he was furious, this look on his face, but I’ve come to realize it’s his resting face. His thoughtful face. It’s a dragon glower, all thick brows and a natural scowl and quills standing up on his forehead like gel-stiffened hair. “I care about you, and it terrifies me. You have a power over me that I’ve given out only once, and it nearly ended me. I’m no seeksorrow to enjoy such a pain twice, so understand me when I say I wouldn’t have chosen to give it to you at all. Not to you, not to anyone. Never again, I told myself. Somehow, you took it. And knowing you could destroy me makes me wary of you. Of what you’re capable of. And nearly all of the time, I’m certain you don’t know the destruction you could wreak. There—have I bared my soul in an Isla-like manner?”
“Yeah,” I croak out, gaze glued to his. “You have.”
Like he can’t keep his fragile nerve endings exposed for me any longer, he shifts his gaze away, and his body follows, unable to stay still under my attention.
But he doesn’t walk away.
I wish I knew what to say to him. I decide to tell him exactly what I’m thinking. A stream-of-consciousness confession that I hope comes across as heartfelt as I’m feeling it. “I’m going to level with you.” I wait for him to turn his head enough that I catch both his eyes and I can feel confident that I have his full attention. “I’m not here to hit it and quit it. I swear I’m in it for the long haul. Do you believe me?”
Bash stares at me almost uncomprehendingly.
He confirms it’s entirely uncomprehendingly when he orders, “Repeat that. Please.”
I’m sort of more surprised that he added please than I am that he wants me to say it again so I’m slow in my clarification. “It means I more than like you too and I’m not going to jump you then change my mind.”
With each and every word out of my mouth, his eyes have gone narrower and narrower. “This translator,” he starts, “desperately needs calibration.”
“It does?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he stresses, “what any of those words meant. Not with the way you’ve strung them together.”
I wave the phrase-confusion away. “You can count on me to be your other half. I try to be a good person. I would try hard to be good to you, and I believe you’ll be the same for me.” I stare up into his turmoil-dark eyes. “Right?”
“You want a relationship?” he grates.
I try not to widen my eyes. “Yeah.”
“You want to be my other half?”
I give him a small, reassuring smile. “That’s what I said.”
“Isla,” he bites out. “I need you to be certain.”
I feel my expression soften as I search his stern features. “I wouldn’t be here telling you this if I wasn’t. I’m not going to jerk you around.”
He frowns during the second half of my declaration, and I can guess why.
“Bash, I’m not going to… I’m not here to tease you or lead you to believe something that isn’t true.” I breach the distance between us to take his hand—and I swallow a sigh of relief when he lets me. “I would never do that to you.”
“Why?” he asks, his voice rough—but not mean. “You could have your pick of males. Why me?”
He’s so unaware of his worth to me that it makes my heart break a little for him. “Because you’re prickly to cover up your soft spots. Because you wait in line to get me a drink you find absolutely disgusting just because you know I like it. Because you made me spit-ointment when you knew I’d be hurting. Because I’ve been used and tossed aside too, and I’m tired of being taken advantage of. I don’t like to share either, and I want to be with someone who… someone who could—”
I almost don’t say the word. It’s a dangerous word, where I’m from.
But this is Bash. And he appreciates my openness.
“Love me,” I finish, forcing the word out, hearing it crack. “And because you see me for me, and you’ve never made me feel like ‘that one-armed girl.’” I smile at him, blinking away shininess that spreads to my lashes. “Also because I’ve never had anyone who likes to hear me talk like you do.”
“You tell terrible stories of a terrible place.”
“I genuinely get a kick out of how horrified Earth-trivia makes you.”