Page 35 of Dance for Me
“No, I need to take a minute, think before I decide what to do. Thank you though. I won’t need you for a while, and I won’t be leaving this office until it’s time for me to leave for Sadie’s house tonight.”
“Very well, ma’am,” he replies, turning on his heel to glide towards door. For a man of his size, it feels wrong for him to be able to move with languid and sleek grace.
“Wade?” He turns back to me, palm on the door handle, ready to wait on the other side as a silent sentinel.
“Yes ma’am?”
“Enough with the formality bullshit. When you call me ma’am, I feel ninety. Also, I want you to give me your opinion freely. Is that clear?”
“Yes, it is, ma…Harper.” He looks a little pained at using my first name. One of those things that probably feels illegal, but isn’t. Like taking a free sample and then not buying anything, or taking a sick day from work when you’re actually sick.
Wade starts to shift back to the door and pauses, glancing back at me. “You have a plan, don’t you?” he questions.
“Yes. Well, maybe. Ugh, yes but I’m going to be honest, it’s a terrible plan,” I give him a small self-deprecating smile.
“Can’t wait to hear it. Harper.” He gives a curt nod before he opens the door and slinks out of the room.
I lean back, closing my eyes and tipping my head back. A moment of silence, then I’ll be good as new. Just one moment, where my worries and panic aren’t crawling over my skin to wrap around my neck. A necklace I’ve worn since Wade and Sadie showed me the box ofgoodies.
I didn’t hear him come in, but I feel him before I even open my eyes, a hand on my waist and one coming up to curl against the back of my neck. A simple touch, and just like that the necklace loosens and I breathe deeply, letting his scent wrap me tightly like the best weighted blanket. I exhale and relax into his touch, his chin coming to rest on the top of my head.
“What’s wrong Harper?” Colton takes a step closer, bringing our bodies flush as he squeezes the hand at my waist gently before releasing. It’s getting harder and harder to hide my worry throughout the day, and what’s worse is that after two weeks of trying to keep Colton as far away from me as possible, it only took one sentence to make me want to completely abandon the pretense that his touch doesn’t soothe my panicked soul. He hasn’t pushed for answers, has just been there, hand on my leg or the small of my back. A reassurance that he is withme, that he has my back, even when he doesn’t know I’m his biggest threat.
Until now.
I gave an inch, and he’s trying to take a mile. I’m not ready to see the look of affection be replaced with repulsion. He says he wants to know, but ignorance is bliss after all. Would he still be wrapped around me if he knew what was dropped at the gates? Would he still want me if he knew what I was dragging him into? The world I belong to? I know my reputation and how I earned it, but even I have lines I won’t cross. Pushing drugs is one of those lines.
Would he believe me if I told him this wasn’t by my own design? That I wasn’t responsible for what brought them here. I hope he would, I hope he would choose to believe me.
Hope. A weapon wielded against the most caring hearts to bring the most devastation. The worst part about having hope though, is that we do it to ourselves. Masochism at its finest.
I let go of silly emotions like trust, hope and love ages ago. Hope made me weak; trust made me vulnerable, and love made me blind.
I remade myself from victim to villain, but I have never been a damsel. This is my mess, and I will clean it up.
I might want him, but I don’tneedhim.
“Nothing is wrong, just working through the schedule for the week with Wade since I have some offsite meetings,” I tell him, pulling my head away from his chest and standing, forcing Colton back a step to allow me to straighten. Even a step back, his hand remains tight on my waist.
The mask is getting heavier to wear, my armor suffocating me from the inside out. But buried alive is still preferable to a broken heart.
“Something is wrong. You’ve been hiding out here for over a week. Ever since you, Wade, and Sadie walked out of here looking like you saw a dead body.” Colton leans his shouldersback from me, twisting slightly and using his free hand to gesture around the office space. “I don’t see any bloodstains, so I doubt there were body parts in that crate.”
Bloodstains in my office?I would never be that sloppy.
He looks around the space and then back at me, as if the idea that I might cut into someone’s flesh in this neat, luxurious office would be absurd. After all, what sane person would do something so horrific?
He has no idea what I’ve done to get what I want and punish others with what they deserve; what I would be willing to do to protect what I built, what I fought for, what’smine.
That idea of hope? I’ll leave that for the dreamers like Sadie, who sees the beauty in everyone and everything, creating smiles in her wake, not terror. For Stella, who sings like her heart has felt love’s embrace and believes she will feel that touch again. Hope belongs to people like Colton, who can look at a lost soul like mine and think the sun still shines through their eyes.
“It’s not for you to know,” I tell him. Lifting my chin to hold his stare.
His hand drops from my waist, taking a step back, giving me the space I’m desperately trying to pretend I want between us. He chuckles softly, hand rubbing the back of his neck as he turns away from me, towards the exit.
Before he reaches the door, he swiftly pivots again and storms back in my direction, pausing halfway to me.
Fight over flight apparently.
