know that this is going to be much more painful than I expected. I’m not sure if I’m strong enough.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shout as I catch Pike in the kitchen, attempting to make himself some soup. “What did I tell you?”
I walk up to him and grab the bowl from his hand.
He grips the counter impatiently and says, “Cora, give me the fucking bowl.”
“Oh, so you can just drop it on your way back to the couch, causing another mess for me to clean up? I’ll pass. What are you even doing?”
“Making soup.”
“Soup?” I laugh out loud. “You think you’re going to make soup, take it over to the table, and eat it?”
“I was going to eat it here, in the kitchen.” He reaches for the bowl, but I keep it out of his grasp.
“And how do you think you’re going to open the can, genius? It requires two hands, you know? You’re short one.”
“I have my ways.”
“Oh, really?” I reach into the cabinet and pull out a can of soup. I hand it to him and say, “Please, show me.”
He eyes the can and then looks back up at me. “As much as I would love to entertain you, I think I’ll let you take this one.”
“That’s what I thought.” I move in beside him, but he doesn’t move. Instead, he keeps his body close to mine as I grab his can of soup. The warmth of his chest is hot on my back.
“Do you want some soup?” he asks, his voice close to my ear, igniting a lingering flame that I thought was completely extinguished.
My body temperature rises and goosebumps spread over my right arm, betraying my heart.
When I don’t answer, he reaches over me with his good hand and opens the cabinet. “Before Killian left, he got me quite a few cans.”
The beat of my heart nearly drowns out my ability to hear.
“I, uh, I’m not hungry,” I say awkwardly, hating that even though I want nothing to do with him, being this close, with his strong chest pressed against my back, can have such a visceral effect.
“It’s dinnertime. You have to be hungry. You’ve barely eaten anything.”
I glance at him over my shoulder. “I don’t need you keeping track of my eating habits. Thank you very much.”
I snap my head back to the can and open it quickly, fumbling to pull the tab up, which only skyrockets my core temperature even more. I dump the soup into the bowl, plop it in the microwave, and then turn it on for two minutes.
“Go sit down. I’ll bring it over when it’s done.”
He doesn’t move, though. Instead, he says, “You need to eat too, Coraline.”
“Don’t.” I whip around and hold my finger up to him. “Don’t call me that. You don’t have the right to.”
“Don’t like that, huh?” he asks, looking like the devil just bit him in the ass given the satanic smirk on his lips. “Maybe I should treat you the same way you treated me when I first moved in. Try to drive you away. What do you think . . . Coraline?”
“I would love to see you try. I invented that game; you can’t beat me at it.”
“You don’t think so?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Coraline.” A bell jingles. “Coraline, where’s that drink? I’m dying of thirst.”
I am going to MURDER him.
His goal is wanting to drive me away? Well, he’s winning. He’s winning so hard.
The last two days have been absolute hell.
The minute I sit down, he needs something else. The moment I take a breath, his bell jingles—a bell that’s on his phone. And when I don’t answer him, he texts me relentlessly until I appear at his side, only to be greeted by a smarmy smile and the need for one tissue.
I might have thrown the box at him and stormed off.
I would say I’m pretty decent when it comes to being patient, but I’m about to break.
“Coraline, my drink.” Jingle.
Jingle . . .
JINGLE!
That . . . IS . . . IT!
The inner dragon beast, which has been simmering in my belly for the last two days, bursts out in a frenzy, turning my fingers into talons, my teeth into snarly, sharp veneers, and my eyes a dangerous shade of yellow with blistering red veins.