That was the problem though, wasn’t it? Most people rarely did the right thing. Which was exactly how I’d ended up here in the first place.
Resignation and determination and that same deep-rooted fucking anger and sense of how unfair things could be filled my chest again. I let it center me for a second; then I moved on. The Defender didn’t need to pick up on it. Better not have something else to make him cautious. Fortunately, that intense gaze was on the tablet.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I cut up the meat with the plate on my lap. Spearing a piece, I pinched my lips together as I brought it up to his mouth, thinking about how I’d made choo-choo sounds at him under my breath the day before when I’d fed him because it made me cackle quietly. He didn’t even look at me as he opened his mouth and bit in, chewing slowly.
I gave him mashed potatoes, and it was on the bite of carrots that he finally glanced over.
I gave him a level look and shoved another piece of meat into his face, taking in the brilliant purple in his eyes. I still couldn’t get over the unreal shade of his pupils, and I didn’t have anything to complain about. Mine were a clear, light brown that came across as hazel sometimes. I got them from my grandpa’s side. His skin had been a deep reddish brown, a little darker than mine, and his almost-whiskey color had been incredible. What color were The Defender’s parents’ eyes like? I wondered. Did he even have parents? There was the chance he’d been made in a test tube after all.
“So… while you’re awake, you might as well know, The Centurion was spotted in Bangladesh two days ago.” I gave him some more mashed potatoes that he took without a glance. “A building collapsed, and he helped find the injured.”
He didn’t bother looking at me again, but I could tell he was listening from the way his cheek muscles moved as he ate.
I speared some carrots and brought them up to his mouth, earning myself a flash of a sharp canine before he ate it. “He seemed fine.” More than fine, really. The Centurion had the tightest little butt. I couldn’t help but look at it every time someone filmed it. Then again, that was probably half of humanity.
My answer was a side-look while he chewed.
“In one of the parts of footage I found, something about his face looked really… I don’t know, concerned or something. I might be imagining it. Want to see?”
That got him to turn his head.
He had such a nice jawline, and that wasn’t me thinking that because of a lack of handsome jaws I’d been in the presence of.
“Yes,” he actually answered.
“Okay. When you finish eating, I’ll show you.”
He faced forward again, this time looking thoughtful even though his expression was still that normal, pissy, tight one that told me how he would rather be anywhere but here. Same here, Sleeping Superhero Beauty. He had no idea I hadn’t been sleeping through the night from being worried about my stomachache, which had conveniently been coming and going since he’d gotten here.
Maybe it was because of him, but more than likely it was telling me that I needed to leave. Either way, they were both issues that were stressing me the fuck out. I was worried I was in danger having him here, but he hadn’t brought up leaving yet, and I didn’t want to be rude and bring it up. Staying wasn’t an option, even though I wanted it to be.
You’d figure I would have been used to it by now though. Wanting things I couldn’t have. Wanting things I had no control over.
Andddd I was depressing the shit out of myself for no reason.
I didn’t waste time worrying about things I couldn’t control anymore. At least for the most part. Most of the time.
Figuring that was all I was going to get, I fed him the rest of what was on the plate, content with being ignored while he kept watching television. But I kept thinking about all the things I wanted to ask him and couldn’t. Shouldn’t. Part of me still couldn’t wrap my head around how he was here and injured so severely. He hadn’t asked to move around since coming to the bed.
I really had to keep most of my curiosity to myself, as hard as it was.
I got up to rinse his plate, still thinking about my crabby, secretive guest, and tried to imagine life a month from now. When I was done, I made my way back to the bedroom, grabbing my laptop from my office, and took a seat on the floor beside the bed so that I wouldn’t accidentally hurt him. His attention was still on the screen, so I was surprised when he asked, “Are you… going to show me… what you found?”
I slid him a side-look as I opened my computer.
He tipped his head down and gave me a side-look right back.
“Can you read my mind?” I whispered, instantly regretting it.
Fortunately, The Defender just did what I was beginning to think was one of the things he did best—stare.
“O-kay,” I muttered. I was going to pretend I hadn’t asked. The answer was a no. I’d just wanted to be sure. If it wasn’t, he could only blame himself for being nosy.
But I really hoped he couldn’t.
CHAPTER
FIVE
I wasn’t surprised when he slept another three days after that lovely interaction.
Honestly, it was a blessing.
I’d always thought I was pretty patient, that I was about as understanding as a person could be. I’d been a little kid when I’d mastered the perfect volume to speak to an older person. I walked really slow from all the years I had spent keeping pace with my grandparents.
As far back as I could remember, there had always been things that I’d had to quickly come to terms with. Thinking back on it now, it was more along the lines that I’d had shit I had to take with a smile on my face, and I had. Mostly because I had figured out really quick that I wasn’t the only person who had to suffer due to the decisions that others had made.
I’d had to bounce from school to school, had to catch up with academics, start over, try and be friendly but not too friendly, but my grandparents had also had a cross to bear. Now I knew that it sure as hell couldn’t have been easy for them either. Trying to find jobs that also didn’t ask too many questions at their ages, finding somewhere to live that was cheap, starting over and starting over, and constantly living with the worst of the fear that we would be found.
I couldn’t imagine, but just thinking about it made me love them even more.
I would have done anything for them, and that’s why I had taken care of them as they’d gotten older. They had already been older parents when they’d had my mom. My grandma had been forty-two when she’d found out she was pregnant after a decade of trying. She had been in her late sixties when I’d been born. My grandpa had been even older. Once, when I’d been around five or six, he’d tried to tell me it was his hundredth birthday; he’d never actually admitted what his real age was, and if he had a birth certificate or passport, I’d never found it.
Together, we went through my puberty, and their diabetes, high blood pressure, and early stages of dementia. They took care of me in diapers, and I had taken care of them while they’d been the ones who needed them. I’d rubbed more swollen legs and feet than I could count. I had fed them when their hands had gotten too shaky to do it themselves.