This Is War, Baby - K Webster Page 0,61
from her alluring presence, I make my way over to the bed and pull open the flaps of the box. Then, I carry it over to her and set it at her feet. Panic washes over me. I hope she likes what I got her.
“Open them.”
Her eyes find mine first and they twinkle with excitement. It’s in this moment I decide I want to buy her gifts all of the time. Every single day.
When her eyes fall to the box, she frowns but reaches inside. She retrieves a pink pair of flip-flops and when her eyes meet mine there are tears in them. “You bought me shoes. Lots of them.”
Uncomfortable with her lack of enthusiasm, I shift from one foot to the other. “I thought that maybe…I assumed that after, you know…that you—”
“I love them.”
We hold each other’s gaze for eighty-six seconds and then she breaks away to try them on. Every single pair. The enthusiasm I assumed wasn’t there is in full force as she babbles on with glee. I’ve never been so captivated by her. So utterly engrossed in everything that is her.
The lingering scent of her body wash.
The animated way she waves her hands in the air when she talks.
The cute way she walks down her imaginary runway and pivots just as a model would.
“Why did you buy me shoes? I mean,” she says softly as she approaches, “I can’t go anywhere anyway.”
I cross my arms over my chest and glance out the window. The window which points to the road she once ran from me on. Suppressing a shudder, I turn my attention back to her.
“The code is still 1200. I never changed it.”
She gapes at me, her pouty lips parting and then closing again as if she’s trying desperately to formulate words. “B-B-But you were so mad. I betrayed your trust.”
I shrug my shoulders. “And I bought you. Let’s call it even.”
Biting down on her bottom lip, she contemplates my words. The woman can think all day if that means I can stare at her unabashedly. I love watching the way her eyes sparkle with excitement or the way her cheeks turn pink when she is embarrassed. Simply put, she’s beautiful.
“Listen,” I say, my voice gruff, “I was serious when I said you weren’t my prisoner. I want to keep you safe from that asshole and to enjoy your company. Even though we had an agreement that you’d stay as long as I sent money for your mother, that doesn’t mean under duress. If you want to leave, you can go. I’d fucking hate it but would understand.”
She shakes her head adamantly. “No, the money is important to Mom. It could get her the lifesaving surgery she needs. My dad may be acting strangely and Gabe may have a hand in that, but I won’t jeopardize what you’re doing for her in order to get back home to them. Quite frankly, I’m struggling to understand how they haven’t ever reported me as missing. I don’t think running home will give me that answer. In fact, I worry it could be detrimental to me in the end,” she says softly and smiles. “Besides, I kind of like it here. Now that I have shoes of course.”
My heart soars when I realize she really isn’t going to leave me. At the moment anyway. She’s staying by choice which means, even with all of my bizarre afflictions, she isn’t completely disgusted by me.
“In that case,” I tell her with a smirk, “I better buy you more shoes.”
“Aren’t you going to move your queen?”
She stares down at the board and chews on her lip. The wheels are turning as many different moves flip through her mind. “I don’t want to,” she says finally and lifts her gaze to mine. Her cheeks tinge pink and she gives me the look—the embarrassed one. I’m beginning to recognize each and every expression on her pretty face. The defiant ones when she’s not in the mood for tofu but instead insists on anything with peanut butter in it. The happy ones when she’s recalling stories about her past or tales of how she’s unbeaten at her school in the high jump. Even the fearful ones when she’s deep in thought, haunted by Gabe and all he did to her. My favorite expression, though, is her embarrassed one. Her full bottom lip gets toyed with by her top front teeth. Those gorgeous blue eyes become hooded, almost as if she’s trying to hide the