“What do you mean what? We have to go after them right now.”
“And after we catch them?”
“I’ll pay them back for what they did to you. No—worse than that.”
I was fully prepared to do something dangerous. They deserved to pay for hurting Eden.
I should’ve already been throwing myself out of the car, but instead Eden urged me to turn off the engine. Eventually the sound of the motor died away, and he turned toward me.
He moved in without hesitation, as though devouring the distance between us. As if conquering my field of vision wasn’t enough, closer, closer still. Near enough that the blood on his lips looked magnified.
Sensing the incident about to unfold for me—the unavoidable accident I was about to suffer—I lightly wet my lower lip with my tongue.
But what descended on me wasn’t soft lips. It was the voice spilling out from between them.
“Is this what you mean by paying someone back for what they did to you?”
He brought up the moment I’d nearly touched him. A dizzying mistake had returned wearing the terrifying shell known as Eden Reed. It was as sharp as a blade and as heavy as a hammer. I barely managed to fend off the attack using my pride as a shield.
“You’re wrong. You didn’t just pay me back equally. You went beyond that. At least I warned you. Even if it was cowardly, I clearly told you to push me away. Unlike you, threatening me while I was defenseless.”
I fired the words at him in rapid succession and reclined the car seat to avoid contact with him. Whether he’d truly intended to touch me in the first place was questionable, but I clasped my hands neatly over my chest and looked up at him.
Eden stared down at me with the same expressionless face as always. A shadow cast by the bridge of his high nose slanted across the hollow between his brows and lashes, but his eyes easily defeated the darkness and shone clearly through it.
He was attractive. Beautiful.
Had there ever been a moment in his life when he wasn’t beautiful? Even when he’d first been born and cried for the first time, tears must have clung to those long lashes like transparent drops of dew.
Maybe my dazed fascination showed on my face, because Eden pointed it out.
“It’s not good to leave openings for someone trying to touch you. Please learn some caution.”
He extended a finger and poked the back of my hand. It felt like a warning that simply placing my hands over my chest wouldn’t be enough to stop him. Not wanting to lose, I scoffed.
“That’s excessive meddling. You don’t even intend to touch me.”
Threats coming from a face that looked like it had never once considered car sex as an option in its entire life weren’t particularly scary.
“Anyone can think about it.”
“You’d be the exception. I’m not falling for it, so get your hands off me.”
His fingers lightly traced over the raised bones and veins on the back of my hand. He was only trying to test me. There couldn’t possibly be any sincerity behind it.
“So this means you’re armed right now?”
“Yeah.”
I tensed my hand so I wouldn’t flinch.
“Somerset.”
“If you’ve got something to say, just say it. It’s only you and me here. There’s no need to call my name.”
“You need to get someone’s attention before objecting.”
Eden called my name again.
“Somerset.”
Then he continued.
“Isn’t calling it ‘clearly saying something’ when all you did was mouth the words more cowardly than the act itself?”
The sharp criticism hit home, and I winced internally. Even I thought it had been cowardly.
“I won’t deny it. I’m not shameless.”
“Then I suppose you won’t deny this either.”
“What now?”
“You didn’t tell me to push you away. You said I could.”
I almost clapped. If Eden’s fingers hadn’t still been touching my hand, I probably would have.
Applause to you, for turning Somerset Quinn into a man without shame.
Wiggling the foot hidden from Eden’s view, I asked,
“You understood me?”
“By coincidence.”
What an incredible coincidence that was.
In the end, I swallowed my temper and proposed a compromise.
“Let’s pretend none of it happened. The accident I almost caused with you, and the chase you don’t want to explain. We’ll each carry one.”
As a bonus, my desire for revenge against the people who hurt Eden fizzled out helplessly before it could even put up resistance.
Because I had no grounds for it.
I had no confidence I could make him understand why I wanted to repay them on his behalf. It belonged to an extremely emotional and personal territory.
Bringing up old feelings would’ve been pathetic, and my current relationship with Eden was that of a stalker and his victim, which was simply the worst. In other words, the only thing I could claim was some laughable hero complex. At best, all I had was: I can’t stand injustice.
Gathering up my deflated thoughts, I bit down on my lip. The excitement that had flared up so fiercely settled down. Once I’d calmed myself, I asked Eden to move aside.
He withdrew his hand without resistance and returned to his seat. I raised the seat back upright.
“Let’s go.”
After going through all the trouble of guiding him there, I still didn’t grab the steering wheel, so he looked at me. I met his questioning gaze.
“Isn’t it strange? The car isn’t broken, and neither am I. It just suddenly feels weird having you in my car. Up until I saw you show up with that cut on your lip, I’d decided I wasn’t going to speak to you ever again for a while. Ever since that day. Ever since we fought.”
The man I’d resolved not to associate with sat right beside me. Following his advice to be more cautious, I should’ve kicked him out of the car right then and there.
But although I thought about it, I couldn’t bring myself to act.
“I really don’t know anymore. I don’t understand you, and I don’t understand my own feelings either. Fuck.”
I roughly raked my fingers through my hair and let out a sigh. I thought maybe things would improve if I shut my mouth and focused on driving, so I reached to start the car—
Then an unusual sound came from beside me.
“Ow…”
Startled, I turned my head. Eden was frowning, his lower lip jutting out slightly, making the wound more visible.
“Are you okay? Does it hurt a lot?”
“A little.”
“It’s probably because you keep talking. Be quiet. Keeping your mouth shut is your specialty, isn’t it? Though I’m the one who keeps stopping you from doing that. I won’t make you talk anymore.”
My mind went blank, and once again the events of that day got pushed aside. If necessary, I decided I’d drag him to the ER even if he objected.
My eyes remained fixed on Eden’s lips as I examined the injury. Every time his lips moved, my eyes blinked along with them.
“Was telling you to stay quietly at home too much to ask?”
He asked.
“Go home quietly once you finish what you need to do.”
The words he’d said to me that day overlapped with the present.
It was good that he’d shown the will to solve the problem, but he’d misunderstood the issue entirely. The part that had tormented me endlessly was: I said what you wanted to hear, so you should do one thing for me too.
“It was too much to ask. A stalker trying to interfere in my life? Ridiculous. But I’ll let it slide this time. What irritated me was that you didn’t consider how I’d feel. I can’t believe what you said to me while bringing up Liam was all made up. And the fact that you revealed that so casually really disappointed me.”
After honestly laying it all out, my mouth still felt bitter, but my heart grew a little lighter. The rare look of flustered surprise on Eden’s face improved my mood too.
Scratching at his brow, he muttered,
“That’s unexpected.”
Apparently he’d completely misunderstood the direction of my thoughts. Kindly, I guided him onto the correct path.
“I was excited when you said you were uncomfortable. Excited enough that it thrilled me. But then you said that wasn’t it, so I got angry. I’m emotional, sure, but you won’t deny you deliberately confused me.”
“Did I say it wasn’t?”
“You said you told me what I wanted to hear. That means you made it up to suit my mood.”
The nice words had been nothing more than groundwork for some meaningless advice.
Damn it.
I’d fallen for it completely and gotten played like a fiddle.
“Somerset.”
“There’s no need to say my name. I’m already paying attention to you.”
I was looking only at Eden.
The car was still parked crookedly somewhere on a Manhattan street. The sun still hadn’t set. No one was chasing us.
Eden was the only thing provoking me.
As his composure wavered, I felt my own inner turmoil stir with it. I couldn’t deny that my heart was pounding.
Eden lowered his glasses slightly and rubbed the bridge of his nose where the nose pads had left marks. He had an exceptional talent for pausing before speaking.
Leisurely adjusting his glasses again, he looked at me steadily through the lenses and said,
“I did think it was the reaction you wanted. But I didn’t make anything up. I just chose one of my actual thoughts.”
A concise but unmistakably clear rebuttal.
Not only did it dispel the misunderstanding, it carried enormous impact. The inner turbulence that had been stirring in my chest spread straight into my brain. After being thoroughly ignored for days to the point dust had gathered on it, the positive switch lit up brightly once more.
Knowing one fragment of his thoughts didn’t mean I truly understood him, nor was there any chance he’d show me more.
And yet, I fell under the illusion that I had become the person in the world who understood him most perfectly.
I knew it was an illusion, but I still got drunk on it.
“So you really were uncomfortable?”
“Yeah.”
“Because Liam and I looked close? Because you thought we’d slept together?”
At the specific question, a faint crease formed between Eden’s brows.
“Yeah.”
He was confusing me again.
That was incredibly irritating, but…
I didn’t feel bad.
No, if anything, I felt good.
I didn’t even feel ashamed that I’d been making such a huge fuss by myself. These things happen in life. It wasn’t a big deal.
Reducing all my previous suffering to something trivial and instinctive, I grinned to myself.
“So separating Jimmy Myers from me was for a similar reason too, huh?”
If this had been a photoshoot set with cameras and staff surrounding me, applause would’ve broken out. I was fully aware of the brilliant smile I’d just made, and because of that, I leaned even closer toward the passenger seat.
I was disappointed by Eden’s calm reaction, but something as minor as that couldn’t dampen my excitement.
Barely forcing the corners of my lips back down—or perhaps failing to—I said,
“Liam and I are just ordinary friends. We have slept together, but there’s nothing beyond friendship there.”
Not since you appeared, though.
“I’m only explaining because you asked. It’d be pitiful to leave you alone after you probably spent nights unable to sleep, writhing in discomfort.”
Surely I wasn’t the only one who’d stayed awake all night.
“Did you ever bury your face in a pillow and cry your eyes out?”
At my teasing joke, Eden whipped his head away. He looked displeased, but his mouth stubbornly stayed shut and unmoving. Like he’d locked it tight.
“So you did. I knew it.”
Answering on his behalf, I started the car.
“If I offered to drive you home, you’d refuse and say it’s fine, wouldn’t you? You obviously won’t tell me your address, and you don’t intend to tell me what neighborhood you live in either. So we’re going to my apartment.”
I drove quickly toward my apartment in Chelsea.
I got out first and hurried around to the passenger side, but all my effort was wasted because Eden had already opened the door and gotten out on his own.
Standing in front of him, I greeted him with a hint of self-satisfaction.
“Get some proper rest today and focus on healing that wound. I’ll stay quietly at home.”
Naturally expecting no response, I turned away—
Then Eden’s voice struck my back together with the faint light of sunset.
“Sleep well.”
I turned my head, flashed him a broad grin, and walked away with light steps.
