Chasing Secrets - Jessica Sorensen Page 0,7
hand, causing a small, amused smile to grace his lips.
He continues lacing up the ribbon, his face set in concentration as he dips his head closer to my chest—or, well, the ribbon. I watch him, the way his bronzed fingers move, the way he bites on his bottom lip every time he tightens the ribbon. I wasn’t lying when I said he’s beautiful. He really is. Inside and out. And I’m so glad he’s my friend.
“You’re staring again,” Arrow quietly remarks, his gaze flitting to mine as he tugs on the ribbon.
“Sorry,” I say, not a drop of remorse evident in my tone.
A trace of a smile graces his lips again as he tugs on the last of the ribbon then secures it. “There,” he says, standing up straight. “It’s not too tight, is it?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s actually perfect.”
Smiling, he moves back and faces the shelves of shoes. “You should probably wear boots because of the snow.”
My eyes widen. “Snow?”
His gaze skates to me. “Have you ever seen snow before? I thought they got that on your old world.”
“No. The world I lived on—or well, that I can remember living on—only got ice storms. Never snow. Although, since I’m like super old and can’t remember most of my past, maybe I have seen it before.” I crinkle my nose at that thought.
Just how much stuff can I not remember? How much stuff have I experienced that I don’t remember? What if I’ve done all the stuff that I’ve done with these guys with others and just don’t remember it? Then again, everything feels new …
“What’re you thinking about?” he wonders, studying my expression.
Um … yeah, I’m not about to tell him the entire context of my thoughts, but I can at least tell the partial truth.
“I was just thinking about how I’m not even sure what I’ve experienced since I can’t remember much about my life,” I say with a shrug.
He wavers. “I don’t want to scare you, but I also don’t want to lie to you, either.”
“Then please don’t,” I tell him. “Whatever the truth is, I need to hear it.”
He sets the boots down that he’s holding then cups my cheek in his hand, smoothing his finger along my cheekbone. “Max believes that, until you were put on the human world, more than likely, you were just being stored somewhere.”
Huh? “Stored?”
“It was probably more like … imprisoned, but I didn’t want to use that word.” He offers me an apologetic look.
“Oh.” I frown. “So maybe I didn’t ever experience anything but imprisonment up until I was put on the human world?”
“Possibly.” Sympathy, or maybe it’s empathy, consumes his expression. “We’re going to find out where you come from,” he promises. “And then, whatever that is, we’ll be there for you. Please, please, don’t forget that, okay?”
He’s worried. Worried that whatever we find out about me is going to break me. And considering I cut my arm open after I found out what I am, I guess his worry is right on the mark. Although, he doesn’t know about me cutting myself. Well, unless East told him. He told me he wouldn’t, though. But with the way Arrow is looking at me right now, I have to wonder …
“Did East tell you about what happened in the bathroom?” I ask, the spot on my arm where I cut myself throbbing. Not that the mark is still there. No, it healed hours after I split the skin open. Apparently, my kind, while they can get hurt, also heal quickly.
His brows furrow. “No. What happened?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” I move to pick up the boots he set down, but he holds me in place, angling my head back up to look at him.
“You can talk to me,” he says. “I promise, whatever it is—whatever happened—I’ll understand.” He rubs his lips together. “I want to know everything about you.”
I try to imagine telling him everything about me. Then again, he already knows a lot. A lot, a lot.
“Well, I want to know everything about you, too,” I tell him.
He rubs his jawline. “Okay. How about this? You tell me one thing about you, and then I’ll tell you one thing about me. And we’ll keep doing this until we’ve learned all about each other. We can’t do it all right now, but we can start.”
While I’m not a huge fan of telling him everything about me, I want to learn more about him, so I nod. “Okay. Do you want