not to.
He told me to never let another man put his hands on me and I broke his rule, and now he looks like he’s going to kill that man.
Oh God.
I’m an idiot. He’s an idiot too because nothing was happening anyway and I have to go stop him before he does something crazy.
I break apart from Will, who looks at me with astonishment. But I don’t have the time to explain. I have to stop the bulldozer of a guy who’s very quickly coming upon us and who’s sitting out the season because he did something similar. And if his words from the night he took my virginity hold any truth to them, no one will be able to pull him off Will until Arrow actually murders him.
So I rush over to intercept him and we meet a few feet away from the bar counter.
I put both my hands on his stomach, palms wide open, and I swear it’s like stopping a giant boulder.
“Arrow, stop. No,” I tell him, hoping and praying he listens to me before anyone else gets wind of the fact that The Blond Arrow is among them and he’s very angry.
His jaw tics at my voice but he hasn’t looked away from Will.
I fist the gray-colored dress shirt he’s wearing. “Arrow. Please. He’s just a friend.”
At this, finally, he looks at me.
It feels like he does it in slow motion. His eyes shifting away from Will, his spiky eyelashes flicking down and his gaze, so dark and intense, coming to rest on me.
“Friend.”
He says that word in a low growl and I flinch.
Oh shit.
That’s the worst thing that I could’ve said.
I shake my head and dig my knuckles into his body. “I didn’t mean it that way. You know I didn’t. Arrow, he was just –”
My words get cut off when he steps away from me.
It happens so suddenly that I can’t quite believe it. Wasn’t I holding him tightly? Weren’t my fingers fisting his shirt?
How did he break that hold so easily?
Like it meant nothing, me holding onto him.
Like I meant nothing.
And then he takes one last look at me before spinning around and leaving.
He’s leaving.
He’s just… walking away. He just came back from LA and somehow appeared at the bar and now he’s leaving.
Because I was stupidly dancing with a guy who meant nothing.
Oh God.
I rush after him when I see him stepping out the front door. I come into the night and frantically, look around.
He’s walking around the bar, probably headed to the alley that connects to the parking lot in the back.
“Arrow. Stop,” I call out.
But he doesn’t.
I didn’t expect him to, honestly. So I pump my legs harder. He’s taught me a lot about running in the past couple of weeks and I use that to my advantage now and reach him just as he gets past the row of big black dumpsters.
I go around him and put my hands on his stomach again.
“Arrow, please. I didn’t… I didn’t do anything,” I tell him, getting close to him, fisting his shirt once more even though I know it won’t make a difference.
But that’s all the more reason to do something because he’s just so harsh and sharp right now.
“You let him put his hands on you,” he says, roughly, tightly.
The light in the alley is questionable.
There’s a little bulb somewhere a few feet away from him, though his shoulders that seem to have grown overnight are hiding it.
And the moon is reddish as always in his presence but it’s so far away tonight that it leaves Arrow in shadows and mystery.
Which I totally hate.
“Arrow, listen, okay? Listen.” I pull at his shirt, looking up at him. “I was just sitting there at the bar and this song came on. And Will, the guy you saw me dancing with, he told me he was a Lana Del Rey fan and he just pulled me up for a dance, okay? You know how much I love her and –”
He leans over me then, sort of coming out of the shadows where I can see him clearly.
I can see the tight peaks of his cheekbones. They jut out of his face, of his angular, stunning face, like pieces of cut glass.
“Did you like his hands on you?” he asks, his eyes alive and bright with darkness.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Did you like it when he spun you around and pulled you against his body?”
“No, Arrow. I didn’t.”
“No? So why the fuck were you laughing?”
“Because I