BOUNDED | Brothers Online Series | BK #2

Chapter 17: A Hand-On-Cheek Moment

            

Brenda (Zara) Lockwood

So that's why.

I get it now. I understand why Thom is like he is. It all makes sense.

Seventh grade, huh?

I looked with sorrow to the man in front of me. While he talked, I watched his eyes. The story was sad, but those black orbs still looked at me unflinchingly. When Thom talked, when he really talked, he truly looked at you.

He spilled his entire backstory to me.

"I don't know what to say," I whispered softly once he finished. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. It's over. It's behind me."

"But it's not. It isn't over. You messed up and called me Lill. You're still hurting."

"I'm not," he insisted. "I'm fine. I'm–"

"Liar," I interrupted him. I gave my gentlest smile, daring to reach out with my hand. It was a spur of the moment type of thing and I saw my hand go unbarred to his face. I don't know what brought it on but I was too far in to pull back. Thom sat stock still, and I placed my right palm on his left cheek. "You're such a liar."

He sucked in air and my chest beat like drum. It thud-thudded so loudly that I swore he could hear. "How do you know?" he asked. We both spoke nearly inaudibly.

"You're hands were sweating."

'Don't you remember?' I giggled in my head. 'The whole time you talked, I held your wrist. It was so icky.'

"Oh... right."

I saw the habitual eye roll that was now his trademark. Thom looked away, but to my joy, he didn't pull away. He let me keep my hand on his face, in the most intimate of ways.

"I could tell this time that you were lying," I pressed on. There was my chance to ask him the truth, especially when we were so close to one another. "But I want to ask if you meant what you said back on the street. If you meant that I was just a cook."

"Just a cook?" he parroted back, "Aren't you a warrior too?"

My feelings soared like a bird and I shyly looked somewhere other than his eyes. I landed on his lips, pausing to just stare. "But you sai–"

"–I said," he interjected, "That apparently you can cook. And you can. That wasn't a lie. You can cook and you make a damn good meal too."

Delicious praise bubbled in my chest. I giggled out loud this time, brushing my hair behind my ear. "What about when you said it was a joke?"

"That you weren't being hurt? Zara, now you're the one who's lying. You know that I was hurting you to some extent when I dragged you." He said it like it was so obvious. It would've been too if I wasn't so confused back then. Now I felt like I understood everything he had to say.

"Heh, I remember now." How stupid of me. Blech.

"Anything else?" he prompted me. I shook my head before I remembered.

"Did you mean it when you said I should protect myself?"

Thom rolled my eyes and smirked. I felt his jawbone poke into my hand. It was weird that I would be so giddy from that small act.

'Maybe Thom isn't so bad after all...'

The cynical part of my mind slapped the hopeful side with yet another pillow. Just you wait until he does something that will make you eat your words. There was a tussle and the hopeful part pinned down the cynicism.