Page 13 of Undone

I remember the first of his paintings I got tattooed. I was fifteen, and a forged signature from a father who didn’t exist had gotten me in with a decent tattoo artist just out of town. I’d worked my ass off to save up for it, because I couldn’t have it done by just anyone. It had to be perfect.

It was for her, as was everything I did then. But it was a slight fuck you to her father as well.

In the end, it was worth it. I spent the entire night lying on soft, purple sheets while Lily stared at Starry Night like she was sitting in front of the real thing at a museum. It was the first time she’d smiled since her father told her she couldn’t go on the class trip to New York.

Her attention was addictive. So was inking my skin.

Blue eyes inspecting me like a canvas. Hesitant fingers swirling over lines like she’s in some kind of trance. Her breath, warm and soft against my skin.

“Tor?”

I shake my head. It’s a hard task to pull myself from the memory. To remind myself that this is real.

You met Lily in a garden—

“Toren?” Her voice overlaps with the sound in my head, the same words only younger and bright with laughter. I clench my fists and shuffle back a step, shaking my head again. Refocusing on her, here. Standing in my fucking territory.

What the fuck is going on?

My mouth opens to ask again why in the hell is she at Waterfell—let alone inside the hockey arena. But then—

“I can’t believe you’re here.” She smiles, all teeth, dazzling and wide. The breath slams out of me like I’ve been punched in the stomach. “Did you— Did you find me here?”

The question is just so Lily that my heart squeezes in my chest, a dull aching pain throbbing at her being so close again. It’s a torture I know well.

Instead of answering her, I pull my Dri-FIT shirt back on and cross my arms. “You first. What are you doing here?”

Chapter 5

Lily

The first time I held Toren Kane’s hand, I thought I’d died. I was seven and it felt like my heart was exploding.

It’s no less intense now, tucked into a storage closet with his body so close. My eyes scan over him obsessively. Thick black hair, shorn short and tousled on the top. Golden eyes that shimmer in the low light. A frown marring his face more than the three scars he wears—one on his neck, one down his cheek, and the small one touching his pillowy thick lips. He’s massive, like he’s grown even more than the giant he was at eighteen, but he’s still Tor.

He’s the same. But different.

I don’t see any rings in his ears like he once wore, but I can just make out the hole in his right ear that hasn’t healed. I wonder if my fingers grazed the skin, would I feel the scars of all the others?

His lip ring is gone, the skin sealed over and scarred just slightly, but his face has several small sharp scars, so I doubt anyone else notices. No silver rings adorn his fingers, his hair cut so much shorter but just as beautiful, thick and dark as midnight.

I’ve always been struck by him. As an angry seven-year-old with a hoodie pulled up over his matted hair and a black eye marring his face. As a gangly, too-tall, awkward preteen climbing through my bedroom window with lopsided ear piercings—half he’d done himself, the others he’d let me do. As the intoxicating emo boy of our private school, hair pulled back in a messy bun, eyes gleaming with mischief and almost always focused on me.

And now. Intense. Domineering. Beautiful.

So different and yet exactly the same—he’s so beautiful, perfect, and he’s here.

He came back for me.

“Lily,” he breathes. My brow wrinkles a little, eyes darting up to meet his for a second before refocusing on his lips. For a moment I’m younger, awkward in my body—though that hasn’t changed—and Toren’s so tall and strong, stretched across my floral sheets, shirtless and letting me trace my fingers across the images he’s had inked there.

My hand reaches out again, like I might touch the one I know lies over his heart.

“That one’s for you,” he says, eyes shimmering.

“Because I protect it,” I say back, face serious as I touch it again, too softly. He shivers and pulls my hand to press harder, nodding. “Your heart.”

“Yeah, Lil. You protect it.”