COMPLEMENTARY [GxG]

Chapter 23 | Claimed by the Straight Girl

Eris Lugo is kissing me. Kissing me because she doesn't know if she'll live to see the dawn break tomorrow, kissing me as a last resort, kissing me as the result of some newfound lunacy she didn't hold back.

My first instinct is to shove her away. The long walk home should give me ample time to decompress from the shock.

Cold engulfs me again—except for my lips still warm from the two seconds they touched hers, the stir of rabid butterflies in my gut nowhere near calming. All I can say is, breathless and not as aggressive as I'd hoped: "What the fuck was that?"

She reaches up to pull at her hair, and I've never seen such sheer terror cloud her features, realizing she'll never live this down. "Sorry, I'm going crazy, I don't know what I'm doing I just—"

"Don't make excuses," I command. "Tell me clearly. Why did you think that was okay?"

What she thought she would get out of that is beyond me. It's all risk and no reward—unless she was messing with me, wanting to be the one to make the "straight" girl question everything.

Her hand drops from her hair. "Well... you're not walking away anymore, are you?"

The words should be immensely infuriating, said with an arrogant smirk, but all her razor edges are softened, her arms wrapped around herself as if protecting her from the embarrassment, her head lowered, more afraid of my rejection than getting murdered by wannabe Chapos. Why such a simple, human expression unravels me in my entirety, I have no idea. If anything, the scene should be comical with her holding her gun while wearing those ridiculous panda slippers.

There's not a single soul in sight—even the squirrels hold their breaths.

"Drop the gun," I order.

She looks up, simmering with suspicion, but she slowly kneels and places the gun on the ground. With the hand not holding my wretched failure of a painting, I pick it up. Whether it's made of gold or only coated in it, it's the most expensive thing I've ever held. I run my thumb down the diamonds on the handle, wondering how many lives it's taken—or if it's always been just for show.

I want to point it at her. I want the barrel digging into her neck. I want to be the one to wield the power; I want to be the one to make her submit. But this isn't a mafia movie, and I'm not a psychopath, so I set it back down.

"Come here," I say.

She's gone dead still. "What?"

I know for a fact she heard me. Hesitantly, she takes a step closer. Looks up at me with those big doe eyes but her mouth set in a tense line, like she's fighting her hardest for control, forcing her guard up even as fear shows through the rapidly-spreading cracks.

Compared to the types of men she's killed, I should be nothing but a mouse to her.

"Ef, listen, I'm sorry," she blurts out. "Let's just forget this happened; I don't know what I was—"

"Come here, Eris."

She shuts up. Her irises search mine for the name of the game I'm playing, but not even I have the slightest idea what I'm doing. My mind is shouting profanities at me in French, urging me to walk away. She takes another slow, rigid step. I think of her arms around me, her body unfathomably close, but I ruined the moment, and she doesn't hate herself enough to try again.

"Why, so you can tell me you hate me?" she asks. "Tell me I'm the lowest of the low, that I'm everything that's wrong with the world, that I'm nothing?"

She makes another effort to keep up her guard, bracing for more venom, fully expecting me to break her down again, like she needs the rejection to be unquestionable so she doesn't get any more ideas. Any other time, I would be mocking her endlessly for trying to kiss me.